The world above the roof of the Forbidden City Palace

    Into the palace of the palace, when you look up, you can find many thick beams and pillars, supporting the roof. It makes you wonder, is the roof really that heavy, and does it need such thick beams to support it?

    The answer is that the roof of the palace is indeed very heavy, and one of the most important reasons is the glazed tiles laid on the roof.

    Coloured glaze was originally a by-product of ancient bronze smelting. When the temperature reached more than 1,000 degrees, coloured glaze appeared in the slag. Later, the ancients used horsestone (calcite), and then add copper, iron, mercury and other different metal oxides after firing, get glass. With the addition of different metal oxides, the glass appears red, yellow, blue and other colors, colorful, very beautiful.

    After the Northern Wei Dynasty, the ancient people put the calcined glass into the shape of tiles, and then add a layer of glaze firing, to get glazed tiles.

    Glazed tile surface is smooth, favorable for drainage, and the color is brilliant, magnificent, so it was widely used on the roof of the palace. The disadvantage is that the weight is too large, laid on the roof of glazed tile hours, in order to bear the weight of the roof, the bottom has to use a lot of thick beams to support, wood demand is very large.

    The main composition of glazed tile on the roof are pan tiles, eaves tiles, drip tiles, flat tiles and other parts, the eaves tile is to prevent tube tile slide, round shape; And the drip tile is to facilitate the drainage of the shingles, in a semicircular, pendulous shape.

    In addition to glazed roof tiles, the roof of the palace there are glazed fired ridge animals, arranged on the roof ridge. From inside to outside are: wen, beast animal and fairies.

    On the roof of the Forbidden City Palace, that's basically what it is. If you have the chance to go to the Forbidden City, you can count the number of fairies and beasts on the roof of each palace to determine the palace level, which is quite interesting.