Construction, Commensality, and Community at the 10th Century Imperial Capital of Hoa Lu, Northern Vietnam

Gyles Iannone1*, Lê Ngọc Hân2, Laura Ringrose1, Xiaodi Wu3, Madelyn Strongitharm1, Jack Barry4, Nguyễn Thị Hảo2, Võ Thị Phương Thùy5, Scott Macrae6, Caleb Robert Joseph Johnson1, Joao Paulo Barbieri Dos Santos4, and Phạm Tuấn Luân7

Recent excavations in what was once the suburban zone of Hoa Lu, the 10th century capital for the newly independent Dao Co Viet people, have uncovered evidence for what we interpret as a “work feast” associated with the construction of a significant piece of imperial infrastructure, presumably a raised platform or linear embankment aimed at providing residential, water management, and agroecosystem services. Architectural, artifactual, botanical, and zooarchaeological evidence from the Ba Ngo site is interrogated to explore the implications of this socio-politically charged commensality. It is concluded that it represents a significant placemaking event that coincided with both the initial stages of the construction of the new capital, and the founding of the kingdom that would rule from it.