Bronze Bird Terrace (original) (raw)

The Bronze Bird Terrace (traditional Chinese: 銅雀臺; simplified Chinese: 铜雀台; pinyin: Tóngquètái) was an iconic structure in the city of Ye built in AD 210 by Cao Cao, the prominent warlord of the late Eastern Han dynasty. Despite reconstructions after Cao Cao's time that exceeded his in scale, the Bronze Bird Terrace is metonymous with Cao Cao in Classical Chinese poetry, where the terrace is a popular topic. Although its destruction in 577 and natural disasters left only ruins of the Bronze Bird Terrace, the terrace lives on in the Chinese cultural memory through its connection with Cao Cao and retains its place in Chinese literature and modern media pertaining to the Three Kingdoms period.