The rigorously symmetrical layout of the Imperial Ancestral Temple and the Altar of Land and Grain on Beijing Central Axis embodies the ideal capital city's planning paradigm as prescribed in the Kaogongji. Serving the imperial families of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Imperial Ancestral Temple is the material carrier of the Chinese cultural tradition of I"worshiping the ancestors'". It is an essential building for national rituals and the most complete and largest extant building complex of ancestral worship by the imperial families. The Sacrificial Hall in the Imperial Ancestral Temple is a timber structure from the Ming dynasty. It is the highest-ranked construction of official architecture from the Ming and Qing dynasties, featuring an unprecedented scale of its kind, with exquisite materials, representing the highest accomplishment of the art of imperial architecture from this period.