To effectively protect ancient Chinese buildings, the seismic performances of ancient Chinese buildings of the Ming and the Qing dynasties were studied by shaking table tests. A 1∶2 reduced-scale model of an ancient building from the Forbidden City and having a single layer gable and a hip roof was built. The model possessed all features of the real building, including free-standing columns, beams and column frames, tou-kungs (bracket set), a roof, filler walls and so on. The construction of the model also accords with the relevant construction rules for ancient Chinese buildings. Using white noise excitation, the dynamical characteristics of the model were obtained. Then the 1940 El-Centro earthquake waves of different intensities were applied to the model. Seismic responses such as displacement, acceleration and shock mitigation coefficient ratio, etc. of the model were studied. Seismic performances of the constituents such as the free-standing column roots, the tou-kungs, the mortise-and-tenon joints, the roof, etc. are also discussed. Results show that under the action of earthquakes, the main mode shape of the model is that of a level torsion pendulum, which relates closely to the uneven mass of the roof. The basic frequency of the model before the shock was 1.47Hz and the damping ratio 4.6%. The response curves of its displacement and acceleration were nearly even and stable, reflecting the good seismic performance of the model. Although the roof magnifies the earthquake forces to some extent, the other constituents such as the free-standing column roots, the tou-kungs and the mortise-and-tenon joints could mitigate the response of the model. The order of shock mitigation capability of the different constituents was:mortise-and-tenon joint > tou-kung > free-standing column root. The shock mitigation coefficient value of mortise-and-tenon joint could decrease to 0.30, the value of the tou-kung to 0.53 and that of column root to 0.66. The filler walls collapsed in the earthquakes, but that did not affect the stability of the whole structure. Thus ancient Chinese buildings with single layer gables and hip roofs have good seismic performance.