Historic values of Baekje-era fortress

On New Year’s Day 1997, an event took place in Pungnap-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, which changed the understanding of Korea’s history.

In the summer of 1925, heavy rain caused the Han River to flood. After the waters subsided, various historical artifacts were uncovered in the area.

Thanks to the effects of the flood, an enormous earthen fortress emerged. The fortress later became known as Pungnaptoseong. However, it did not receive the attention it deserved and was overlooked even after liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Korean historians saw it merely as one of many earthen fortresses, not as a royal castle of early Baekje, one of the ancient kingdoms that existed on the Korean Peninsula.

Almost four decades later, its historic value was finally recognized and it was designated Historic Site No. 11. Nonetheless, the inner part of the fortress was not preserved because only the fortress itself was designated as an historic site.

In the meantime, houses and buildings were built on it as part of Seoul’s new urban development project. The site gradually turned into a residential area.

On Jan. 1, 1997, a significant amount of shattered pottery from the early Baekje Kingdom, along with the remains of vast houses and ritual structures, were excavated from the inner part of the Pungnaptoseong fortress, during construction of high-rise apartments by Hyundai.

This discovery led to a revolutionary change in the archeological understanding and ancient history of Korea, because it implied that Pungnaptoseong could have been the capital of early Baekje.

Pungnaptoseong is one of the largest flatland earthen fortresses in East Asia. It is believed to have originally had a circumference of over 3.5 kilometers, walls that were 11 meters high and 43 meters wide at the base, making it an almost inconceivably gigantic structure.

It was built by stacking thin layers of fine-silt and a red-clay mixture. This particular technique is called “panchuk,” which was the latest construction technology at the time. The layers were coated with one centimeter of leaves and branches, and then topped with another 10 centimeters of fine-silt and red-clay mixture.

This layering process, which is called “buyeop,” was repeated 10 times. When an earthquake hit, the leaves and branches would keep the fortress from shaking due to the frictional heat produced by the leaves and branches being rubbed together.

These two techniques are probably the reason why the fortress was able to survive for over 2,000 years. It is not so surprising that these techniques were employed during the construction of “Byeokgolje” in Gimje and of an ancient reservoir in Japan.

This new discovery of Pungnaptoseong as the capital of early Backje rewrote Seoul’s glorious history. The city could be the 2,000-old capital of Korea, not a 600 year-old city as it was previously believed to be.

However, it is very unfortunate that the entire original structure and a large portion of the inner part of Pungnaptoseong were not preserved due to historians not understanding their historic value.

Therefore, I want to let all the people know about the historic value of Pungnaptoseong in the hope that its remaining structures and artifacts are well taken care of the generations to come.

Lee attends Daewon Foreign Language High School in Seoul. She can be reached at marinaejlee@naver.com. <The Korea Times/Lee Eun-jeong>