Seolleung is the place where the graves of King Seongjong, the ninth king of Joseon, and his wife, Queen Jeonghyeon, are buried. King Seongjong devoted his reign to realizing the ideal politics led by an authoritative king and stabilizing the politics of early Joseon by utilizing Confucianism as well as the academe. In Seolleung, the king's and queen's tombs are separated, forming different ridges. The left ridge, where the queen's grave is placed, does not have a stone screen behind. Other stone sculptures are arranged as in the king's tomb according to the book of national ritual guidance. The king's ridge has a twelve-sided stone-screen engraved with the twelve zodiac animal deities in a human body and the stone screen that used to be omitted according to King Sejo's will. Other stone sculptures such as those of the civil vassals stand outside the balustrade. The sculptures of the civil and military vassals look so real in terms of the face but do not have any cubic effect in the body. This is Jeongneung where King Jungjong, the eleventh king of Joseon, is buried. King Jungjong had striven to correct the wrong politics led by Prince Yeonsan but failed following the heated argument between the reformists and the loyalists. Originally, Jeongneung was located on the right side of the tomb of King Jungjong's wife, Queen Janggyeong, but was moved to its current location at the advice of Queen Munjeong, King Jungjong's wife after Queen Janggyeong, i.e., the original location was inauspicious based on geomancy beliefs. Currently, the tomb is located at a very low-lying ground such that it requires special care during floods. The stone sculptures around the tomb were made after those in Seonneung, the tombs of King Seonjong and his wife. This is one of the three royal tombs where only the king without his wife is placed. The other two cases are that of King Taejo, the founding father of Joseon, and that of King Danjong, whose tomb was recognized as that of a king after he was unseated and killed. During the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592, both tombs, Seolleung and Jeongneung, were severely damaged. The room for memorial service lies between two tombs and layers used for protection from submersion. Such structure constitutes one of the distinctive characteristics of Jeongneung and Seonneung. Only related officers were allowed in the area of the royal tomb, but the Japanese colonial rule permitted the commoner to cultivate the low-lying ground and even that between two tombs. Due to the cultivation, those woods around the tombs were cut off. After the Korean War, the cultivation around the area by the commoner was accelerated, and farmland reform by the Korean government classified the area as a private farm. As Seoul started expanding in 1960, the city launched the land readjustment project in the 1970s, accelerating the transformation of the area of the royal tombs as a residential area.