​

The Ganghwa National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage(Director Ji-yeon Kim) of the Cultural Heritage Administration will hold an academic conference titled “Unraveling the Secrets of Pungnaptoseong’s Construction Techniques” on October 28, 2021 at10 am,at the Hanseong Baekje Museum.

The conference will open with the keynote lecture by Professor Soon-bal Park (Chungnam National University)that highlight the significance of the construction of the Pungnaptoseong(Earthen Fortification in Pungnap-dong). This conference will unveil the findings of the excavation of the 2021 Pungnaptoseong West Fortress Wall Restoration Area for the first time by the Pungnap Earthen Fortification Excavation Team.

* Excavation site of Pungnaptoseong West Fortress Wall Restoration Area: 310 Pungnap-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul

Since 2017, the Ganghwa National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage has accumulated various data to investigate the residual pattern, construction method, and direction of the wall through excavation of the West Fortress Wall Restoration Area of Pungnaptoseong.

As is well known, Pungnaptoseong is a fortress built by using the rammed earth technique based on compacting soil between square frame in layers to a certain thickness.

  In the 2021 excavation, in order to confirm the construction technique of Pungnaptoseong Fortress, west fortress wall was excavated horizontally, breaking away from the existing cross-sectional fortress survey. As a result, it was confirmed for the first time that the fortress wall was constructed with square mold frames filled as earth block units stacked to build the side of the fortress wall. This is the strongest evidence of rammed earthen wall fortress, and through this investigation, finally substantiated that Pungnaptoseong Fortress is a rammed earthen wall fortress.

* Rammed earth (panchuk) and rammed earth structure: Panchuk structureis a square frame packed with compacted soil with different properties alternately stacked to a certain thickness. Pangoe is a block of this tamped earth which is stacked and attached to the front, back, left and right sides of other pangoes to complete a fortress wall. 

Furthermore, in the fortress, the remains of a road corresponding as the inner ring road of the fortress wall were identified. The inner ring road inside the fortress wall is a passageway for Baekje people that connected to the fortress gate, and traces of cartwheels and the footprints of cattle and horses were also discovered on the road. It is presumed that the goods brought in through the west gate were transported to various places in Pungnaptoseong Fortress on carts pulled by cattles and horses.

The conference will also include presentations that highlight the concepts of fortification techniques from the Three Kingdoms period and the discussion offortification techniques across the Hanseong and Sabi periods of Baekje. Itwill provide a platform for exchanges between research achievements and discussions on the recent development and findings on the construction method of earthen fortress walls of Baekje.

In order to comply with the COVID-19 quarantine guidelines and to connect with a broader audience, this conference will be held as an online event. Those who wish to take part in the event can watch the live presentation on the day of the conference through accessing the YouTube channel of the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage.

Moreover, the excavation site of the Pungnaptoseong West Fortress Wall Restoration Area will be open to the public for three days from November 9th to 11th. For those who want to experience the site firsthand, please download the application form in advance from our website (https://www.nrich.go.kr/ganghwa/index.do) and send the completed application form to dzonsw@korea.kr. The application forms will be accepted from November 1st to the 5th. However, the number of participants will be limited to 20 per session to meet the COVID-19guidelines. For more information, please visit our website.

For those who are unable to attend, videos of the excavation results will also be released on YouTube channel of the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage from October 28th.

​

​

​