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Major Archaeological Find Discovered on Seoul Mountain

Posted July. 03, 2010 15:20,   

한국어

More than 100 artifacts damaged by the Japanese imperial government and white porcelain pieces were discovered Friday at Baekbeom Plaza on Mount Nam (Namsan) in central Seoul.

The Seoul Museum of History said excavation work at the plaza on the mountain`s western end showed part of Seoul Fortress, which surrounded the capital of the Joseon Dynasty Hanyang. When the Japanese imperial government built a shrine to inspire the ideology of its emperor system to the Korean people, the mountain and the fortress lost their original shapes.

With the Korean government pushing for construction of the National Assembly on the mountain in the late 1950s, the fortress saw further damage.

A property map drawn up in 1912 said the 195-meter long fortress existed. Excavation work discovered 43 meters of it.

A museum source said, “Three to five steps of the bottom and body parts of the fortress were discovered. With the discovery, we can identify the scale of the fortress, something which we had to guess.”



jjj@donga.com