Mongchontoseong Earthen Fortification, Seoul

Mongchontoseong is a rampart of earth 2.3 kilometres long enclosing a low hill in Songpa. Baekje built it in the third or fourth century, when its capital was a few hundred metres north at Pungnap, with a moat fed by a stream and a wooden palisade along the top. It seems to have been the royal family's second seat and refuge, and it fell with the rest of the capital to Goguryeo in 475; a layer of Goguryeo pottery marks the change of owners. It was known as a fortress but never dug until Seoul was awarded the 1988 Olympics and chose this site for the park. Excavations from 1983 to 1989 found the palisade posts, storage pits, and buildings on stone foundations, and the park was laid out around the earthwork rather than over it. So the rampart is now a grassed ridge that joggers run along, with a lone tree on top that has become the park's emblem, and the moat is a stream with a path. The Baekje museum at the edge of the park is the place to see what came out of the ground.

Original Text

Where it is

Region

Songpa-gu, Seoul

Designation

Historic Site · 사적