Sinan Heuksando Island Sangnasanseong Fortress

The area around Sangnasanseong Fortress on Heuksando Island, Sinan, contains a multi-site complex made up of four components: the fortress itself, a ritual site, the site of an official residence, and the Musimsa temple site. Sangnasanseong Fortress is presumed to be a defensive installation built to protect Eupdong village on Heuksando Island, which is thought to have functioned as an international maritime hub from ancient times through the Goryeo period. At the entrance to the valley behind Eupdong village stands the site of the official residence where Chinese envoys stayed during the Goryeo period. In the valley opposite this residence lies the Musimsa temple site, and on the peak just above it stands Sangnasanseong Fortress. On the summit of Sangnasan, to the west of the fortress, are a beacon mound, where signal fires were once lit, and a ritual site. All of these sites lie within a radius of 500m centred on the fortress, and since artefacts of the same period have been excavated from each, their interrelationship can be traced. Sangnasanseong Fortress is located on the ridge running north from Sangnasan to meet the sea, above Eupdong village in Jin-ri 2-gu, Heuksan-myeon, Sinan-gun. It is a small fortress with a total length of 280m, enclosing only the southern slope in a half-moon shape; the stone-built section alone measures 220m. On the northern ridge, which faces the coast, no wall was built separately — instead, a sheer coastal cliff nearly 100m high was used as the wall itself. Walls were built only where needed, on top of or between large rocks midway along the rampart, making full use of the rugged terrain so that defenders could easily repel attackers with minimal construction. This reflects well a characteristic feature of Korean mountain fortresses: building by making maximum use of the natural terrain. The wall generally encloses the lower six-tenths of the southern slope in a half-moon shape. Unlike the typical temoe-sik (summit-enclosing) fortress, which encircles the area near the summit or upper slope at roughly the same level, this is closer to a sanbok-sik (mid-slope) temoe-sik fortress. The wall was built using pyeonchuk-beop, the method most commonly used for stone fortresses in Korea, in which only the outer face is finished; this suits terrain, like that at Sangnasanseong, where there is a large difference in height between the inside and outside of the wall. Long rectangular stones were used only in parts of the foundation; above this, stones of much the same size were laid vertically without distinguishing an upper and lower tier, though wedge stones were used to keep courses level according to the slope of the wall line. The facing stones were roughly dressed on their outer face and laid bonded in alternating horizontal and vertical courses to prevent collapse, with the interior backed with rubble. As ancillary features of Sangnasanseong Fortress, the site of the east gate and one building site have been identified. The site of the official residence lies in "Haenaejigol", formed at the end of the ridge running east from the Sangnasan lookout point towards Eupdong village. It occupies a shallow valley some 100m long and 50m wide behind Eupdong village; at the end of the ridge is a flat terrace about 30m long, running east–west. The building faced south, and part of its retaining wall survives. An academic surface survey of Eupdong village recovered temple and building remains dating from Unified Silla to Goryeo, while artefacts recovered around Sangnasanseong Fortress date mainly from the late Unified Silla to Goryeo periods. At the site of the official residence, typical late Unified Silla artefacts — corrugated-pattern bottles and striped-pattern bottles, as well as haemuri-gup celadon (celadon with a halo-shaped foot rim) — were recovered together with roof-tile fragments. At the Musimsa temple site, besides a Goryeo-period three-storey stone pagoda and stone lantern, many roof-tile fragments from the Unified Silla and Goryeo periods were recovered. At the ritual site, an iron horse and corrugated-pattern bottles, along with fragments of such bottles, were recovered. In this way, Sangnasanseong Fortress on Heuksando Island allows us to examine the lively exchange between Korea and China from the Unified Silla period through to Goryeo, and is an important site for gauging the position of Heuksando Island on the southern sea route of the time.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Sinan, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물