Academic Conference on the Designation of Seongsan Fortress, a Representative Gaya Castle Site in Hapcheon, Gyeongnam, as a National Historic Site

Seongsan Fortress Stone Wall Panorama.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Soon-kyung] Hapcheon-gun, Gyeongnam announced on the 18th that the Gyeongnam Research Institute will hold an academic conference to identify the historical and academic value of Seongsan Fortress, a representative Gaya fortress site in Hapcheon and a fortress built by the Hapcheon Okjeon Burial Mound Cluster, and to secure the justification for its designation as a national historic site.

Seongsan Fortress is designated as a Gyeongnam Provincial Monument and is located on an independent hill by the Hwanggang River, an ancient major transportation route, allowing access to the waterway of Hwanggang. Along with the adjacent Okjeon Burial Mound Cluster (Historic Site), it is an important site that can reveal the lifestyle and political development process of the Gaya people as well as the ancient civil engineering techniques of Gaya.

Through excavation investigations conducted in seven phases, it was revealed that Seongsan Fortress is bordered by the Hwanggang River to the west, using the natural cliff and moat as defensive walls, with stone walls constructed on the northeast, east, and south sides, and an earthen wall on the northwest side.

The investigation confirmed a unique Gaya construction technique clearly distinguished from the fortress construction methods of Baekje and Silla, and based on these achievements, the academic conference will be held.

This academic conference will present four scholarly papers clarifying the value and importance of Hapcheon Seongsan Fortress’s designation as a historic site through comparative research on the construction techniques of Seongsan Fortress and fortresses in Baekje and Silla regions. After the presentations, a comprehensive discussion will be chaired by Park Jong-ik, a cultural heritage committee member of Gyeongnam Province.

The academic conference will be held online in a non-face-to-face format in accordance with social distancing measures to prevent COVID-19, and will be broadcast live online through Hapcheon-gun’s official YouTube channel, ‘Suryeohan Hapcheon TV.’

County Governor Moon Jun-hee said, “We have been conducting several excavation investigations to designate Seongsan Fortress as a national historic site, and since it was selected as a candidate for national historic site promotion support by Gyeongnam Province in 2018, we have been working together with the province to accelerate the promotion to a national historic site. We plan to actively utilize the results of this academic conference as supplementary materials for the application report for the promotion of Seongsan Fortress to a historic site.”

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