Yangju Daemosanseong Fortress Proves Its Role as a Key Transportation and Military Hub from the 5th to 10th Century with Discovery of Oldest Baekje Wooden Tablets

Yangju Daemosanseong Fortress Yields Korea's Oldest Baekje Wooden Tablets
Baekje Script Emerges After 1,500 Years
Predating Mongchontoseong by a Century: 5th-Century "Gimyo Year" Baekje Wooden Tablet Discovered
Revealing the Fiercely Contested Border History with Goguryeo

Yangju City in Gyeonggi Province and the Giho Cultural Heritage Research Institute (Director: Ko Jaeyong) announced that four wooden tablets (mokgan) from the Baekje period, estimated to date back to the 5th century, were newly excavated during the 15th excavation of the Yangju Daemosanseong Fortress, a project supported by funding from the National Heritage Administration. This discovery has once again drawn the attention of academia, following the much-publicized “Taebong Kingdom Wooden Tablet” found in 2023.

2025 Excavated Wooden Tablet. Provided by Yangju City

The wooden tablets were discovered in a presumed lower water collection facility extending northwest from the upper water collection facility inside the fortress. Of particular note is one tablet inscribed with the cyclical year “Gimyo Year (己卯年).” Based on its association with Baekje pottery unearthed at the same site, the tablet is believed to have been made in 439, during the period when Baekje controlled the Yangju area.

Experts have highly praised its academic value, stating, “This is a textual artifact from more than 100 years before the Mongchontoseong wooden tablet and is likely the oldest surviving Baekje inscription.”

The second wooden tablet revealed even more unusual content. Both sides of the tablet bear an appendix with several characters beneath the character “Si (尸),” as well as the characters “Cheon (天)” and “Geum (金).” This resembles talismans found in China and Japan and is considered the oldest known example of a “magical talisman wooden tablet” (jubu mokgan) with clear ritual significance in Korea. The discovery is particularly noteworthy because divination bones (bokgol) used for fortune-telling were found together, supporting the ritual nature of the tablet and providing valuable evidence that ceremonial activities actually took place within the fortress at the time.

Unexpectedly, the third wooden tablet contains the place name “Geummulno (금물노),” which is recorded in the “Geography” section of the Samguk Sagi as an old Goguryeo place name, believed to correspond to today’s Jincheon area in North Chungcheong Province. The simultaneous discovery of a Baekje wooden tablet and pottery inscribed with a Goguryeo place name in one location is regarded as concrete evidence that the Yangju area was a fiercely contested border region between Baekje and Goguryeo in the mid-5th century.

Excavation site of wooden tablets. Provided by Yangju City

In addition to the wooden tablets, a large number of artifacts illustrating both daily life and ritual practices-such as Baekje pottery, wooden utensils, divination bones, animal bones, and seeds-were excavated from the low-lying wetlands in the northwestern lower area where this excavation took place. These materials are considered invaluable clues for reconstructing the residential life, rituals, and dietary habits of Yangju Daemosanseong Fortress in the 5th century.

In 2023, a Taebong Kingdom wooden tablet from the Later Three Kingdoms period was also excavated at Yangju Daemosanseong Fortress. The continuity between the newly discovered Baekje wooden tablets and the previous find demonstrates that Daemosanseong Fortress served as a key transportation and military hub continuously occupied from the 5th-century Baekje era through the 10th-century Taebong period.

Since 2018, Yangju City has conducted annual excavations to clarify the historical character of Daemosanseong Fortress. The city plans to unveil these four newly discovered wooden tablets for the first time at the “15th Yangju Daemosanseong Fortress Excavation Site Open House” on November 28.

Yangju Mayor Kang Suhyeon stated, “This excavation is an important achievement that shows Yangju was at the center of ancient exchanges and civilizational change on the Korean Peninsula,” adding, “We will continue our efforts to establish Yangju as the ‘ancestral home of northern Gyeonggi’ and a ‘central city of historical culture.’”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.