익산 왕궁성 구조에 대한 고고학적 재검토 = An Archaeological Study on Re-Examining the Structure of Iksan Royal Palace

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Iksan Royal Palace is a site of the ruins of a palace from Baekje, which is mentioned in relation to the theory of capital relocation to Iksan during the reign of Muwang in Baekje. So far, excavation research has revealed the scale, construction techniques, and various spatial characteristics of Iksan Royal Palace and added to the palace’s status as one of the important royal palaces in Baekje. However, it is difficult to determine what it originally looked like in the period during which Sabi was the capital in Baekje, as it was reported that a key area around the royal palace’s mid-axis line was destroyed during its transition from the palace phase to the temple phase.
Nonetheless, a closer review on the excavation results shows that it is very unlikely that the sites of the geumdang (main hall) and gangdang (preach hall) located in the key area of the palace were newly constructed during the temple phase. Instead, the sites of the buildings suspected to be geumdang and gangdang are located exactly on the north-south mid-axis line, which runs from the southern gate of the palace, and they are good enough to serve as chimjeon (king and queen’s bed chambers) in the royal palace in Baekje, considering the excavated artifacts under the soil of its foundation as well as its construction techniques. Based on construction techniques used during Baekje, it seems very likely that chimjeon in the royal palace in Baekje may have been repurposed later as geumdang and gangdang.
This archaeological reinterpretation suggests that previous architectural ruins and the site of a rectangular building should be re-examined in relation to the site of a wooden pagoda located in front of the site of geumdang. It is believed that these ruins were constructed as the site of a wooden pagoda (previous architectural ruins and the presumed rammed earth layer for the wooden pagoda) and an annex structure (Building Site 3) some time after some royal palace buildings were destroyed during its transformation of the palace into Daegwansa, a temple during Baekje.
Spatially, the front half of Iksan Royal Palace is divided into the outer and inner areas based on the east-west stone facility 1 located in the back, as the site of a large building is speculated to be of the same nature as Taiji Dian (Hall of the Supreme Principle) in China. The inner area is spilt into two: the space centered on the midaxis line and the space on the east side. On the right, which is symmetrical to the mid-axis line of the royal palace, the annex axis line is identified, and therefore, it can be categorized as a separate annex space along the long gallery-style building and the north-south stone facility. This spatial division can also be related to the findings that the mid-axis line of Iksan Royal Palace is leaned west from the palace. In particular, a Building with two Rooms is considered to have functioned as a place for the king to normally stay, as it was arranged as if it were wrapped on the south and east. It is also speculated that it was arranged with annex buildings supporting chimjeon.
The front half of Iksan Royal Palace has a bifurcated spatial structure of buildings located on the mid-axis line and annex spaces and gardens, which is quite similar to Jiankang, one of the walled cities during the Southern Court in China. Since Southern Court was a dynasty that maintained close ties with Baekje after the Baekje’s relocation to Woongjin, it would be worth investigating Jiankang, the center of the Southern Court, to find its architectural influence on Iksan Royal Palace. Moreover, as the planar form of the outer area is thought to be a 凸-shaped space with Taiji Dian as the apex, it would be necessary to compare Iksan Royal Palace with Naniwa-kyo during its initial period in Japan, which was built after Iksan Royal Palace.