Summary: Ancient Koguryo Mountain City is located in Gaizhou City, Liaoning Province and situated at the foot of a mountain. It has a general plane of Chinese character “凸” and a perimeter of about 6000m.

Ancient Koguryo Mountain City is located in Gaizhou City, Liaoning Province and situated at the foot of a mountain. It has a general plane of Chinese character “凸” and a perimeter of about 6000m. In 2015, a 5-year plan of survey and excavation was started by Koguryo Mountain City Archaeological Team consisting of Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IA CASS), Liaoning Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Cultural Relics Bureau of Gaizhou city. So far, city walls, several gateways and large-scale architectural remains were found, which made significant achievements.

City walls of Koguryo Mountain City are relatively well-preserved. They combined man-made walls and the ridges of mountains. Among them, man-made parts include rammed walls, stacked walls and stone-constructed walls. All the walls except south city wall are rammed walls with 10-15cm wide rammed layers. Stacked walls are made of earth without obvious rammed traces, which are mainly found on the walls of barbican entrance at No. 4 Gate. So far, six gateway remains were discovered on city walls of the mountain city. East and west city walls have two gate remains respectively, while south and north city walls have one gateway respectively. All gateways might have barbican entrance for defense outside the gate. Stone-constructed building remains and plenty of tiles have been found in four corners of the mountain city’s walls. Therefore, they are predicted to be the remains of corner watchtowers.

In this year, drilling area covers 125000 square meters, uncovering high-ranked building remains, water storage pools, ash pits and so on. The area of trial excavation is 800 square meters. The excavation loci include part of Jindianshan remains, part of large building remains in southeast side of Jindianshan and part of No.4 Gateway remains. During this year’s survey and excavation, a large quantity of artifacts of Koguryo period were discovered, including stone mortars, stone pestles, rub-stones, pan-tiles, semicircular tiles, eaves tiles with lotus design, pottery jars, pottery fu-caldrons, iron arrowheads, cattle shoes, horse-shoes and etc.

According to this year’s survey and excavation of ancient Koguryo Mountain City and areas around, we’ve had a preliminary understanding of Koguryo Mountain City as follows:

Ancient Koguryo Mountain City is an important Koguryo city in the south part of Liaoning Province. Based on its perimeter and area, it should belong to a large mountain city, probably dating back to the beginning of 5 century AD (404AD or later) and lasting to the decline of Koguryo (668AD).

Jidianshan remains excavated in this season is a stone-constructed square platform built on the top of Jindian Mountain. Each side is about 8m long. The southern wall was broken, but the rest walls are well-preserved. Based on the excavations, it’s safe to conclude that Jindianshan remains should be one of the important buildings of Koguryo Mountain City, which was used for a relatively long period. A large number of semicircular tiles and pan tiles were used. Besides, shards of semicircular tiles connected to eaves tiles were uncovered, too.

The barbican entrance for defense of No. 4 Gateway was constructed within the city, having a plane of L-shaped. There are no obvious rammed traces on the walls of barbican entrance. Outside the No.4 Gateway, there are stone-mound tombs from Koguryo period. Gray tiles from Koguryo period were collected, which indicated that the tomb owner should be someone with certain identity at that time. Therefore, according to the position and grave goods and so on, the tomb should have relations to ancient Koguryo Mountain City.

Large building remains were found in southeast part of Jindian mountain, being distributed on four platforms. In 2015, the building remains on the second platform are excavated (from the north to the south). So far, the excavated building remains were east-west oriented and heading the north. They might belong to a group of buildings and are about 28m long and 9m wide. Besides, there are 11 lines of stone bases of posts. According to drilling results, the building on the second platform is almost 100m long. Such magnificent building remains have never been seen in other Koguryo cities in and abroad. The platforms foundation is made by ash earth containing slag, small iron blocks, charcoals and so on. Therefore, Koguryo Mountain City and its periphery should be remains of iron melting from Koguryo period. Large Koguryo stone mortars found within the city were not seen in other Koguryo city sites. This might be related to the nature of the mountain city or its population size.  

Advanced technologies such as RTK, designing the trenches and measuring points by total station, aerial image and 3D compositing technology were applied in the archaeological surveys and excavations. Iron blocks, slag and charcoals and etc. found during the excavation have been scientifically sampled, providing solid foundation for further scientific excavation and research on Koguryo Mountain City.

During survey and excavation of Koguryo Mountain City in 2015, not only artifacts from Koguryo periods including large quantity of tiles, pottery shards, iron artifacts, stone artifacts have been discovered, but also Koguryo period remains, such as building remains, water storage pool, gateways and tombs have been uncovered, giving rich materials for further excavation and research on Koguryo Mountain City.   (Translator: Ma Huanhuan)