A Study of Ganghwa Island History

Excavation Report on the Detached Palace Site at Heungwang-ri, Ganghwa, 2019, Ganghwa National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage

Rather than a full-scale excavation, this was a surface survey. So much time had passed that little remained. There were only traces of a wall, a foundation platform, and two buildings. Was this really a palace of the Goryeo dynasty? What kind of place was it after the capital was moved back to Gaegyeong, and how was it used during the Joseon dynasty? Nothing is known, and there are no records. The palace that is said to have stood at the foot of Mount Manisan will probably just keep fading away forever.

Survey Report on the Distribution of Goryeo Tombs in Ganghwa, 2018, Ganghwa National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage

The Goryeo tombs of Ganghwa Island were all robbed. There were no exceptions. The burial mounds had all collapsed over a thousand years, and all that remained were the looting holes dug in the 1970s. The grave-robbing pits, riddled across the mountains like pockmarks, were an ugly sight. The looting seems to have continued from the late Joseon period until the 1970s. That is nearly a century. Who were the people who lived on Ganghwa Island, and what kind of people were they? Now it can never be known.

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