한국고대 수리시설의 역사성과 의미

Abstract

For a long time now, natural disasters such as drought, flood, wind, and frost have been affecting agriculture. In pre-modern society, the most active coping strategies for natural disasters were the expansion and maintenance of water installations. The same was true for ancient society; there are many ancient reservoirs remaining today such as Byeokgolje in Gimje, Uirimji in Jecheon, Gonggeomji in Sangju, and Cheongje in Yeongcheon, as well as a reservoir in Yaksa-dong, Ulsan, which was revealed by an excavation survey. The irrigation area of Byeokgolje Reservoir was approximately 154㎢ in the early Joseon Period. The figure derived from the relevant hydrological research is not significantly different. Cheongje Reservoir in Yeongcheon was recorded in Gyeongsangdo sokchan jiriji (1454, Revised Geography of Gyeongsang-do) as having an irrigation area of 1.22 ㎢; this is similar to the entry in Cheongje munbu (1929, Record of Cheongje Reservoir) despite the 500-year gap between the two documents. In light of this fact, the irrigation area in the year of its construction(538) may be presumed to be little different to the later records. A construction technique by which a wooden water tank and an embankment were reinforced with tree branches, called buyeop, was recorded in Jeeon jeolmok (Regulation on Embankments) of the Joseon Period. The same technique was discovered during the excavation of the ancient reservoir. According to Jeeon jeolmok, people held a market to collect stones and woods for the building of an embankment. Indeed, markets for such materials are highly likely to have been held during the ancient period. Meanwhile, only the floodgate of the outer embankment of Byeokgolje Reservoir in Gimje can be found. Note, however, that there is a record on the floodgate of the inner embankment in Byeokgolje jungsugi (Record of the Construction of Byeokgolje Reservoir), but this needs to be verified by excavation research.  As for the significance of ancient reservoirs, they served to increase public finance and stabilize people’s livelihoods by improving agricultural productivity and promoting the cultivation of farmland; played a role in the establishment of a centralized system of government by enabling the mobilization of labor on a large scale; produced a civil engineering technique, i.e. the construction of an embankment that could endure water pressure; and, finally, were a source of work for poor people who were mobilized to carry out the construction work, as evidenced by the fact that some 14,000 people were mobilized for the repair of Cheongje Reservoir in 798.