Archaeology Magazine — March-April 2018

40 ARCHAEOLOGY • March/April 2018

T

he front yard of a Korean home was

traditionally left empty, while the

backyard, which sometimes led to small

nearby mountains, was cultivated as a

garden. This held true for palace gardens

as well. A pond and a pavilion from which

to take in the surrounding landscape were

considered vital elements. Such is the case

at Hyangwonjeong in Gyeongbokgung

Palace. Hyangwonjeong, which means “a

pavilion from where scent spread,” was

created between 1867 and 1873 on a small

island constructed in the middle of a pond.

Hyangwonjeong is currently being exca-

vated by the Ganghwa National Research

Institute of Cultural Heritage. Archaeolo-

gists have found that the bridge that con-

nects the pavilion to the land, at more than

100 feet, was the longest wooden bridge in

its day. This bridge was destroyed during

the Korean War and has now been recon-

structed. Sadly, this is also near the spot

where Queen Min (or Empress Myeong-

seong) was assassinated by the Japanese

in 1895, one of the preludes to Japanese

colonial rule of Korea. —HyUng-eUn Kim

I

n colonial America, Philadelphia was home base for a com-

munity of ardent plant enthusiasts who came together on

the banks of the Schuylkill River. There they competed to

cultivate exotic specimens, fostering an Enlightenment-era

spirit of inquiry that eventually led to the discipline of botany.

At the Woodlands, a private estate built between the 1760 s

and 1780 s, wealthy collector William Hamilton amassed what

was possibly the largest collection of flora in the country and

constructed a state-of-the-art greenhouse known to have been

visited by Thomas Jeffer-

son. Hamilton, with the help

of his friend and neighbor,

seed dealer William Bartram,

created a garden dedicated

to aesthetics and to build-

ing a scientific collection

of plants from around the

world. According to archae-

ologist Sarah Chesney, who

identified and excavated the

Woodlands’ greenhouse, the

structure is an example of

Hamilton’s fervor for this

project. “You have to be committed to pour resources and time

into what was really a non-essential building,” she says. “Its

remains are now valuable physical evidence of this remarkable

and transient exchange of plants and ideas.”

After Hamilton’s death, the estate was eventually sold and

the gardens gave way to a public cemetery in the 1840 s. “We

have a nineteenth-century cemetery superimposed on an

eighteenth-century estate,” explains the Woodlands’ execu-

tive director Jessica Baumert. “The company used as much of

the infrastructure that was already in place as they could to

design the cemetery, and that will provide us with a template

as we seek to learn more about the Woodlands’ rich garden

history.” —Marley brown

ROYAL GARDENS

Seoul, South Korea

SCIENTIFIC GARDENS

The Woodlands, Philadelphia

Bookplate, The Woodlands, Philadelphia, 19th century

Illustration by Bartram,

18th century

Gyeongbokgung Palace, 20th century