Abstract
The "Oksa" of Samguksagi is a literature record of Unified Silla's housing regulations according to the status system. It is considered as a very important historical record to understand the architecture of those days, and its records about the walls offer good grounds to estimate how the walls would have looked like in ancient architecture in the nation. Previous studies on the walls of "Oksa" had an interpretive issue over Yangdong (梁棟, beams and ridgepoles) and reported that there were two major types of walls with Yangdong, namely the corridor type and the palace wall type of Joseon. This study set out to review the original text of Oksa and related previous studies and consult the Chinese and Japanese literature and paintings and the wall materials of Silla architecture excavated in the Gyeongju area to provide new interpretations for the walls of Unified Silla. The findings led to the following conclusions: The walls with Yangdong over which there was a controversial issue were interpreted as "walls with an upper assembled structure of beams and purlins." Based on the records about the walls in Oksa, the study also confirmed that there were five types of walls according to the status system in Unified Silla.
