Silla Cemetery Excavated at Yŏngch'ŏn, North Kyŏngsang
A large-scale Silla-period cemetery dating from the fourth to seventh centuries has been unearthed at Yŏngch’ŏn, in North Kyŏngsang Province.
The Sunglim Cultural Property Research Center (성림문화재연구원; Director: Pak Kwangnyŏl 박광렬), an institute specializing in the investigation of buried cultural properties, has reported the discovery of some 357 tombs of the Silla period, including 26 wood compartment tombs (목곽묘), 231 stone lined tombs (석곽묘), 87 stone chamber tombs (석실묘), 2 earth pit tombs (토광묘), and 7 stone lined urn burials (석곽옹관묘), as a result of two excavations held in January 2011 at Hwanam-ni , Sinnyŏng-myŏn in Yŏngch’ŏn City, which were conducted as part of a construction project section for the expansion of the roadway between Sinnyŏng and Yŏngch’ŏn.
The research team reports that these tombs, which are concentrated on a ridgeline surrounded by steep hills, clearly indicate how the forms of Silla-period tombs changed in this particular region during the fourth to seventh centuries.
In particular, the Hwanam-ni cemetery reveals a variety of layouts even among tombs of the same type.
For instance, it was revealed during the second phase of excavation that among the 26 wood compartment tombs identified at the site, there were as many as four different types of configurations in the spatial arrangement of the primary burial chamber (主槨) and the secondary chamber (副槨) used for placement of burial goods.
Silla-period wood coffin tombs featuring a secondary chamber typically have a layout shaped like the character 日, in which primary and secondary chambers are square in layout and adjacent, the two compartments being separated by a partition. However, in the Hwanam-ni cemetery there are cases wherein the primary chamber is square in layout while the secondary chamber is round, or a round secondary chamber was created to the side of the primary chamber.
Among the stone lined tombs, there were also discovered some of the so-called multi-chamber style (多槨式石槨墓), in which several burial spaces in square layout were created by piling up stones under a single burial mound.
In one mound of this type, three stone chambers in square layout (nos. 85-87) were aligned in a row and in the same orientation. A large sword with a round pommel with a tri-petal pattern (三葉文環頭大刀) was discovered near the northern interior wall of tomb no. 86, while another large sword with two smaller iron knives attached was found near the waist of the body interred in tomb no. 87.
Director Pak Kwangnyŏl stated that the Hwanam-ni site would provide very important data to be used in reconstructing the ancient history of the Yŏngch’ŏn region, where archaeological data are quite scarce. He also added that this investigation was significant in that sense that the social characteristics of those buried in this cemetery can be inferred through grave goods such as the round pommeled sword from tomb no. 86 and the thick ringed earrings recovered from stone chamber tomb no. 85.
Original news story (Yonhap News) reported by Kim TaeShik (taeshik@yna.co.kr)
6 January 2011.
A newspaper article (in Korean) is here.