South Korea 1999
It might have been a rare sighting of Nessie, the notorious Loch Ness
Monster, but this was South Korea. I was standing in the middle of Kyongju
City, South Korea's cultural heart, looking at a series of humps
protruding up before me like the famous photo of the Scottish
monster.
They were actually a group of thirteen hundred-year
old burial mounds from the Shilla Dynasty. In Kyongju sightings of rare
historical artifacts are an everyday occurrence. Walk in any direction and
some weathered relic or stone pagoda emerges from the landscape turning
the area around Kyongju into one of the greatest outdoor museums in East
Asia.
Once the capital of the entire Korean peninsula from the seventh to ninth centuries, Kyongju is where Koreans distinguish themselves from their Chinese and Japanese neighbors and claim their own cultural heritage. Spread out over an area roughly half the size of Hong Kong Island, the sites in and around Kyongju date from the Shilla Dynasty, a period of relative stability that gave rise to a cultural renaissance.
After a four-hour bus journey from Seoul, I rented a mountain bike for my tour of the area and soon arrived at Tumuli Park (Tomb Park), site of the burial mounds. Some of the tombs have been excavated and are open to the public, offering views into the funerary practices of these early Koreans. Like the ancient Egyptians, members of royal families were entombed with material riches to aid them in the afterlife and placed in huge mounds as a sign of their status within society.
Throughout the park are a number of other Shilla remains. The best preserved, a stone astronomical observatory- Chomsong-dae (the Place Nearer the Stars)- dates from the early seventh century. Resembling an upside down Guinness glass, the nine-meter high observatory is something of a mystery; no one knows exactly how it was used.
Built according to precise symbolic specifications, the stones number
365, the days in a calendar year, and the twelve base stones, positioned
in a square, three to each side, represent the twelve months and four
seasons. The observatory has become one of South Korea's most enduring
symbols and appears on tourism posters and coins.
For over two thousand years Koreans have looked to the stars for
guidance. During the Shilla period when court astrologists reported their
findings the king would act according to their predictions. The movement
of the stars governed wars, festivals, and agricultural developments.
Today the art of fortune telling is still a lucrative business and the
exact time of birth will link a newborn with certain influences and
circumstances.
On the other side of the park, south of the city center, is the Kyongju National Museum, where remnants of the Shilla Kingdom have been assembled and pieced together. The pride of Kyongju, it contains a fantastic collection and detailed historical information.
At the front of the museum hangs the twenty ton, three meter tall
Emillie Bell. A harrowing folk tale surrounds the making of the
bronze bell. In the seventh century after being visited in a dream by the
spirit of the bell, a priest set out on a quest for a young girl born in
the year of the dragon. Once found, she was to be sacrificed to the
spirit so that the bell would ring
when struck. He eventually convinced a mother to hand over her small child
and cast the infant into the molten metal as the bell was being cast. When
the bell was struck its peal was said to sound like the girl crying, "emi,
emi...lie" or "mother, mother". The art of bronze bell casting reached its
zenith during the Shilla period.
Locals say the Emillie Bell's tone can be heard up to 50km away on a still night. Highly valued, many of the bells were taken from Korea over the years by the Japanese and still hang in various Shinto shrines throughout Japan.
Fifteen kilometres south of Kyongju City, the temple of Pulgu-sa- the oldest and most venerated in Korea- sits nestled in the middle of a park surrounded by forests and mountains. The temple, originally constructed in the eighth century, has undergone renovations and has been rebuilt as recently as the 1970s.
Inside the temple walls stand two of Korea's extraordinary stone pagodas, Tabo-tap and Sokka-tap. Standing at either end of the courtyard in front of the main hall like opposing chess pieces, they represent two aspects of Buddha's consciousness.
Sokka-tap, made of solid blocks and modestly carved, is believed to be the contemplative Buddha, while Tabo-tap's intricate designs are said to reflect the Buddha's inner complexity.
Behind the temple, along a mountain path offering stunning views of the
valley,
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is the Sokkuram Grotto. Designated a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1995, the grotto is considered the jewel in the crown among the treasures of Kyongju.
It is essentially an elegantly carved cave housing an eight-meter tall Buddha. Finely crafted from one piece of solid granite, the Buddha sits meditatively on a giant lotus and is surrounded by consorts and disciples etched into the surrounding cave walls.
Constructed on the orders of the king in the eighth century to protect the coast from Japanese invasion, the Buddha sits facing the Sea of Japan or East Sea as the Koreans call it.
With the sun falling behind the hills and the smell of rice paddies in the air, the time had come to cycle back to Kyongju City, carrying with me a glimpse into the beauty and mystery of Kyongju.