We are spending today in Gyeongju which was once the capital of the Silla kingdom and has been called a museum without walls as there are so many national treasures in the area. The old town in the ancient period had a population of 1 million people which is massive if you think this was around 650 AD. Our first stop was at Daereungwon Tomb Park, this whole area is filled with tombs which all look like little hills. Unfortunately not much is known about the people that are buried there, but it contains 30 large and small tombs, they are presumed to belong to kings and officials of the Silla Kingdom. Large tombs have wood lined chambers which are covered in a mound of boulders that is approximately 20 meters deep, then about 5 metres of mud and another metre of earth that then has grass planted on it. Some are double tombs where the king and queen were buried together, it is believed that the slightly larger one belonging to the king and the smaller one the queen. Between 1973 – 1975 the Cheonmachong Tomb was excavated and 11,500 artefacts removed, it is assumed that it dates from the 5th or 6th century and Cheonmachong means ‘white horse’ and it gets its name from a painting of a white horse that is painted on both a saddle flap and a mud guard found within the tomb. We looked round this tomb then walked round the whole site, the only other tomb they have any knowledge of is ‘Historic Site No. 175’ which is the Royal Tomb of King Michu in Gyeongju, Michuwangneung literally means ‘Tomb of King Michu’ he successfully defended the country against Baekje (18BC – 660AD) and promoted agriculture, he also seemed to be the founder of ‘camouflage’ as one of the many Japanese invasions was repelled by his soldiers who carried bamboo so they wouldn’t be seen! After we finished walking round the grounds we crossed the road to Cheomseongdae Observatory which was built during the reign of Queen Seondeok and they say it is the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia. I am not sure how good it would have been for star gazing as it is bottle shaped and only just over 5 metres tall. It has 24 layers of stones and apparently up to the 12th layer was filled with soil and pebbles, between the 13th and 15th layers there is a small opening through which you could climb in and get to the top to watch the stars or possibly the weather. Also in the same complex currently being excavated is the royal palace but there is nothing much to see of this and the Wolseong Fortress which also contained an ice storage building but nothing remains above ground of any of these. The final item of note in this complex was Gyerim Forest which is well known for being the birthplace of Him al-ji, the legendary found of the Gyeongju Gem clan. The story goes that a man heard a cock crying in the forest, coming into the woods he saw a golden casket dangling on a brach of a tree, on hearing this report the king went to the first and pulled the casket down and inside was a male child. The child was given the surname Him and the name Al-ji, subsequently the name of the forest was changed to Gyerim. After a walk round this area we jumped back into the van for what seemed like a drive of about 100 yards but was possibly more to go round to Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond. This was a palace that was used by the crown prince and for entertaining. It contained a lake, an artificial hill and a number of buildings, unfortunately only a few have been reconstructed – possibly due to the fact that they have built a road over where most of the buildings should be! It was here that banquets for Kings, dignitaries and noble subjects were held, it was a really nice area and we walked round the outside of the lake which isn’t actually very large any more, as we were heading back to the car we saw a number of women gardening – not unusual in itself, but they had round cushions tied to their backsides, this was so that they could sit on the cushion while doing the weeding – very ingenious I may need to get Chris one for when we get back! Our final stop of the day was the Gyeongju National Museum, this is where most of the artefacts are stored there are three main buildings and two key sites within the grounds which are The Silla History Gallery which was actually quite interesting as it showed key items from the dynasty which rather than conquering and crushing seemed to try and adopt some of the ways of the people they ended up ruling. We decided to pause for a drink after going through this gallery, then refreshed we went into the Special Exhibition Gallery which has an exhibition of the Baekju area which has recently been incorporated into the UNESCO world heritage list. They had a number of artefacts on display which showed how intricate some of the carvings were, and the Woiji Gallery which had the boat that had been excavated from Wolji Pond as well as the 11,500 items excavated from the Cheonmachong Tomb. We had been given two and a half hours to look round the museum which we almost took although we did have a rest half way round! We went back to the car and Paul seemed to be quite keen to take us somewhere else although we had seen everything we should have today! So we ended up going to a pottery factory which sold hand made pottery that replicated the style of the ‘ancient times’ some of it was really lovely although a little expensive but we did buy a pair of vases which hopefully will survive the trip home! It was then finally time to go back to the hotel and have a relax before finding something for dinner and packing up before we move on again tomorrow.
