Tomb Raiders

Today we visited the Tomb of King Moryeong who ruled the Beakje Kingdom from 501 AD.

The tomb was only discovered in the 1970's, during drainage work on other tombs in the area. When discovered, all these other tombs had already been looted - but that containing the king and his queen had somehow managed to remain sealed and untouched; undiscovered for 1500 years.

The burial mounds were made by cutting away a hillside, constructing a brick chamber, then filling the hill back in on top of it. Think the Egyptian pyramids but a smooth grass-covered dome rather than a stone prism.

King Moryeong's tomb is currently closed to the public to protect it, but there were some excellent recreations such as the one above, and another showing exactly how it looked, artifacts-and-all, when it was re-entered for the first time in 1971 (although disappointingly for me, they hadn't gone the whole hog and included a skeletal king and queen).

The huge collection of 1500 year old artifacts found in the tombs and surrounding areas were displayed in the nearby museum. They ranged from intricately-carved gold crowns and jewellery, to bronze guardian statues and even large pieces of coffin.
It was a fascinating look into the Beakje Dynasty of which I know very little - the unifying Shilla Dynasty being Korea's most well-known.