“Dolmens are primitive megalithic remnants built as burial chambers and funerary monuments…..Korea preserves about 30,000 dolmens nationwide, in varying sizes and shapes. Dolmens….serve as clues to the social system and beliefs of early dwellers. With such historic value, the dolmen sites in Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa were registered on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list on December 2000.”
Paleolithic or Stone Age exhibits here including tombs and dolmens were moved from their original site so that they wouldn’t be submerged with the construction of the Juam Dam. The inventory includes: 140 dolmens in nine clusters, 6 prehistoric dwelling pits, an outdoor exhibition area with replicas of dolmens and a small museum with smaller relics such as the jar coffin in the photo above.
Next to fossilied dinosaur footprints which you can see elsewhere in Korea, this place bears witness to the loooooong history of Korea but you’d have to be really passionate about arrowheads and menhirs etc.Sorry if I sound like a philistine and don’t have enough imagination to to appreciate the exhibits here but I’m more interested in gawking at a small patch of eulalia ( see below) and the bright red of the few maple trees on the grounds.
Sources:
http://asiaenglish.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=815462
http://www.dolmenpark.com/main/english/dolmen_park/dolmen_park.htm
2 comments:
Interesting...do they preserve the dead like mummies?
Hi there,
Thanks very much for your question. The only mummy that I've heard of is in the Gyeryeongsan Natural History Museum. Probably of a member of the royal family whose corpse happened to be well-preserved in a tumuli. Don't think that the Koreans are into preserving the dead ( like the Egyptians) - from what I know, they bury the dead or cremate them. It would be interesting to see if the ancient Koreans practised mummification!
Regards,
Ajumma
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