For visitors to Korea (such as myself) who like to try to get round all the UNESCO-listed world heritage sites, the list just got longer. On Saturday 6 July, the World Heritage Committee included nine Seowon, or Neo-Confucian Academies, in the list. The nine seowon are dotted around the central and southern parts of the […]
Heritage: UNESCO
2016 travel diary 22: Daeheungsa and the righteous armies
Gurim-ri, Samsan-myeon, Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do, 19 May 2016, 6:00pm After our pleasant visit to Iljiam, we walk back down the hill to Daeheungsa, the mother temple, hoping to be there for the eventide ringing of the temple bell before retiring to our lodge at the temple’s entrance. Daeheungsa (대흥사) is said to date back to the […]
2016 travel diary 11: Buyeo National Museum and the tombs at Neungsan-ri
Buyeo-eup, Chungcheongnam-do, 17 May 2016 10am. Buyeo National Museum Next stop was the Buyeo National Museum. Here, we were totally shameless in our visit. It was to be a precision strike: go and see the the famous Gilt Bronze Incense Burner of Baekje and get out quick: we had an appointment in Sancheong. But of […]
2016 travel diary 9: Busosanseong – the Baekje royal garden
Buyeo-gun, Chungcheongnam-do, 16 May 2016, 5:30pm. The Archaeological Site in Gwanbuk-ri Sometimes, collecting UNESCO points is not as fulfilling as it might be. The item of heritage that has been registered might not be particularly exciting to look at, even though it is historically important. But if a site is historically important you may well […]
2016 travel diary 7: Gongju’s fortress
Gongju, Chungcheongnam-do, 16 May 2016, 3pm. Not far away from Songsan-ri is the fortress of Gongsanseong. It clings to the banks of the Geumgang river (nothing to do with Mount Geumgang in north Gangwondo) and its walls scale the cliffs and meander along the contours of the hill, forming a 2.6km circuit which climbs to […]
2016 travel diary 6: Gongju’s royal tombs
Gongju, Chungcheongnam-do, 16 May 2016, 2:15pm. The Royal Tombs in Songsan-ri Our first stop in Gongju is the set of seven or more tombs in Songsan-ri. The experts think there may be as many as ten tombs in the area. It seems odd, in an age when so much in the way of sophisticated electronics […]
2016 travel diary 5: An introduction to the Baekje Historic Areas
Gongju, Chungcheongnam-do, 16 May 2016 The kingdom of Baekje had its beginnings as a small state founded on the south banks of the Han River in 18 BCE by King Onjo. The people were largely of Buyeo origins – an early kingdom absorbed into Goguryeo. The kingdom gradually grew, absorbing the small Mahan states to […]
2015 Travel Diary day 10: Namhansanseong and the Gangnam Tombs
Myeongdong, Seoul, Sunday 7 June The Mountain Fortress I am scheduled to meet a friend at 9:30 at Sanseong Station on Line 8. From there we take the bus (number 9) via a circuitous route through a residential area and up the steep hill to the main car park of one of Korea’s latest UNESCO […]
2015 Travel Diary day 9: Yeongsanjae and Seodaemun
Myeongdong, Seoul, Saturday 6 June Bongwonsa temple and the Yeongsanjae rituals Today is the second UNESCO-listed item of intangible cultural heritage of my brief stay. I am tagging along with a small group of American summer students who are getting course credits by having a whale of a time in Seoul. How this works from an […]
2015 Travel Diary day 4: the Danoje rituals on Daegwallyeong ridge
Gangneung, Monday 1 June. I turn up at the Chilsadang, Gangneung’s elegant Joseon dynasty town hall building, at 8:30, backpack stuffed with camera equipment, bottled water and snacks to see me through the day. Ten days earlier at the same spot there had been a ceremony which launches the whole Dano month: a ritual called […]
2015 Travel Diary day 2: The Drawing hand | Seooreung | Tea Museum | Makgeolli at Kim Sakkat
Myeongdong, Seoul, 30 May. Two hours sleep on the plane, and only another two on my first night in Seoul, means that I’m groggy on Saturday morning. A quick session in the hotel gym doesn’t do much to remedy that. Coffee with The Drawing Hand My brain is gently kick-started by a coffee in the hotel lobby, […]
Donguibogam to be upgraded to National Treasure status
To be honest, I’ve always wondered why an item listed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World register was only rated a “Treasure” (no 1085) rather than a “National Treasure”. The three sets of the encyclopaedia’s first edition are currently held by the National Library of Korea, the Kyujanggak Institute For Korean Studies and the Academy […]
Seduced by Yi Seong-gye: the first volumes in the Sillok are translated
The Annals of King T’aejo, Found of Korea’s Choson Dynasty Translated and annotated by Choi Byonghyon Harvard University Press, 2014, 1,028 pp I wandered into the University bookshop last night for a browse. I’d just been to see Andrew Killick talk about Hwang Byungki at SOAS, and thought I might try to pick up his […]
Exhibition visit: Constancy and Change in Korean Traditional Craft
Nothing prepared you for the sight that greeted you when you entered the room containing the Korean crafts at Tent London. As you were wandering past the various stalls in the main part of the exhibition displaying contemporary crafts from around the world on your way to the “Constancy and Change” room, you might have […]
Latest UNESCO listings break the stereotypes
A famine-ridden state that spends all its money on its army and its nukes; and a country that builds a green city and restores its rivers… Those are the stereotypes. Yet it’s the North that has just had a biosphere reserve registered at UNESCO, while the South’s latest registration is an impressive piece of military […]
Mt Chilbo is the fourth DPRK biosphere reserve
At the 26th meeting of the UNESCO International Coordinating Council of the Man and Biosphere Program on 10-13 June, thirteen new sites were added to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves. Among them was Mt Chilbo (칠보산), in Myongchon County, North Hamgyong Province. This 340 hectare site in the north-east of the country is a […]
Namhansanseong joins Suwon fortress on UNESCO World Heritage list
South Korea’s eleventh listing on the UNESCO World Heritage list is Namhansanseong. It was added to the list at the end of a 10 day meeting of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee at Doha on 25 June. According to the summary on the UNESCO website: Namhansanseong was designed as an emergency capital for the Joson dynasty […]