The state of Jin () was a confederacy of statelets which occupied some portion of the southern

Korean peninsula Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic ...

from the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, bordering

Gojoseon Gojoseon () also called Joseon (), was the first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula. According to Korean mythology, the kingdom was established by the legendary founder named Dangun. Gojoseon possessed the most advanced culture in the Korean P ...

to the north. Its capital was somewhere south of the Han River. It preceded the

Samhan Samhan, or Three Han, is the collective name of the Byeonhan, Jinhan, and Mahan confederacies that emerged in the first century BC during the Proto–Three Kingdoms of Korea, or Samhan, period. Located in the central and southern regions of th ...

confederacies, each of which claimed to be the successor of the Jin state.Lee Injae, Owen Miller, Park Jinhoon, Yi Hyun-Hae, 〈Korean History in Maps〉, 2014, pp.18-20

Name

"Jin" is the

Revised Romanization of Korean Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Mini ...

, originally written in Korean Chinese characters (

hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, ...

). This character's

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...

pronunciation has been reconstructed as and originally referred to the 5th earthly branch of the Chinese and

Korean zodiac The Chinese zodiac is a traditional classification scheme based on the lunar calendar that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. Originating from China, the zodiac and its variations remai ...

s, a division of the orbit of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

identified with the

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted a ...

. This was associated with a bearing of 120° (between ESE and SE) but also with the two-hour period between 7 and 9 am, leading it to be associated with dawn and the direction east. A variant romanization is Chin.

History

It is not clear as to how well defined of an organized state Jin was. It seems likely that it was a federation of small states much like the subsequent

. For the state to be able to contend with

Wiman Joseon Wiman Joseon (194–108 BC) was a dynasty of Gojoseon. It began with Wiman's (Wei Man) seizure of the throne from Gija Joseon's King Jun and ended with the death of King Ugeo who was a grandson of Wiman. Apart from archaeological data, the ...

and send embassies to the court of the

Western Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a war ...

, there was probably some level of stable central authority. Korean historian Ki-baek Lee (1984, p. 24) also suggests that the kingdom's attempt to open direct contacts "suggests a strong desire on the part of Chin into enjoy the benefits of Chinese metal culture." However, for the most part Wiman Joseon prevented direct contact between Jin and China. King Jun of

is reported to have fled to Jin after

Wiman Wi Man (in Korean) or Wei Man (in Chinese) was originally a military leader of the Chinese Kingdom of Yan. * :"The term was used again by a refugee from the Han dynasty named Wiman, who about 200 B.C.E. set up a kingdom in Korea called Wiman ...

seized his throne and established Wiman Joseon. Some believe that Chinese mentions of Gaeguk or Gaemaguk (蓋馬國, Kingdom of armored horses) refers to Jin.

Goguryeo Goguryeo (37 BC–668 AD) ( ) also called Goryeo (), was a Korean kingdom located in the northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula and the southern and central parts of Northeast China. At its peak of power, Goguryeo controlled mos ...

is said to have conquered " Gaemaguk" in 26 AD, but this may refer to a different tribe in northern Korea. Records are somewhat contradictory on Jin's demise: it either became the later Jinhan, or diverged into the

as a whole. Archeological records of Jin have been found centered in territory that later became

Mahan Mahan or Mahaan may refer to: * Mahan (name) * Mahan confederacy, chiefdoms in ancient Korea * Mahan, Iran, a city in Kerman Province * Mahan District, an administrative subdivision of Kerman Province * Mahan Rural District, an administrative su ...

Language

Alexander Vovin suggests that

Japonic languages Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and ...

were spoken in large parts of southern Korea and Jeju before they were replaced by proto-Koreanic speakers. This replacement caused the Yayoi migration, dated 1,000 BC – 300 AD.

Archeology

Archaeologically, Jin is commonly identified with the Korean bronze dagger culture, which succeeded the Liaoning bronze dagger culture in the late first millennium BCE. The most abundant finds from this culture have been in southwestern Korea's

Chungcheong Chungcheong (''Chungcheong-do''; ) was one of the eight provinces of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. Chungcheong was located in the southwest of Korea. The provincial capital was located at Gongju, which had been the capital of the kingdom o ...

and

Jeolla Jeolla Province (, ) was one of the historical Eight Provinces of Korea during the Kingdom of Joseon in today Southwestern Korea. It consisted of the modern South Korean provinces of North Jeolla, South Jeolla and Gwangju Metropolitan City as w ...

regions. This suggests that Jin was based in the same area, which roughly coincides with the fragmentary historical evidence. Artifacts of the culture also show some similarities to the Yayoi people of

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

, Japan.

Legacy

Jin was succeeded by the

: Mahan, Jinhan and Byeonhan. Chinese historical text, ''

Records of the Three Kingdoms The ''Records or History of the Three Kingdoms'', also known by its Chinese name as the Sanguo Zhi, is a Chinese historical text which covers the history of the late Eastern Han dynasty (c. 184–220 AD) and the Three Kingdoms period (220� ...

'' says that Jinhan is the successor of the Jin state, while the ''

Book of the Later Han The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Lat ...

'' writes that Mahan, Jinhan and Byeonhan were all part of the former Jin state as well as 78 other tribes."韓有三種一曰馬韓二曰辰韓三曰弁辰 … 凡七十八國 … 皆古之辰國也"〈韓〉,《後漢書》 The name of Jin continued to be used in the name of the

Jinhan confederacy Jinhan () was a loose confederacy of chiefdoms that existed from around the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD in the southern Korean Peninsula, to the east of the Nakdong River valley, Gyeongsang Province. Jinhan was one of the Samhan (or ...

and in the name "Byeonjin," an alternate term for

Byeonhan Byeonhan (, ), also known as Byeonjin, (, ) was a loose confederacy of chiefdoms that existed from around the beginning of the Common Era to the 4th century in the southern Korean peninsula. Byeonhan was one of the Samhan (or "Three Hans"), al ...

. In addition, for some time the leader of

continued to call himself the "Jin king," asserting nominal overlordship over all of the Samhan tribes.

References

Citations

Bibliography

*Lee, C.-k. (1996). The bronze dagger culture of Liaoning province and the Korean peninsula. ''Korea Journal'' 36(4), 17-27

*Lee, K.-b. (1984). ''A new history of Korea.'' Tr. by E.W. Wagner & E.J. Schulz, based on the 1979 rev. ed. Seoul: Ilchogak. {{ISBN, 89-337-0204-0. Early Korean history Former countries in Korean history 4th-century BC establishments 2nd-century BC disestablishments