The Jungwon Goguryeo Monument is a stele in
Chungju
Chungju () is a Administrative divisions of South Korea, city in North Chungcheong Province, South Korea. Uamsan is a mountain located within the outskirts of the city.
The city is famous for the annual martial arts festival held in October. Al ...
,
North Chungcheong Province
North Chungcheong Province (), also known as Chungbuk, is a province of South Korea. North Chungcheong has a population of 1,578,934 (2014) and has a geographic area of located in the Hoseo region on the south-centre of the Korean Peninsula. No ...
,
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
, dating from the late 5th century.
It is the only stele of the state of
Goguryeo
Goguryeo (37 BC – 668 AD) (; ; Old Korean: Guryeo) also later known as Goryeo (; ; Middle Korean: 고ᇢ롕〮, ''kwòwlyéy''), was a Korean kingdom which was located on the northern and central parts of the Korea, Korean Peninsula an ...
found on the Korean peninsula.
Description
The stele was unearthed in the village of Ipseok, near Chungju, in 1979.
It was originally inscribed on all four sides, but has been heavily eroded over the centuries, and now only part of the front and one side are legible.
The stele celebrates the construction of a series of Goguryeo forts along the
Namhan River
Namhan River (Namhan-gang, South Han River) is a major and second-longest river of South Korea. It is a tributary of the Han River. It is famous for clean and clear water, especially in its upper reaches and tributaries, and serves as a source o ...
after its conquest of central Korea under king
Jangsu
Jangsu County () is a county in Jeonbuk State, South Korea. It is well known for Jangsu-Galbi.
Climate
Twin towns – sister cities
Jangsu is twinned with:
* Anyang, South Korea (1996)
* Hapcheon, South Korea (1999)
* Jinhae-gu, South ...
.
It is rhetorically similar to the
Gwanggaeto Stele
The Gwanggaeto Stele is a memorial stele for the tomb of Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo, erected in 414 by his son Jangsu. This monument to Gwanggaeto the Great is the largest engraved stele in the world. It stands near the tomb of Gwanggaeto ...
, mentioning the hierarchy of Goguryeo officials, but refers to
Silla
Silla (; Old Korean: wikt:徐羅伐#Old Korean, 徐羅伐, Yale romanization of Korean, Yale: Syerapel, Revised Romanization of Korean, RR: ''Seorabeol''; International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: ) was a Korean kingdom that existed between ...
as a "younger brother".
It was designated as a
National Treasure
A national treasure is a structure, artifact, object or cultural work that is officially or popularly recognized as having particular value to the nation, or representing the ideals of the nation. The term has also been applied to individuals or ...
(no. 205) in 1981.
The inscription is written in
literary Chinese
Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...
, but contains some instances of
subject–object–verb word order (as found in Korean and several other northeast Asian languages) instead of the
subject–verb–object order found in Chinese.
References
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Monuments and memorials in South Korea
Chungju
National Treasures of South Korea
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