NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Gwanggaeto Stele

The stele of King Gwanggaeto of Goguryeo was erected in 414 by King Jangsu as a memorial to his deceased father. It is one of the major primary sources extant for the history of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, and supplies invaluable historical detail on his reign as well as insights into Goguryeo mythology. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (415x640, 291 KB) Summary Photo taken and permission granted by author, Sept. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (415x640, 291 KB) Summary Photo taken and permission granted by author, Sept. ... Hangul also refers to a word processing application widely used in Korea. ... It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ... The Revised Romanization of Korean (Korean: êµì–´ì˜ ë¡œë§ˆìž í‘œê¸°ë²•; åœ‹èªžì˜ ë¡œë§ˆå— è¡¨è¨˜æ³•) is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. ... McCune-Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced (a modified) McCune-Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000. ... Ancient Egyptian funerary stele Suenos Stone in Forres Scotland A stele (or stela) is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerary or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or livingâ€”inscribed, carved in relief (bas... King Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo (374-413, r. ... Goguryeo (traditional dates 37 BCE â€“ 668) was a kingdom in northern Korea and a large part of Manchuria. ... Events Ataulf, king of the Visigoths, marries Galla Placidia, the sister of Roman Emperor Honorius. ... King Jangsu of Goguryeo (Personal names: KoryÅn å·¨é€£ JÃ¹liÃ¡n, KÅryÅn é«˜ç’‰ GÄoliÃ¡n, 394~491), a king of Goguryeo (Chinese, Gaogouli) who ruled from 413 to 491. ... The Three Kingdoms of Korea were Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla, which dominated the Korean peninsula and parts of Manchuria for much of the 1st millennium CE. The Three Kingdoms period in Korea is usually considered to run from the 1st century BCE until Sillas triumph over Goguryeo in 668...

It stands near the tomb of Gwanggaeto in what is today the city of Ji'an along the Yalu River in northeast China, which was the capital of Goguryeo at that time. It is carved out of a single mass of granite, stands nearly 7 meters tall and has a girth of almost 4 meters. The Amnok River, or the Yalu River, is a river on the border between China and North Korea. ... Quarrying granite for the Mormon Temple, Utah Territory. ...

The stele has also become a focal point of varying national rivalries in northeast Asia manifested in the interpretations of the stele's inscription and the place of the kingdom of Goguryeo in modern historical narratives. An exact replica of the Gwanggaeto Stele stands on the grounds of Seoul's National War Museum, a testament to the stele's centrality in the History of Korea. East Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Joseon dynasty court architecture This article is about the history of Korea. ...

Rediscovery

The stele's location, in Ji'an in the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin, was key to its long neglect. Following the fall of Goguryeo in 668, and to a lesser extant the fall of its successor state Balhae in 926, the region drifted outside the sway of both Chinese and Korean geopolitics. Afterwards the region came under the control of numerous Manchurian states, notably the Jurchen and from the 16th century the Manchu. When the Manchu conquered China in 1644 and established their hegemony, they jealously guarded their ancestral homeland in Manchuria, prohibiting movement there by any non-Manchu peoples. This seclusion came to an end at the end of the 19th century, when the region was opened up for Han Chinese emigration. Manchuria thereafter became the coveted prize of vying regional powers, notably Russia and Japan for its rich natural resources and strategic location. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (430x640, 216 KB) Summary Taken by and permission granted by author, Sept. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (430x640, 216 KB) Summary Taken by and permission granted by author, Sept. ... Jilin (Chinese: å‰æž—; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chi-lin; Postal System Pinyin: Kirin), is a province of the Peoples Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. ... Goguryeo (traditional dates 37 BCE â€“ 668) was a kingdom in northern Korea and a large part of Manchuria. ... Alternate meaning: Bohai Sea Balhae (Korean) or Bohai (Chinese) was a kingdom in northeast Asia from AD 698 to 926, occupying parts of Manchuria, northern Korea, and Russian Far East. ... Events Bohai is conquered by the Khitan Births Emperor Murakami of Japan Deaths Categories: 926 ... Extent of Manchuria according to Definition 1 (dark red), Definition 3 (dark red + medium red) and Definition 4 (dark red + medium red + light red) Manchuria (Manchu: Manju, Simplified Chinese: æ»¡æ´²; Traditional Chinese: æ»¿æ´²; Pinyin: ) is a name given to a vast territorial region in northeast Asia. ... The Jurchens (Chinese: 女真, pinyin: nǚzhēn) were a Tungusic people who inhabited parts of Manchuria and northern Korea until the seventeenth century, when they became the Manchus. ... The Manchu (Manchu: Manju; Simplified Chinese: æ»¡æ—; Traditional Chinese: æ»¿æ—; Hanyu pinyin: ) are a Tungusic people who originated in Northeastern Asia, collectively known in English as Manchuria. ... // Events February to August - Explorer Abel Tasmans second expedition for the Dutch East India Company maps the north coast of Australia. ... The Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese: æ¼¢æœ; Simplified Chinese: æ±‰æœ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Han Chau; 206 BCâ€“AD 220) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. ...

The opening up of Manchuria also resulted in the influx of Chinese and Japanese scholars, the latter often supplemented by Japanese spies traveling incognito to espy the region's fortifications and natural layout, prescient of a future of increased international rivalry. In the late 1800s many new arrivals to the region around Ji'an began making use of the many bricks and baked tiles that could be found in the region to build new dwellings. The curious inscriptions on some of these tiles soon reached the ears of Chinese scholars and epigraphers. Many were found to bear an inscription in ancient Chinese script reading: Epigraphy (Greek, ÎµÏ€Î¹Î³ÏÎ±Ï†Î® - written upon) is the study of inscriptions engraved into stone or other permanent materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them. ...

"May the mausoleum of the Great King be secure like a mountain and firm like a peak."

It was around 1875 that an amateur Chinese epigrapher Guan Yueshan, scrounging for more samples of such tiles around Ji'an, discovered the mammoth stone stele of Gwanggaeto obscured under centuries of mud and overgrowth. 1875 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

The clearing away of the stele's face invariably led to the damaging of its engraved text. Almost every inch of the stele's four sides were found be covered with Chinese characters (nearly 1800 in total), each about the size of a grown man's hand. The discovery soon attracted scholars from Japan, Russia, and France. In 1883 a young Japanese officer named Sakō Kageaki traveling in the guise of an itinerant Buddhist monk arrived in Ji'an. Sakō had been ordered from his last post in Beijing to proceed back to Japan via Manchuria and to make detailed observations there of the region's layout. It was while traveling through Liaoning that he apparently heard of the stele's recent discovery and managed to procure an ink rubbing of the stele's face to carry back to his homeland. It was scholars in Japan who were to make the first detailed analysis of the stele's ancient text. 1883 (MDCCCLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

However, the authenticity of the rubbed copy by Sako was questioned by a South Korean scholar claiming that Sako intentionaly damaged the stele to match the text with an old Japanese history book which says that Japan had its presence in the Korean peninsula in the 4th century, rather than Korea did so in Japan, which many Koreans believe. This story of damaged stele is widely believed in Korea.

As the study continued, there found several rubbed copies made by Chinese people before Sako. Now most Japanese and Chinese scholars reject the damaged stele story based on the study of the stele itself and other previously-made rubbed copies by Chinese people.

Debate over an ancient message

It soon became clear that the stele was dedicated to king Gwanggaeto of Goguryeo, who reigned 391-413 CE. It also became clear the stele was raised as a grand memorial epitaph to the celebrated monarch, whose empty tomb indeed lay nearby. Though historians and epigraphers still grapple with the interpretation of portions of the text, the inscription's general layout is clear. One face provides a retelling of the foundation legend of Goguryeo. Another provides terms for the maintenance of Gwanggaeto's tomb in perpetuity. It is the rest of the inscription, which provides a synopsis of Gwanggaeto's reign and his numerous martial accomplishments that is rife with the most controversy. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (960x1280, 410 KB) Summary Photograph of rubbed copy of Gwanggaeto Stele taken at Kyushu National Museum Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (960x1280, 410 KB) Summary Photograph of rubbed copy of Gwanggaeto Stele taken at Kyushu National Museum Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU... King Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo (374-413, r. ...

Japanese scholars soon became most intrigued over a passage describing the king's military campaigns for the sinmyo 辛卯 year of 391 (sinmyo being a year designator in the sexagenary cycle that characterizes the traditional Sino-oriented East Asian calendar). This most controversial portion of the stele's narrative has come to be known simply as the "sin-myo passage". Japanese scholars were excited by their first translation of the above text, reading in it a confirmation of heretofore unsubstantiated and quasi-legendary claims of a 4th century Japanese presence on the Korean peninsula as first presented in the 8th century Japanese history Nihongi. The sinmyo passage as far as it is definitively legible reads thus (with highly defaced or unreadable characters designated by an X): The Chinese sexagenary cycle (å¹²æ”¯ pinyin: gÄnzhÄ«) is a cyclic numeral system of 60 combinations of the two basic cycles, the ten Heavenly Stems (åå¹²; shÃgÄn) and the twelve Earthly Branches (åäºŒæ”¯; shÃÃ¨rzhÄ«). These have been traditionally used as a means of numbering the years, not only in China... Nihonshoki (日本書紀) is the second oldest history book about the ancient history of Japan. ...

Most Japanese scholars, and most Chinese scholars too, interpreted the passage (brackets designating a "reading into" the text where the character is not legible):

However, many Korean scholars reject this interpretation of Japan's conquering Baekje and Silla. They claim that several words should be added when interpreting the passage and that the passage should be interpreted that Goguryeo, not Japan, crossed the sea and defeated Baekje. Ideogram for Wa, formed by the radical for person (on the left), and the phonetic element Wa on the right (itself represented by a rice plant in the upper part and a woman in the lower part). ... Baekje was a kingdom that existed in southwestern Korea from 18 BCE to 660 CE. Together with Goguryeo and Silla, Baekje is known as one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. ...

As national pride works in the debate, it is currently almost impossible to have a same historical view in this topic among the Korean and Japanese. And this disagreement affected the project of writing a common history textbook among Korea, Japan and China.

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Contents

Rediscovery

Debate over an ancient message

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See also