Ancient Tombs of Goguryeo

Ancient Tombs of Goguryeo provide precious historical and archaeological material for the study of ancient Korean history. Although they are presumed to have been built throughout the vast territory of Goguryeo, most of them have been found near the Yalu River, the administrative center of early Goguryeo, and the Daedong river, which served as the center in late Goguryeo. Tens of thousands of Goguryeo tombs are scattered around China’s Jian Prefecture, which served as Goguryeo’s capital until the 5th century.

Features
Goguryeo tombs are divided into two types, according to the shape ands form. One is the stone-mound tomb, built by piling up stones, and the other is the earthen tombs, covered with earth. Stone-mound tombs first appeared around from 3rd to 2nd century BC, and earthen tombs appeared around 4th century BC.

Most stone-mound tombs are found along the middle reaches of the Yalu River and along its tributaries, the Hun and Dongno Rivers. Among many theories that have been made about the origin these stone tombs, the most convincing one is that it originated from the stone-mound tombs built during the Gojoseon period on the Liaodong peninsula. Goguryeo stone-mound tombs are divided into numerous specific types according to construction methods and raw materials. First, they are divided into tombs with stylobates and those without, and the former include those with simple stylobates and those with stair-shaped stylobates, which are again divided into stone-lined tombs and stone-chamber tombs. The difference in style reflects the changes in construction over time or the social status of the owner of each specific tomb.

Stone-mound tombs, which appeared the earliest, were made simply by spreading gravels in a square shape, putting the coffin on them and covering it with gravels again, which first started to appear around 3rd century BC before Goguryeo became an official state. Tombs with stylobates were built by putting wide stone plate on flattened ground and are assumed to have first appeared since the 1st to 2nd century. They are found not only on the river shores but also at the foot of mountains, and the materials include rough, unpolished stones as well as gravel. And the tombs with stair-shaped stylobates are thought to be built from the 3rd to 5th century by building a stone wall on the stylobate and piling up stones again around the stone wall in the shape of another stylobate, then covering it with stones again. That way, the structure takes on the form of a flight of stairs with the first stylobate as the first step, the stone wall above it as the second step and the stones covering it as the top step.

Some huge step pyramid-type stone-mound tombs such as the Janggun Tomb have not three but as many as seven steps and the body is buried closer to the top stone pile, not inside the second stair. Most Goguryeo stone-mound tombs have the bodies buried in the higher sections, not under or on the ground. In the original stone-mound tombs, the bodies were buried at the top, but since the appearance of stone-mound tombs with stair-shaped stylobates, the bodies were inserted through horizontal passage. Huge step pyramid-type stone-mound tombs, including the Janggun tomb and the Taewang Tomb, have cave-like stone chambers with an entrance passage.

In earlier times, most tombs were made by using natural stones including gravel and rough mountain stones, but, later, the step pyramid-type stone-mound tombs were built using refined stones. Most tombs made with refined tombs are presumed to have been built for kings or noble people, because construction of these huge tombs took more manpower and materials than any other type of tombs. The development and specification of these stone-mound tombs’ construction methods, which were applied strictly according to the social status of the tomb’s owner, reflect the widened gap between classes in the Goguryeo society.

First appeared in Pyeongyang around the 4th century, earthen tombs became the preval!ent type of tomb in late Goguryeo, especially for the ruling class throughout the Jian and Pyeongyang area. What is peculiar about earthen tombs is that the main burial space, the stone chamber, with an entrance passage on, or halfway under the ground, was covered with earth, not stones. This was a huge departure from the construction method of existing stone-mound tombs. There are many theories about how earthen tombs were developed in the first place. The North Korean academia accept as proven fact that they were developed directly from stone-mound tombs, but the theory that it was influenced by stone-chamber tombs from the Han dynasty in the Liaodong area or by brick chamber tombs of Chinese Lelang (Nangnang) cannot be ignored because the earthen tomb was a more advanced form of burial than a stone-mound tomb.

It also cannot be put aside that tombs with murals of strong Chinese influence, such as Anak Tomb No. 3, was built by the construction method of earthen tomb with stone chambers found in the Pyeongyang area, which was part of Goguryeo’s territory in mid 4th century. Various types of earthen tombs derived from the time when stone-mound tombs and earthen tombs co-existed for over a century after the 4th century. For example, earthen tombs with stone chambers were built by surrounding the stylobate with stones, as in existing stone-mound tombs, and covering it with earth. On the contrary, rock-cut shaft tombs with stone chambers were made by constructing a stone-chamber on the ground, as in earthen tombs, and covering it with stones. And there was also hybrid forms of stone-chamber tombs that were covered with not only earth but also stones.

This hybridity, however, was transitional, and appeared only for a short time in the course of the localization of earthen tombs with stone chambers in the Goguryeo society, and most tombs were constructed as earthen tombs with stone chambers in late Goguryeo. Earthen tombs vary in size; in the number of stone chambers (the room where the body is laid); in the material with which the stone chambers were made; in the structure of the stone chambers’ ceilings; and whether there are murals or not. The difference reflect, in part, the various development stages of the earthen tombs, but what mostly set apart one style of tomb with another was the social status of the owner.

To facilitate understanding, earthen tombs can be divided into two groups; small ones and large ones. First, most small earthen tombs consist of a single chamber halfway under the ground, which were made by piling layers of cracked stones and oddly shaped stones or setting up unrefined stone plates as the walls. Ceilings were mostly just one stone plate or several plates put on the stone chambers, which have little interior decoration like murals. Meanwhile, most large earthen tombs have only one large stone chamber, but there are some tombs with two stone chambers in the front and the back or on the sides and some tombs have three stone chambers. The walls of a stone chamber were built by piling cracked stones and washing them with lime or setting up finely sanded long pedestal stones and decorated them with murals as a final touch. Although many stone chambers on the sides with flat ceilings were found, other types of ceilings were popular at that time, such as groining ceilings formed by the walls tilting inside as they go upwards, narrowing the width of the ceiling, and the ‘lanternendecke (or mojulim in Korean)’ type of triangular corner truss-bracket ceiling construction.

Most large earthen tombs have coffin fulcrums inside the stone chamber and drain facilities under the stone chamber, and extra-large tombs for the royalty are surrounded by polished stones laid around the tombs. This was the outline of transformation process of Goguryeo tombs, whose characteristics can be summed up as follows. First, both stone-mound tombs and earthen tombs take the shape of a square supported by pedestals, or the shape of a topless pyramid, which is a big difference from Silla’s stone-lined tombs with stone mounds, or Gaya’s pitted stone-lined tombs with round mounds.

Second, in the earthen tombs, the main chamber, in which the body was laid, was positioned above the ground level, which is characteristic of stone-mound tombs that have a stone plate covering the coffin and the stone room at the top. Tombs of Silla and Gaya have the main chamber under the ground, except for stone-lined tombs with stone mound. Lastly, the most peculiar characteristic of Goguryeo tombs is that many of them have walls with murals.

Ninety tombs with murals have been found so far, including 65 tombs in Ilwon, Pyeongyang, and 23 tombs in Jian. And all of them are earthen tombs with stone chambers, except for Usanha Tomb No. 41, which is a stone-mound tomb. This tells us that murals in Goguryeo’s tombs are believed to have begun appearing around the 4th century and were adopted from Chinese stone-chamber tombs in Liaodong, as well as earthen tombs. What was depicted on these murals varies according to the timeline. In their early stage, the murals portrayed the life of the buried when he or she was alive, including portraits and paintings of processions and salutations. Anak Tomb No. 3 from the 4th century and Deokheung-ni Tomb from the 5th century are the typical tombs with murals, which reflect that the people wanted to have in their afterlife the wealth and happiness they enjoyed while they were alive. In the 5th century, as Buddhism became preval!ent among the ruling class of Goguryeo, the Buddhist notion of afterlife started to appear on the murals, in the form of yeonhwa hwasaeng do (painting of man being born from a lotus) and yebuldo (painting of a rite to Buddha) along with portraits and genre paintings. Sometimes only lotus flowers were depicted on the murals without any portraits or genre paintings.

Muyong Tomb (Tomb of the Dancers) from the 5th century, Jangcheon Tomb No. 1 from the mid-5th century and Sanyeonhwa Tomb are all tombs with such murals. In the 6th century, as Taoism started to spread, sasindo (painting of the four deities), featuring the blue dragon, the white tiger, the red phoenix and the black hyeonmu (imaginary creature, half-turtle-half-snake) that represent the four gods guarding the four directions, were often painted on murals. This trend lasted until Goguryeo’s fall in the late 7th century. Sasindo have been found in many earthen tombs from late Goguryeo, including the Jinpa-ri Tomb No. 1 in Junghwa-gun and Sasin Tomb in Jian.

Goguryeo’s tomb murals vividly depict how the spiritual world of the Goguryeo people evolved, providing import!ant research materials that can help make up for the lack of historical records on Goguyeo. Meanwhile, Goguryeo’s tomb murals influenced the tomb styles of Baekje, Silla and Gaya in the south, both directly and indirectly, as murals with lotus paintings have been found in the Songsan-ni Tomb No. 6 in Gongju, the Neungsan-ni Tomb No. 1 in Buyeo, Eosukjisulgan Tomb in Sunheung, the Eumnae-ri Tomb and the Goa-dong Tomb in Goryeong.

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