Gaya Tumuli(2019)

The Gaya Tumuli is a serial property consisting of seven tumuli sites located in the southern reaches of the Korean Peninsula. It is comprised of the Gimhae Daeseong-dong Tumuli, Haman Marisan Tumuli, Hapcheon Okjeon Tumuli, Goryeong Jisan-dong Tumuli, Goseong Songhak-dong Tumuli, Changnyeong Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli and Namwon Yugok-ri and Durak-ri Tumuli.

The Republic of Korea is the home to roughly 780 tumuli from the ancient federation known as Gaya that existed in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The individual tombs identified within these sites number in the hundreds of thousands. The Gaya confederacy polities coexisted loosely and never merged into a centralized state. Each constructed tumuli on a range of scales in the heart of the areas under their respective control. These tumuli began to emerge around the start of the Common Era and continued to be built until the fall of Dae Gaya, a leading power in the later period of the Gaya confederacy, in 562.

The seven selected tumuli are located at the heart of respective Gaya polities, all of which were closely interconnected and exchanged influences through a network of trade routes established in the sea, rivers, and on land. The artifacts of foreign origin among them attest to the international relations in which Gaya was involved at the time. The Gaya Tumuli serves as crucial archaeological evidence of Gaya culture.

he Gaya Tumuli testifies to the society of Gaya and its structural transformations through its tomb construction techniques and the grave goods excavated from within. It also presents the changes of the locations and settings in which the tombs were situated and the forms in which they were constructed over different time periods. A description of this follows.

The first and second centuries, when tombs started to be built in clusters, were characterized by the construction of wooden coffin tombs. Tombs from this period shed light on the process of the formation of individual polities by the fact that they were built closely together as a group, as well as through the types of grave artifacts they contained. Graves for rulers and for the ruled were not constructed separately, but grouped together within a single area. For tombs for the ruling classes, a separate hole was additionally made under the coffin to bury grave goods.

During the third–fourth centuries, the wooden chamber tomb became prevalent. At the time, the practice of building central graveyards emerged among Gaya polities. Locations, forms, construction methods, and burial goods associated with the tombs from this period testify that tombs of royal status emerged at this time. The tombs for rulers in the form of wooden chamber were placed high up on hills at a certain distance from the others, and came to be placed within different landscapes from those for their subjects. In the large wooden chamber tombs for rulers, human sacrifices were made and buried along with a diverse range of artifacts obtained through international trade. Auxiliary coffins were prepared only for grave goods and placed alongside the main coffin holding the occupant, human sacrifices, and burial accessories. This clearly demonstrates that a ruling class had been established at this time. An example in this regard is the Gimhae Daeseong-dong Tumuli which clearly evinces Geumgwan Gaya’s emergence as a leading power in the Gaya confederacy.

In the fifth century, the period when the central graveyard building practice further disseminated in the Gaya confederacy, stone-lined tombs began to be built. Tombs from this period embody the development of Gaya polities through their locations and settings, construction methods, use of burial space, and buried goods. The fifth century provided a critical period in the history of tomb construction methods with the emergence of stone-lined tombs topped by a high-rising mound. Construction of high-mounded tombs was a universal practice across the Gaya confederacy, but the details of the methods varied by polity. A tomb for a ruler made in the high-mound form was positioned on the peak of a hill or mountain and smaller tombs were set around it to denote the hierarchical relationship between them. The interior space of a tomb was generally divided into three sections, respectively for grave goods, the body of the occupant, and a combination of human sacrifices and grave goods. The tomb occupant was interred with objects symbolizing his or her social status, such as luxurious accessories and weaponry, and human sacrifices were placed with everyday objects. The appearance of the burial mounds, use of burial space, and varieties of grave artifacts in the tombs from this period demonstrate that a process of increasing separation took place among the ruling classes and they became classified into higher and lower ruling groups.

Into the later part of the fifth century, a graveyard for people of royal status in Goryeong Jisan-dong Tumuli was distinctively separated and the scale of human sacrifice expanded. The construction of this type of ultra-large tomb in the Jisan-dong Tumuli testifies to the emergence of Dae Gaya as a central power in the Gaya confederacy at the time. It also indicates that efforts were underway in Gaya to advance toward forming a centralized state. However, military pressure from stronger neighbors and internal disintegration within Gaya society impeded such ambitions. In the mid-sixth century, the Gaya confederacy fell, putting an end to tomb construction.