• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.4-19
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• 2012

There remain many royal tombs of the Goryeo Dynasty in Gaeseong and Ganghwa. During the Goryeo Dynasty, these royal tombs were taken over tradition of tomb construction style from previous generation, and they completed their own inventive style. Furthermore they handed down those style to the Joseon Dynasty. The area of tomb was divided into 3 or 4 steps, and stone figures and T-shaped houses for sacrifice were arranged on each steps. It was the stone chamber of lateral opening style which had an entrance to southward, and it was formed as a rectangular box-shaped with a pile of stone walls and a flat ceiling. There was a coffin stand in the middle of floor, and traditional bricks were around them. The wall side and ceiling had been whitewashed and painted pictures. These are general characteristics for the tomb construction style of the Goryeo Dynasty. By the way, we can notice a number of features except those general things with inspection in detail. In early days, we confirmed 1step-parallel fulcrum ceiling, coffin stand of all in one stone, bier of burial artifact, and mural of plant material as a set, but they were changed as flat ceiling, Red-stone wall with rectangular stone, coffin stand set as stone pillar through the period of transitional form as of in the late 12th century. In case of several royal tombs, the fragments of king's epitaph which were confirmed from tombs could be defined owners clearly, and there were considerable timing difference between the large numbers of celadons which were excavated with the fragments of king's epitaph and recording chronologically of stone chamber structure. The reason for timing difference is that posterity artifacts were buried through repairing courses by occasion of destruction caused by robbing of the royal tombs. Meanwhile I inferred the existing hypothesis about owners of royal tombs and autonym ones in comparison the burial spot direction of hypothesis ones and outcomes of excavation. Therethrough, some hypothesis about owners of royal tombs such as Myung-neung which was assumed as tomb of the King Choongmok were not correct.