• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.34-51
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• 2012

Jangneung (the Royal Tomb of King Danjong) and Sareung (the Royal Tomb of Queen Jeongsun) are simple in their design and layout. Not only are the sizes of the stone statues small, but stone soldiers are not installed at all despite the fact that Danjong at one point served as the King of Joseon. Moreover, only a pair of seoksu (stone animal) is installed for each Tomb. These royal tombs were originally made as common tombs and later upgraded as Royal Tombs when Danjong's royal status was reinstated posthumously in 1698. Thus, in comparison to royal tombs in general, the scale of these tombs is by far modest. For this paper, archival records and other literature for the burial upgrade process and the stone sculptures are examined; also, the stone sculptures have been examined and measured on-site, and they have been compared and analyzed based on the data thus obtained. Furthermore, this paper traces the historical context of the period in which the simplification of the stone sculptures took place for Jangneung and Sareung. The paper argues that the cause of the modest scale lies not so much in the fact that King Danjong had been dethroned as a commoner, but in the cataclysmic famine and epidemic that swept the country during the time when the two royal tombs were upgraded as such.