Haman History
Today one of the teachers at Chilwon Elementary School, a really nice guy by the name of Jeh Hyawn Yung, came to the school for the express purpose of taking me on a little sight-seeing trip. What a guy!
If I understand it properly, Korea was once two kingdoms, Shilla, and Arakaya. The ancient Arakaya kingdom, which goes back to 10,000 B.C. was located in what is now Haman-gun. A "gun" (pronounced goon) is a village or town with a population of less than 50,000.
The district of Haman is a basin, low in the south and high in the north; it is surrounded by the Nakdong river in the north, but the Nam river in the south and mountains higher than 600m in the south and east. The mounds you see in the the pictures are tombs. These groups of tombs are located in Gaya-cup, which was the capital of Arakaya (the kingdom of Anla) and they vividly demonstrate the resplendent Kaya culture.
Most of the tombs are dispersed on a north-south axis of the 60m main ridgline and on eight small ridgelines stretching to the west. More than 100 large tombs, believed to be the tombs of the Arakaya Kings, are in rows in the higher area, and situated below, are more than 1000 small and medium size tombs.
After walking up a really, really steep set of seemingly interminable stairs we arrived at the central mound/tomb. It didn't look like anything special. I mean it's a mound. But, to think of the history, that people living millenia ago lived, thrived and mourned on that land made me pause.
From up where we were the view was magnificent!
We walked around a bit and then drove to the nearby Haman museum to see some artifacts recovered from some of the tombs. There were arrow heads, earthenware jars, armour, horse saddles with gold ornamentation, and many, many other vessels dating from the 1st century to the 6th. I really love this stuff!
As we descended from the highest tomb we came to a buddhist temple - the first one I've been to since coming here.
This one is only 50 years old or so, but perhaps next week, Jeh Hyawn Yung who wants to be my official guide to Korea, will take me to an anicient temple not from from Chilwon.
Over the next months I plan to visit virtually every major city and site in this country. I'm hoping to do some kind of tour in the summer. I'll have two weeks off. I'll take one doing a sort of whirlwind tour of Korea and the other on Cheju Island. Well, that's the plan.
On Friday I'm hoping to meet with the other Haman County ESL teachers in Masan. It'll be nice to catch up, maybe get some cultural tips, teaching ideas and just spend a little time with some nice people with who I can more easily communicate.
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