Goguryeo Monument, Chungju

The Jungwon Goguryeo Monument is a stele in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, South Korea, dating from the late 5th century. It is the only stele of the state of Goguryeo found on the Korean peninsula.[1]

Jungwon Goguryeo Stele
Map
37°01′42″N 127°50′55″E / 37.02823°N 127.84862°E / 37.02823; 127.84862
LocationChungju, South Korea
Typestele
Materialstone
Width55 cm (22 in)
Height2.03 m (6 ft 8 in)
Completion datelate 5th century
Korean name
Hangul
충주 고구려비
Hanja
忠州 高句麗碑
Revised RomanizationChungju Goguryeobi
McCune–ReischauerCh'ungju Koguryŏbi

Description

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The stele was unearthed in the village of Ipseok, near Chungju, in 1979.[2] It was originally inscribed on all four sides, but has been heavily eroded over the centuries, and now only part of the front and one side are legible.[1] The stele celebrates the construction of a series of Goguryeo forts along the Namhan River after its conquest of central Korea under king Jangsu.[1] It is rhetorically similar to the Gwanggaeto Stele, mentioning the hierarchy of Goguryeo officials, but refers to Silla as a "younger brother".[1][3] It was designated as a National Treasure (no. 205) in 1981.[1]

The inscription is written in literary Chinese, but contains some instances of subject–object–verb word order (as found in Korean and several other northeast Asian languages) instead of the subject–verb–object order found in Chinese.[2][4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e CHA (2006).
  2. ^ a b Whitman (2015), p. 424.
  3. ^ Kim (2012), pp. 14–15.
  4. ^ Nam (2012), pp. 55–56.
  • Goguryeobi Monument, Chungju, Cultural Heritage Administration, 2006.
  • Kim, Hung-gyu (2012), "Defenders and Conquerors: The Rhetoric of Royal Power in Korean Inscriptions from the Fifth to Seventh Centuries", Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 1 (2).
  • Nam, Pung-hyun (2012), "Old Korean", in Tranter, Nicolas (ed.), The Languages of Japan and Korea, Routledge, pp. 41–72, ISBN 978-0-415-46287-7.
  • Whitman, John (2015), "Old Korean" (PDF), in Brown, Lucien; Yeon, Jaehoon (eds.), The Handbook of Korean Linguistics, Wiley, pp. 421–438, ISBN 978-1-118-35491-9.