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DOCUMENTED OUTFIT · CLOSED CONTEXT OR CONTROLLED COMPARISON

Daegok-ri grave goods

Daegok-ri: five daggers under a coffin

A single burial gathered daggers, tools, mirrors and ritual bronze bells.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

Image 1 of 2 · Main image
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction; not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

Image 1 of 2 · Main image
Contextual image of the Fine-line Mirror of Daegok-ri for the Daegok-ri Grave Goods set
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction; not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

History and context

Two additional daggers appeared under the unexcavated area of the coffin; the assemblage belongs to an individual burial.

Representative objects: Five Korean-type daggers, axe, chisel, two fine-line mirrors and four ritual bells.

Evidence and interpretation

Documented fact: Two additional daggers appeared under the unexcavated area of the coffin; the assemblage belongs to an individual burial. Mandatory caution: Political or ritual authority is inferred from rarity and concentration. The relationship with Gojoseon is regional: it is not a tomb of a named king.

Catalogue facts

Date
from c. 5th century BCE
Location
Hwasun · South Jeolla, Korea
Complex
Five Korean-type daggers, axe, chisel, two fine-line mirrors and four ritual bells
Level
Trousseau or funerary context with visible caution

A SHARED TOPIC, DIFFERENT MOMENTS

Objects connected through time

Follow a topic across the collections. A shared tag is a way to compare objects, not proof that one culture influenced another.

The order uses the midpoint of each approximate date range; ranges can overlap. Spacing does not represent elapsed time. Swipe, scroll or use the arrows. With the sequence focused, use ← / →, Home or End.

THE CURRENT OBJECT

Its date is not sufficiently established to place it on the timeline. We keep it here, separate from the dated objects.

Bronze23 dated objects

1 / 23In the centre: Jue

Also connected, without a comparable date (5)

These objects are not placed after the others: an unknown date does not mean a more recent object.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

From an irrigation canal to an excavation

The first bronzes of Daegok-ri appeared in 1971 when local residents were working on an irrigation canal. The pieces passed to a street vendor who recognised their antiquity and ended up informing the provincial authorities. The excavation arrived four months later and documented a stepped pit, stones and a coffin made from a tree trunk. This trajectory matters for interpreting the set: the discovery was not a planned archaeological recovery from the outset. Later research had to reconstruct spatial relationships and revisit areas left unexplored by the initial intervention.

Location and territory

Physical world map with routes of human evolutionPresent-day world coastline from Natural Earth in an equirectangular projection. The overlaid markers let you explore each milestone.Map base: Natural Earth 1:110m · public domain · present-day reference coastline

LOCATED SITE

Daegok-ri/Hwasun · KoreaMegalithic landscape marker.

Where it is held

National Museum of Korea

Item or group in the record · Documented collection

The holding institution is documented; public display may change. Check its official record before visiting.

Sources and references

Consult the institutional funeral context

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