Gyeongju, The Heart of Korean Culture

책 소개

Prefacet Gyeongju, where Korea’s most cultural sites are situated, is known to be the most popular destination for foreign tourists next to the capital, Seoul. Gyeongju is a meaningful place not only for Korean people but for the international community. The city was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Silla (57 B.C.?936 A.D.), which lasted for about 1,000 years, the longest rule in Korean history. Due to the long period of its history, there are innumerable cultural remains all over the city. Buddhist vestiges make up the largest portion, among other things, since Buddhism was the state religion of Silla. For instance, both Seokguram Grotto, the one and only artificial grotto in the world, and marvelous Bulguksa temple are registered on the World Heritage List. UNESCO divided the entire city into five districts and designated it as a cultural heritage site and the city’s more than half of historic remains are Buddhist relics. The fact that the whole city is recognized as World Heritage site proves an acknowledged status of Silla in the world. This is also related to an argument than Gyeongju was included into the world’s four most cosmopolitan cities with Constantinople, Baghdad and Changan(Xian), which implies its high stature. Despite the city’s greatness, there are no in-depth books written in English that discuss historic sites and cultural relics of Gyeongju yet. It is so regrettable, that I decided to publish books in both Korean and English. This is an English version. Here, I mainly focus on cultural remains inscribed on the World Heritage List, rather than covering everything with regard to Gyeongju. In addition, compared to the Korean edition, I revised contents that require too much historical background for foreigners to understand. Nonetheless, as the book fully covers the important places and cultural remains in Gyeongju, it will satisfy your curiosity. Needless to say, I cannot imagine publishing this book without support from many people. I wish to thank them for their significant contributions here. Above all, my greatest gratitude goes to Hanul publishing company. Humanities books are generally not very helpful in bringing in profit, not to mention those written in English. I once again offer my sincere thanks to Jongsu Kim, the chairman of Hanul, for his decision to publish the book under this circumstance. I am also very grateful to Mr. Shin-Bae Kim, CEO of SK C&C, for his financial assistance to have this book translated into English. In Korea, many companies are not willing to provide the generous support for humanities research that was given by him. As he has refined knowledge in culture, he gladly offered me this opportunity. Moreover, I would like to express gratitude to my former student, Sandra Choe who translated the entire text of this book. We could produce a high-quality translation of the book through deep discussions. I also thank my student, Nayoung Jung, for helping me translate some details. I tried to show many photos in this book for readers. This was available thanks to help from many people. First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Guseog Kim, the president of Gyeongju Namsan Institute, among them. He made a valuable contribution not only to offering a large number of wonderful photographs of Mt. Nam, but also to proofreading the manuscript. Also, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to Ms. Bojeong Park, photographer Seyoon Oh who provided pictures of Seokguram grotto, and Dr. Byunghoon Min, the head of Asian Art department at National Museum of Korea. My students, Ms. Hyena Song and Seungjin Seo, deserve my sincere thanks for helping me in many ways. Especially Ms. Song helped in the collection of materials and drawing images, and Ms. Seo offered photos of many historic sites including Anapji in Gyeongju. Last but not least, I owe special thanks to staffs in the editorial department of Hanul for their utmost efforts to publish this book. Without these efforts from Hanul, this…

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