• Bangmulgwan gwa yeongu (The National Museum of Korea Journal)
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• v.1
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• pp.198-233
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• 2024

On April 28, 2021, the bereaved family of the late Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-Hee made a gift of 9,797 items (in 21,693 pieces) from his estate to the National Museum of Korea. Among the donated cultural heritage are 535 mirrors (in 555 pieces), which constitute the largest proportion of the metal art in the donation. This article discusses a group of mirrors from the donated collection dating to the Western Han and Samhan periods - a total of twenty-three mirrors (twenty-two from the Western Han Dynasty and one from the Samhan Period) - that are presumed to have been found together. However, there is no known case of such a large number of Western Han mirrors being discovered together, raising doubts about whether this group should be considered to have been buried all together. Furthermore, the presence of a Samhan mirror among the group suggests that this one at least must have been found together with a Western Han mirror. Additionally, considering that early Samhan mirrors have been found in the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula, particularly in the region occupied by Jinhan Confederacy (in present-day Gyeongsangbuk-do Province), it is likely that these mirrors were also excavated somewhere in Jinhan. Also, -18 is a repurposed imitation of a jade eye cover. No similar examples have been found in Korea, China, or Japan, but there are instances of bronze mirrors being used as substitutes for jade burial ornaments that have been identified in China. The repurposing and use of Western Han mirrors as circular ornaments have been observed only in Jinhan in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, indicating that this item was likely used in Jinhan as well. Further research and discoveries are anticipated in the future.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.54-73
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• 2012

In this article, we examined the patterns of activities of the Sarmathians though in a humble measure, with a focus on the regions where the Sarmathian sheaths spreaded. One of the main weapons the mounted nomads like the Scythias, the Sarmathians, and the Alans used at war was a spear. Though complementary, a sword was the most convenient and appropriate weapon when fighting at a near distance, fallen from the horse to the ground. The Sarmathian swords continued the tradition of the Akinakes which the Scythias or the Persians used, but those of the Sarmathians showed some advances in terms of the easiness with which a sword was drawn out from a sheath, and the way the sheaths were worn to parts of a human body. It turns out that the Sarmathian sheaths, which were designed for the people to draw swords easily, having the sheaths attached to thighs through 4 bumps, spread extensively from Pazyryk, Altai, to South Siberia, Bactria, Parthia and Rome. The most noteworthy out of all the Sarmathian sheaths were the ones that were excavated from the 4th tomb in Tillatepe, Afghanistan which belonged to the region of Bactria. The owner of the fourth tomb of Tilla-tepe whose region was under the control of Kushan Dynasty at that time, was buried wearing Sarmathian swords, and regarded as a big shot in the region of Bactria which was also under the governance of Kushan Dynasty. The fact that the owner of the tomb wore two swords suggests that there had been active exchange between Bactria and Sarmathia. It seemed that the reason why the Sarmathians could play an important role in the exchange between the East and the West might have something to do with their role of supplying Chinese goods to Silk Road. That's why we are interested in how the copper mirrors of Han Dynasty, decoration beads like melon-type beads, crystal beads and goldring articulated beads, and the artifacts of South China which produced silks were excavated in the northern steppe route where the Sarmathians actively worked. Our study have established that the eye beads discovered in Sarmathian tomb estimated to have been built around the 1st century B.C. were reprocessed in China, and then imported to Sarmathia again. We should note the Huns as a medium between the Sarmathians and the South China which were far apart from each other. Thus gold-ring articulated beads which were spread out mainly across the South China has been discovered in the Huns' remains. On the other hand, between 2nd century B.C. and 2nd century A.D. which were main periods of the Sarmathians, it was considered that the traffic route connecting the steppe route and the South China might be West-South silk road which started from Yunnan, passed through Myanmar, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and then went into the east of India. The West-south Silk road is presumed to have been used by nomadic tribes who wanted to get the goods from South China before the Oasis route was activated by the Han Dynasty's policy of managing the countries bordering on Western China.