The Study on the Wooden Coffin Tombs in Tap-dong, Gyeongju and What the Finds Disclose Regarding the Characteristics of the Deceased and their Roles in Foreign Relations
Authors:   Central Institute of Cultural Heritage, Yi Yang-Su 
Published: October 2022

The wooden coffin tombs at Tap-dong are the first tombs of outstanding elites to have ever found in downtown Gyeongju, the capital of Silla. This is also where Oreung(五陵) - the tomb of Park Hyeokgeose, who is the founding monarch of Silla - is located. The Tap-dong burial sites consist of 3 wooden coffin tombs dated in different periods, numbered 1 - 3, respectively.
There are hints from the digs at the Tap-dong site that: 1. the kind of wooden coffin tomb appeared around 57 BCE, exactly at the same time when Silla started off as a small city-state by the name of Saro-guk.
2. the bronze and iron artifacts and other ornaments from this site suggest that the ruling class of Saro-guk was the association of native Jin people and displaced people whose expansionist attitudes served militarily and socio-economically as intermediators between China and northern peoples and Silla, and even further Japan.
3. all of these findings could be archaeological evidence that the earlier historical records of the origin of Silla in Samguk Sagi proves plausible.
The three tombs at the Tap-dong site were built in three differentiated periods and occupied by three differentiated owners in terms of social status, but they all represented early phases of the emergence of a centralized monarchy at the heart of the capital of Silla, not in the neighboring place. The tombs were numbered 1 - 3 as they were found, and yet Tomb No. 3 is the oldest of the three, followed by Tomb No. 2. and Tomb No. 1 backwards chronologically.
Tomb No. 3 produced no distinguished prestige goods of bronze except some earthenware, by the chronological dating of which this tomb is presumed to have been built around 57 BCE. It marks the beginning of the construction of wooden coffin tombs in this area.
Tomb No. 2 can be thought of a prelude to a new political entity of Gyeongju beginning its journey to the Unified Kingdom. It is the first of a series of tombs where the Chinese bronze mirrors were deposited by those who ruled downtown Gyeongju in the late 1st century AD, about the same time as Tomb No. 38 at Joyang-dong, Gyeongju. Tomb No. 38 at Joyang-dong, however, produced 4 Chinese bronze mirrors and a fragment of a reprocessed Chinese bronze mirror, which means that the deceased as a stronger manager who boasted his financial power capable of possessing valued items, such as Chinese bronze mirrors, was competing against the Tap-dong tomb owner nearby, about 8 km or only a 2-hour walk apart in Gyeongju at the time.
The finds from Tomb No. 1 at Tap-dong can be interpreted that at least two groups of separate interests had a rational division of function along the supply chain of iron artifacts in present-day Gyeongju around the mid 1st century AD: One was in charge of producing ironwork and the other was responsible for trading them, organizing guild-like professional associations; The first group consisted of people who were able to bury their leader with a good number of highly valued iron artworks in his grave. On the other hand, the second group consisted of people who boasted their prestige and authority by placing multiple decorative bronze items, such as swords, buckles, buttons, and bracelets, in their leader’s burial. Sarari people as locals would have settled down here in Gyeongju from the beginning of the Bronze age and been familiar with dealing with iron. Alternately, Tap-dong people could be the displaced refugees who had fled from the Northern part of Korea after the fall of Wiman Joseon. That’s why they could have been flashily dressed like one of them and engaged in foreign trade with Northern nomadic people.