Jeokseongbi Monument of Silla, Danyang

A Silla stele in Jeokseong Fortress on Seongjaesan, set up after Silla took Jeokseong from Goguryeo to settle the minds of its people. When found in 1978 it lay slanting, buried in the ground, so its inscription was well preserved. The stele is broad and thick at the top and narrow and thin at the bottom. The top is broken off, but both sides survive almost intact, and its free shape suggests a natural stone. The whole text is estimated at about 440 characters; 288 survive and can almost all be read. The characters are well aligned in rows and columns, and the brushwork shows the rhythm of the transition from clerical to regular script, making it a good source for the study of calligraphy. The inscription commends the services of the people of Jeokseong who helped Silla expand its territory and gave it their loyalty, and promises the same reward to all who will be loyal to Silla in future. It revealed new facts about the development of Silla's legal codes on punishment and administration: that state laws on labour service and the distribution of property were made early in the reign of King Jinheung, and that customs peculiar to Jeokseong were generalised into law. Comparing the ranks of the ten high officials named at its head with the Samguk sagi, it seems to have been raised between 545 and 550, the sixth to eleventh years of King Jinheung. Raising it at Jeokseong, a strategic point for the push north, expressed the state's confirmation of the new territory and its will to absorb the newly subject Goguryeo people. It is not a royal tour monument, raised where a king inspected his lands in person, but a border-extension monument marking the taking of territory that carries the same spirit, and it is of great value.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Danyang, Chungbuk

Designation

National Treasure · 국보