Gahak-dong Dolmen

Dolmens are tombs built by people of the Bronze Age, also known in Korean as goindol. Some scholars view them not as tombs but as altars for ritual offerings. Dolmens are classified by shape into the table type, in which large stones are set upright like a table above ground, and the go-board type, in which a large capstone rests on small supporting stones, or directly on the ground without supports. Korea preserves more dolmens than anywhere else in the world, and in 2000 three groups of dolmens — in Ganghwa County, Incheon Metropolitan City; in Gochang, North Jeolla Province; and in Hwasun, South Jeolla Province — were together inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Gahak-dong Dolmen stands on the slope of the hill behind Beolmal in Gahak-dong, Gwangmyeong. An excavation carried out by Hanyang University in 1997 identified eleven stones presumed to be dolmen capstones. Of these, the dolmen designated as a Gyeonggi-do Cultural Heritage Material has a capstone 2.9 m long; of its four supporting stones, three have collapsed. Investigation of the surrounding dolmens also turned up spindle whorls, stone arrowheads and semi-lunar stone knives, along with the remains of one Bronze Age dwelling. Although the Gahak-dong Dolmen is of the table type, the small size of the supporting stones that form the walls of the burial chamber, together with the thickness of the capstones, clearly shows the regional characteristics of table-type dolmens found in the central Korean peninsula. The village where the dolmen stands is said to have taken its name, Gahak-dong, from a tradition that cranes once played on top of the dolmen. Until the early 1960s, rituals were reportedly held here to pray for the village's prosperity and for long life free of illness.

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Where it is

Region

Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료