"GLOBALIZATION is not the Brand New Phenomenon in the 21st century" - The Archaeological evidence explains why KOREA was the part of the SILK ROAD during the Ancient Times...

Author: D.I Kim (2016, University College London)

 

In broad terms, ‘Globalization’ is defined as, “the worldwide integration of economic, technological, political, cultural and social aspects between countries” (Hamilton 2009, p.10). Hamilton (p.10) argues that the primary boosting source of the global interconnection is capable on the basis of the active international trade, warfare, etc.

In this regard, Silk Roads have been a significant role to globalize over the Afro- Eurasian continent for over five thousand years; thus there has been a countless number of migration of ideas, technology and people with different religious and cultural backgrounds.

The term, Silk Road is named by a German geographer, Baron Ferdinand Von Richtofen (1833~1905) in the late nineteenth century (Mair 2014, p.1). Silk Roads are regarded as a series of different routes connect the East and the West, and these routes are ranged from Western Europe to Central Asia and the Far East Asia (p.1).

The routes are normally commercial in character which traded not only silk but also precious metals, ivory, spices, and animals (p.1). Such trade routes also brought about the emergence of many settlements and the commercial trading posts which did the roles of middlemen, for instance, the Parthians bought the silk from China and sold to Rome (p.2).

Accordingly, the Silk Roads have provided the bridge in which the different and diverse cultures are interacted and blended by obtaining the different values and ideas of other cultures and by trading foreign goods. In the Silk Road Archaeology, archaeologists usually study the artefacts and remains which reveal the cultural combinations and similarities; in turn, they attempt to examine the cultural transmission and interaction in the Silk Roads.

In fact, the movement of people with different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds from the Afro- Eurasia continent has long happened since the 3rd millennium BC via pre- and epi- Silk Roads (Mair 2014, p. 1). It is suggested that, chiefly, wheat, ovicaprids, horse, chariots, bronze and iron metallurgy had been transmitted via pre- silk roads during the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st millennium BC (p.1).

However, the evidence of cultural interaction and transmission is clearly manifested by the archaeological evidence dated from the late second century BC to the tenth century AD (Mair 2014, pp. 2-3). Particularly, the objects made of glass, metals and stones tend to be survived better than the textiles or papers, hence the intercultural influence is interpreted by the analysis of the shapes, textures, and some of the other motifs appear in objects.

 

Buddhism and Gadara art

The day back in between 4th and 6th century BC in the Korean Peninsula, The Three Kingdoms

 

Buddhism is the significant cultural and religious element which gave absolute influence in establishing the identity of Ancient Korea since the fourth century AD (Carrier 2006, p.82). Admittedly, the Silla kingdom is an excellent case to observe the Buddhism culture clearly manifested by its material culture. Silla (57 BC~ 935 AD) is one of the three kingdoms in the Korean Peninsula: Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla, and existed from the first century BC to the tenth century AD. Silla is known as one of the dynasties which made the most flourished Buddhism culture in Korean History.

Buddhism was initially transmitted from India and introduced to the Korean Peninsula by China between the fourth and the sixth century AD (Lee et al 1993, pp. 74). In 527 AD, a king of Silla, Pophung, officially declared Buddhism as the national religion and the faith of Silla (pp.75- 78). Buddhism culture was flourished during the fifth century AD in Silla; in turn, Buddhist temples and arts, which were greatly inspired by Gandhara art, had also been dramatically developed in Silla (Carrier 2006, p. 83). 

Further, Gandhara art, which emerged first in the Peshawar valley in northwestern Pakistan, is a unique artistic style which blended with Kushanian Indian Buddhist art and the Greek art introduced by Alexander the Great (Hopkirk 1980, pp.23-24). It is suggested that Buddhist sculptures were carved by Greek artists; therefore, the Gandhara Buddhist sculptures appear “straight, sharply chiselled nose and brow, classical lips and wavy hair, all Hellenistic influences” (Carrier 2006, p. 83). Likewise, the Silla Buddhist sculptures (Figure 1) also reflect the features of Gandhara art. Taking into account the evidence of the features which commonly identified both in the Silla Buddhist sculptures and the Indian Gandhara sculptures, it seems evident that the cultural interaction did exist between the Silla Kingdom and the regions of West Indian and Pakistan in the 4th century AD, even if the interaction would have passed through China.

 

Figure 1. Buddha triad plaque, Kyongju, 8 century CE (left),  Standing Buddha, India, Cupta pierd, 5th century CE (right) (Carrier 2006, p.83) 

 

 

Objects with foreign Cultural Elements in Silla Kingdom

Such intangible foreign elements, Buddhism and Gandhara art, which introduced to Korea via the Silk Roads, indeed, shaped the cultural identity in Silla as they are manifested by the Silla Buddhism sculptures and architects. Not only Buddhism and Gandhara art in Silla but also other tangible cultural objects, excavated from the territory of the Silla Kingdom, suggest the presence of cultural interaction or active international trade via terrestrial and maritime routes.

Particularly, the objects which were, seemingly, from the Middle East and further Europe, are strikingly distinguished from other objects from East Asia or locally made in Silla, besides this suggests the direct evidence of the presence of cultural interaction and international trade with foreign countries.

Carrier (2006, p. 62) argues that glassware and the objects made of gold such as earrings, caps, shoes, belt buckles and the crowns, excavated from the Silla royal tombs, have the most distinctive features which have northern Schythno- Siberian and the Middle Eastern or Greek cultural elements. Lee (2015, p.59) agrees that “The shapes, decorative motifs and production techniques of these gold earrings and other gold ornaments have many features indicating that they are not native Korean. These gold ornaments are also different from artefacts from China, the main trade channel for Korea”. It is claimed that Silla attempted to learn the techniques to produce the objects with such foreign cultural elements and to make them part of the indigenous society of Silla during the 4th and 6th centuries (Carrier 2006, p. 62).

It is assumed that the techniques to produce metallic and glass objects with foreign elements were first learnt by Chinese over the Silk Road, and then Goguryeo people through commercial trade and warfare (p. 62). Yi Songnan (2005) also argues that “Bactrian origin under heavy Greek influence on the techniques and style spread via commercial contacts to the Xianbei and further via Goguryeo to Silla”. According to Carrier (2006, p. 72), “Strong likeness between Silla and Goguryeo artefacts suggest that Goguryeo could have been responsible for introducing the adornments into the southern Korean land as early as 300 CE”. 

 

Gold objects in the Silla Kingdom

Many of the Silla gold objects appear the foreign influence which suggests the cultural interaction during the 4th and 6th centuries. First, it is suggested that hollow golden earing (Figure 2) found in the Silla royal tombs in Gyeongju has features of the golden earrings from the New Kingdom and Greco- Roman periods of Egypt regarding shapes and decorations (Lee 2015, p. 59). Williams and Ogden (1995) argues that comparing the shapes of the middle part of the earing identified in the Greek gold ornaments and Silla’s ornaments; there appears common decorative motifs.

 

Figure 2. the golden earring excavated  from Sobong chong, Gyeongju (Source: Wikimedia)

 

Second, one of the Silla artefacts which have some foreign cultural influence is Kumkwhan, a golden crown (Figure 3). The golden crown was excavated by Gustav Adolf, a Swedish archaeologist and the Crown Prince of Sweden in 1926 at one of the royal tombs (named later as Sobong ch’ong, The tomb of the Auspicious Phoenix) in Gyeongju, the capital of the former Silla Kingdom (Rosen 2009, p. 3). When it comes to the features of the gold crown, the crown is designed like the twigs of trees with ‘leaves’ of the thin gold sheet and comma-shaped jade hanging like fruits in each of twigs. A few more this type of golden crowns were excavated in the royal tombs in Gyeongju in the later times; thus it used to be believed that the unique design of the crowns is solely typical Korean indigenous style (Choe 1992; Kim 1998).

 

Figure 3. The golden crown from Sobong ch'ong (source: Wikimedia)

 

However, it is suggested that the Silla golden crown has a possible connection with Central Asia because the golden crowns tend to have foreign decorative motifs rather than native Korean ones (Lee 2015, p. 58). The crown seems to have been influenced by the nomadic culture of the Siberian steppe (p. 58). Rossen (2009, p. 3) argues that there are parallel cultural motifs between the Silla golden crown and the North Asian/Siberian crown. He argues that “the technique of construction of a crown by adding upright trees and stubbing it with round or oval thin golden leaves attached to the crown using thin gold thread was used before the 4th century as far west as the old kingdom of Bactria” (p.4). The clear evidence with such decorative features are attested well in a Greco- Bactrian golden crown (dated second quarter of 1st century AD) which was excavated by a Russian archaeologist, Victor Sarianidi in 1978 at the tomb 6 in Tillya Tepe (Golden Hill) (Figure 4), in present-day northeastern Afghanistan (Aruz and Fino 2012).

 

Figure 4.  the golden crown from Tilya Tepe, tomb 6 (Source: Imso's Cultural Container)

 

Third, there is another object which reveals the early Persian art and early contacts between Persian culture and the Korean Peninsula (Rossen 2009, p.8). Jade-Inlaid Gold Dagger with ornamental Sheath (Figure 4) is a unique artefact excavated from the tomb of King Michu in Gyeongju (p. 8). This Persian style ceremonial dagger and scabbard is made of gold and agate (p.8). The technique of manufacturing this object was very common in Egypt, Greece and Rome; however, apparently, it does not seem to be locally made (p.8).

Instead, this seems more likely to be imported from the West to Silla via Silk Roads (p. 8). This type of daggers, which used to be very valued by the Hun Empire (434-454 AD), have been found in the tombs from the end of the 4th to the 7th centuries in Siberia and Central Asia (Perusia 2009). Particularly, comparing the daggers (Figure 5) depicted in the Kizil murals and gold ornaments found in Borvoje in Kazakhstan, there is a lot similarity between the Silla dagger and the Kazakhstan dagger (Carrier 2009, p. 69).

 

Figure 5.  Jade Inl aid gold dagger from King MIch’u Tumulus, Kyongju, 5 th -6 th  century (left), a Short golden dagger from Kazakhstan, late 4 th -6 th  century CE (right) (Carrier 2006, p.70). 

 

 

Glass objects in Silla

Rosen (2009, p. 7) argues that “during the period of the ‘golden’ dynasty of the Silla kingdom larger glass objects was not yet manufactured on the Korean peninsula”; hence the Silla Kingdom had to import a lot of glass objects, except perhaps glass beads, from the Mediterranean area and southern Europe and Persia.

It is suggested that the earliest known ancient glassmaking in Korea is dated the second century BCE (Lee 1997). However, according to the Lee Insook (2015, p.53), “small, colourful glass beads, and the techniques for producing them, were introduced from outside Korea at that time and became increasingly widespread”. Particularly, in Sangouzhi, a historical Chinese text, Silla is described as the bead-loving culture of ancient East Asia, and Silla valued them

above gold or silver. In fact, in the south region of the Korean Peninsula, a significant quantity of glass beads in various types and colours are excavated in nearly entire Silla archaeological sites (Lee 2009).

Among the small and colourful glass beads found in the Silla archaeological sites, some of them are classified as the Indo- Pacific glass beads which are typically discovered and presumably produced chiefly in Arikamedu and Karaikadu in India, Khlong Thom in Thailand and Oc-Eo in Viet Nam (Insook Lee 2015, p.54). Generally, ‘the small monochrome drawn glass beads which were traded by the Sea’ are classified as Indo- Pacific types (Francis 2002).

The necklaces and chest ornaments (Figure 6), which designed with thousands imported Indo- Pacific beads in yellow, green and other colours, found in the Silla royal tombs including in the Hwangnamdaeschong, Kumkwanchong (Gold-Crown Tomb), Flying Horse tombs suggest how much Silla highly valued the beads (p. 54).

 

Figure 6.  Chestlace,gold, glass and jade from Wolsong- no, Kyongju, 4 th  -5 th  century CE (Carrier 2009, p.13). 

 

The Romanizing glass objects (Figure 6) also indicate the presence of the cultural interaction between the Silla and the West. In the Kumyong Tumulus in Gyeongju, a dotted glassware vessel dated 4th century CE was excavated, and this type of glassware is also identified in Cologne, Germany, emerging in the middle of the third century through the early 4th century CE (Carrier 2006, p. 66).

Further, in particular, several glassware, which is mostly the same types as Roman glasses excavated in southern Russia (Carrier 2006, p.66), eastern Mediterranean coast (the Syro-Palestinian region) (Lee 2015, p. 57), were found in the eight Silla tombs in Gyeongju- “Jeokseok Mokgwak Bun, Hwangnamdaechong Tomb (North tomb and South tomb), Seobongchong Tomb, Geumgwanchong Tomb (Gold-Crown Tomb), Cheonmachong Tomb (Flying-Horse Tomb), Geumryeongchong Tomb (Golden-Bell Tomb), Tomb Ga-13 in Wolsung-ro, and Tomb 4” (Lee 2015, p. 57).

It is suggested that the majority of these types of glassware seem likely to be manufactured in the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean coast between the fourth and fifth centuries (Lee 2015, p.57), and imported in Korea via the Silk Roads in the fifth to the sixth century CE (Carrier 2006, p. 66), or perhaps “some were manufactured domestically” (Lee 2015, p.57). 

 

Figure 6.  several glasses and glassware from Kyongju, 5 th -6 th  century CE (Source: Silla Art)

 

Lankton et al (2006) suggest the new interpretation on the Roman style glassware in Silla. They argue that some of the Roman style glass vessels from Hwangnamdaechong Tomb in Gyeongju might have been produced in Bactria in Central Asia which is located in the middle of the trade route between Palestine and East Asia (Lee 2015, p.57).

Bactria had the blended culture of East and the West after the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great in BC 327; hereafter a group of Greco- Roam artisan might have given cultural influences to Bactria regarding the craftsmanship of glass, gold and silver (p. 57). Moreover, the Greco- Roman culture was also influenced in the near Bactria such as Bagram and Tillya- Tepe in Afghanistan where some Roman glass artefacts were excavated in these sites (Hibert and Cambon 2008). 

 

Conclusion

As discussed above, Silla was in a significant role in the Silk Roads as archaeological evidence suggests the presence of active cultural interaction between Silla and the West of Afro- Eurasian continent. The Buddhism sculptures in Gandhara style, the glass and gold artifacts found in Korean sites presents the clear information of the position of Silla in the Silk Road network. First, Buddhism and Gandhara art tremendously contributed to the development of making Buddhist sculptures and temples in Silla. Buddhism was indeed critical to create the foundation of national and cultural identity as well as “the formation of elite groups in Ancient Korea providing essential foundations for the structure of the ancient Korea” (Lee 2015, p. 60). Above all, Silla has the most flourished Buddhism culture among other rest of kingdoms (Goguryeo and Backjae) in the Korean Peninsula in the 4th century AD as a number of aesthetic

Buddhist sculptures with the features of Gandhara art evidently prove it. Second, the gold and glass objects, which are mostly excavated from the royal tombs in Gyoengju, the capital of the Silla Kingdom, shows the clear evidence of interaction with other foreign countries in the Silk Roads network. Particularly, many of glass and gold objects are distinctively distinguished from other material objects, which were mostly locally made in Silla or have Chinese influence. Siberian/Central Asian, the Middle Eastern and European elements are notably identified in the many of glass and gold objects in Silla. Because most scholars agree that Silla did not have the techniques to produce those objects with the foreign elements, it does seem more likely that Silla imported those objects via the Silk Roads or maritime routes.

In conclusion, the examination of the cultural objects in Silla provides us with the glimpse of the possible presence of cultural interaction with foreign actors such as states or traders. Furthermore, it has been accepted that such foreign cultural elements would have been delivered through China and the Silk Roads.

However, we still do not know the specific routes how these foreign elements were delivered from the West to the Korean Peninsula. We can just vaguely assume the possible source of foreign objects by comparing the features, such as shapes, motifs and colour and techniques, between the Silla objects which have foreign elements and the similar objects from the West and the Central Asia.

In this regard, using the term, ‘Globalization’ seems appropriate in terms of the interaction of different material cultures if we see the Silk Roads as just a series of exchange routes of goods, ideas and technology between the East and West and as the bridge which enabled the mutual cultural influences in different states and empires, rather than the routes which brought about the economic, political and cultural integration globally.

However, as Hamilton (2009) defined the Globalization as “the worldwide integration of culture, society, politics and technologies”, with solely relying on the provided archaeological evidence, there is still a lot of limitations to adequately demonstrate the modern meaning of ‘Globalization’ in the ancient world. 

 

 

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