고구려 무용총 편년의 재검토

Abstract

Discovered in May 1935, by a school supervisor in Andong province of the Manchurian government, the Tomb of the Dancers[Muyong-ch’ong or Ch’um mud m (Kor.); Buyozuka (Ja.); JYM458 or Wuyong-zhong (Ch.)] was one of the twelve mural tombs of the Kogury Kingdom (37B.C. -668A.D.) excavated by Japanese scholars including Umehara Sueji and Ikeuchi Hiroshi during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. The Tomb of the Dancers is located at the southern base of Mount Yuat Yushancun, Taiyangxiang, Ji’anxian, in the southern part of Jilin province in China. This paper chose the Tomb of the Dancers as a case study among more than 100 mural tombs in Koguryo, and examined the structural feature and subject matters of wall paintings. Especially, the paper reexamines the previous periodization of the Tomb of the Dancers as comparing with other Koguryo wall painted tombs and East Asian funerary art. Usually, the tomb is dated to the 4th century by North Korean and Chinese scholars while South Korean and Japanese scholars date it to the 5th century. The highly developed style of the hunting scene in the tomb makes it difficult to date the tomb before the 4th century. The paper pointed out, however, that the tomb could date to the 4th century tomb due to several facts; the Tomb of the Dancers belongs to the early phase tombs in Ji’an along with Wanbaoting Tomb no. 1368 and the Tomb of the Wrestlers; the archaic style of trees and Four Directional Animals paintings show strong affinity to those of the Han dynasty funerary art and the 4th century Wei-Jin tombs in China; Buddhist themes and warfare scenes usually appear in the middle phase Ji’an tombs such as Changchuan Tomb no. 1 and the Three Chambers Tomb. Thus, considering the tomb within the tradition of Koguryo mural tombs in Ji’an, and within the context of East funerary art, the Tomb of the Dancers could be dated to as early as the 4th century.