Almost all the royal tombs of Korea's Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) will be designated as UNESCO World Heritage this coming June.

The Cultural Heritage Administration announced Wednesday (May 13) that the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) had decided to include the 40 tombs from that era that are in South Korea on the tentative list of World Heritage.

Once the royal tombs of the Joseon Dynasty pass through the final procedure at the 2009 33rd Session of the World Heritage Committee slated for next month, they will be officially listed as World Heritage. The meeting is to take place in Seville, Spain from June 22 to 30.

According to the recommendation, the royal tombs of the Joseon Dynasty, built under the guiding philosophy of Confucianism and inspired by geomancy, boast a unique construction method and landscape architecture.

The fact that ancestral rituals and other intangible traditions related to the tombs continue till this day was also well received by the council. The royal tombs won further high points for the overall good management of the site.

The site contains the royal tombs for 27 generations of kings, queens, crown princes and even those overthrown or posthumously recognized as kings during the period that lasted slightly over 500 years.

Korea will be a home to a total of nine UNESCO World Heritage sites when the royal tombs win final approval in June.

“Korea will have almost all its key remains of the Joseon Dynasty listed in the World Heritage list once the royal tombs make it past the final procedure,” an official at the Cultural Heritage Administration said. “This will greatly contribute to spreading Korea's traditional culture abroad.”
 
Other items from Joseon times that Korea has on the World Heritage list are Jongmyo, the royal ancestral shrine, added in 1995, and Changdeokgung (Changdeok Palace), listed in 1997. The government applied for the designation of Joseon royal tombs as UNESCO World Heritage in 2008.

Other highly valued pieces of architecture in Korea that are included in the World Heritage List are Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto in the Gyeongju Historic Area, in Gyeongsangbuk-do (North Gyeongsang Province); the Tripitaka Koreana at Haeinsa Temple in Hapcheon, in Gyeongsangnam-do (South Gyeongsang Province); Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon, in Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province); dolmen sites in three areas of Gochang in Jeollabuk-do (North Jeolla Province), Hwasun in Jeollanam-do (South Jeolla Province) and Ganghwa in Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province); and most recently Jeju Volcanic Island with its lava tubes and Seongsan Ilchulbong crater and Mt. Hallasan.

By Kim Hee-sung
Korea.net Staff Writer