Qualla: National Museum of Korea https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:39 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/d/m/national-museum-of-korea-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: National Museum of Korea https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea National Museum of Korea: Introduction https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea/ Photo credit Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, CC BY 2.0. A seventh-century bronze figure sits with one leg crossed over the other, fingers resting gently against its cheek. The Pensive Bodhisattva has been contemplating the human condition for fourteen hundred years, and it does so now from a climate-controlled case in the National Museum of Korea, the sixth largest museum in the world by floor space. The statue survived the fall of kingdoms, Japanese colonial rule, and a desperate wartime evacuation to Busan. That it sits here at all, in Yongsan's sprawling park on land that once served as a U.S. military golf course, is itself a story of endurance.

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Image: Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/d/m/national-museum-of-korea-wp/wydm-national-museum-of-korea-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full National Museum of Korea: A Collection in Exile https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea/ Photo credit Xanms08, CC BY-SA 4.0. Korea's first museum was established in 1909 by Emperor Sunjong, housed within the grounds of Changgyeonggung Palace. When Japan annexed Korea the following year, those collections became the nucleus of the Japanese Government General Museum. Independence in 1945 restored Korean ...

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Image: Xanms08 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/d/m/national-museum-of-korea-wp/wydm-national-museum-of-korea-a-collection-in-exile.mp3 0:06 2 full National Museum of Korea: From Handaxes to Gold Crowns https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea/ Photo credit Steve46814, CC BY-SA 3.0. The museum's first floor traces Korean civilization from its earliest traces. Paleolithic handaxes give way to Neolithic pottery, Bronze Age daggers, and the ornate treasures of the Three Kingdoms period. A fifth-century Silla gold crown, excavated from the North tomb of Hwangnam...

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Image: Steve46814 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/d/m/national-museum-of-korea-wp/wydm-national-museum-of-korea-from-handaxes-to-gold-crowns.mp3 0:06 3 full National Museum of Korea: The Pagoda That Came Home https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea/ Photo credit Lightbearer03, CC BY-SA 4.0. Among the museum's most storied objects is the Ten-Story Pagoda from Gyeongcheonsa Temple, originally erected in 1348 during the Goryeo dynasty. In 1907, a Japanese court official illegally smuggled it to Japan. British journalist E. Bethell and American writer H. Hulbert campaig...

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]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/d/m/national-museum-of-korea-wp/wydm-national-museum-of-korea-the-pagoda-that-came-home.mp3 0:06 4 full National Museum of Korea: Danwon's Candid Eye https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea/ Photo credit Realidad y Illusion, CC BY-SA 3.0. Not everything in the museum speaks of royalty and ritual. The eighteenth-century painter Kim Hong-do, known by his pen name Danwon, filled his Album of Genre Painting with scenes of ordinary Korean life: wrestlers grappling, blacksmiths hammering, scholars napping. His twenty-fi...

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Image: Realidad y Illusion | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/d/m/national-museum-of-korea-wp/wydm-national-museum-of-korea-danwons-candid-eye.mp3 0:06 5 full National Museum of Korea: Built to Endure https://qualla.com/national-museum-of-korea/ Photo credit Realidad y Illusion, CC BY-SA 3.0. The museum building itself reflects hard-won lessons about preservation. Constructed to withstand a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, it features shock-absorbent display platforms, a natural lighting system that uses sunlight instead of artificial illumination, and fire-resistant materia...

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Image: Realidad y Illusion | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/d/m/national-museum-of-korea-wp/wydm-national-museum-of-korea-built-to-endure.mp3 0:06 6 full