Mausoleum of King Tangun, Symbol of Long History and Homogeneity of Korean Nation

Mausoleum of King Tangun, Symbol of Long History and Homogeneity of Korean Nation (2)

Beautiful stone sculptures that depict Tangun’s sons and vassals in the area of stone statues.

There are a stone table, 2 stone incense burners, a pair of stone posts and 2 stone lanterns in front of the tomb.

There are 4 stone sculptures portraying Korean tigers that look like guards of the mausoleum and 4 bronze sword towers that depict the lute-shaped dagger, the relic that represents the culture of the Ancient Korea, at 4 corners of the mausoleum.

It is 570 m from the parking lot to the mausoleum and the total number of stone steps is 289.

The mausoleum was rebuilt to meet the historic principle and modern aesthetic sense as becomes the tomb of the ancestral father of the Korean nation.

It is a tiered stone tomb of quadrangular pyramid shape that comprises nine 27-tiered stories that has the podium, the tomb form of the Koguryo dynasty.

There is a stone gate to the tomb behind the mausoleum, through which visitors can enter the hallway to the grave room in the interior of the tomb. The remains of King Tangun and his wife are preserved in glass coffins on two stone tables in the grave room. Tangun’s coffin is placed in the west and his wife’s in the east in accordance with our ancestral customs.

There hangs the portrait of King Tangun on the front wall of the grave room. The remains of Tangun could have been preserved for 5000 years because they had been buried in the neutral soil that is favorable for the fossilization.

In the Kangdong area where the mausoleum was unearthed, the names of mountains and villages related with Tangun such as Mt. Taebak, Mt. Adal and Lake Tangun are handed down as they were.

There is also a legend that Tangun had dropped his shoes into the Sujong River. e is none other than President Kim Il Sung, father of the socialist Korea who discovered that King Tangun who had been known only as a mythical being is the substantial personage.

Kim Il Sung, possessed of ardent love for the country and people, had made painstaking efforts to confirm 5000-year-old history of the Korean nation and correct a great number of happenings and facts that had been distorted by the mistaken outlook on the history in the past.

He had given instructions to unearth and reconstruct the Mausoleum of King Tangun on more than 100 occasions. Remaining true to his instructions,leader Kim Jong Il had wisely led the project to build the mausoleum into a monumental edifice of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s era on the highest level at the earliest date.

Under his sagacious leadership, the magnificent Mausoleum of King Tangun was splendidly built in less than a year. On October 3 every year, the National Foundation Day is commemorated at the Mausoleum.

O Chol Hun