UNESCO has added to its World Heritage list a dozen North Korean sites located in an ancient capital that has become more famous in modern times as the location of the now dormant joint North-South industrial park.
The sites in Kaesong are remains of its glory days as the capital of the Goryeo Dynasty which ruled most of the Korean peninsula from 918 until 1392 when the Joseon Dynasty overthrew Goryeo and moved the capital to Seoul.
The newly listed World Heritage sites in Kaesong include some of what remains of a fortress that once surrounded Kaesong, the ruins of the Manwoldae palace, the city’s top academy, and the mausoleum of King Kongmin, the dynasty’s penultimate ruler who managed to free it from Mongol domination.
“These valuable cultural relics are the pride of our nation, and they are precious cultural relics that show the long history of our nation,” said Kim Jin Sok, a researcher at Kaesong City Management Office for Preserving National Heritage in an interview with AP. “Also, these relics, some preserved for very long periods, are well known as relics with which we can stand proud in the eyes of the world.”
UNESCO approved N. Korea’s bid to add the sites to the World Heritage list during a recent meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The addition of a dozen sites inside N. Korea represents a major cultural coup for N. Korea. The World Heritage list includes only about 1,000 sites from the over 210 nations that make up the international community. The recent addition gives the North 14 sites on the list, ahead of the South which currently has only 10 listed World Heritage sites.
By comparison Japan has 17 sites on the list, China has 45, the US, 21, and India, 30.
In 2004 UNESCO had granted World Heritage status to a N. Korean complex of about 30 tombs from the later Goguryeo Kingdom which encompassed the northern half of the Korean peninsula and much of northeastern China between the 3rd century BC and 7th century AD. The tombs are notable because only about 90 out of more than 10,000 Koguryo tombs discovered in China and Korea have wall paintings.
