Unreliable Narratives: Historical and Archaeological Approaches to Early Silla

• In Event: Chronological Problems in the Samguk Sagi's Representation of Silla History

Abstract

Integrating archaeological evidence with historical sources has long been a concern in studies of the earliest Korean polities. This is especially true of the so-called Proto-Three Kingdoms Period (first century BC to third century AD) where conflicting historical sources must not only be reconciled with each other, but also with an increasingly voluminous archaeological record (itself extremely fragmentary and biased towards mortuary material). Of concern here, are the Account of the Han appearing in the third century Sanguozhi 三國志 and fifth century Hou Hanshu 後漢書as well as the dynastic records of early Silla in the thirteenth century Samguk sagi. Both texts purport to describe Iron Age society in the southern Korean peninsula.

This paper surfaces the major contradictions between the Account of the Han and the records of early Silla in the Samguk sagi and turns to archaeological material, specifically grave goods and cemeteries, to assess the conflicting historical accounts. In recent years, new archaeological data and increasingly sophisticated archaeological studies have made great strides in presenting models of social development that incorporate material and textual sources. This study seeks to contribute to these by investigating how an understudied aspect of the mortuary record, ritual practice, forces us to confront the limitations of both historical narratives. While long-term archaeological processes are fundamentally different from the political and military events

Author

• Jack Davey, University of California, Berkeley