Hyosan-ri and Daesin-ri Dolmen Sites, Hwasun
和順 孝山里와 大薪里 支石墓郡
전라남도 화순군
Basic information
- Designation
- Historic Site No.410
- Category
- 유적지
- Designated year
- 1998
- Location
- 화순군, 전라남도— 전남 화순군 도곡면 효산리 산68-1번지 외 ,춘양면 대신리외
- Coordinates
- 34.986742, 126.917092
AI Docent
✨ AI-generatedWelcome to one of Korea's most remarkable archaeological treasures! You're standing in the presence of some of the world's oldest tombs—structures called dolmens, or "goindol" in Korean. These aren't simple piles of rocks; they're carefully engineered monuments made from a massive cover stone balanced on smaller supporting stones. Here in Hwasun, you'll find between 230 and 500 of these Iron Age dolmens scattered across the valleys. What makes this site extraordinary? The sheer scale of the stones—especially the colossal cover stone in Daesin-ri, measuring 7 meters long, 4 meters tall, and weighing 200 tons. It's the largest dolmen cover stone ever found anywhere in the world. Excavations have revealed stone tools, earthenware, bronze implements, and ornaments alongside the tombs. Most impressively, you can still see ancient tool marks on the stone walls—traces of how our ancestors actually cut and shaped these massive blocks. This landscape, beautifully preserved over millennia, offers irreplaceable insights into ancient Korean Peninsula cultures. Come experience history carved in stone.
⚠ This is an AI-generated retelling of the official description. For accuracy, refer to the official description below.
Description
Dolmens are prehistoric tombs consisting of a big, wide cover rock and several smaller stones supporting the big cover rock. Dolmens are called “Goindol” in Korean. There are 230 to 500 checker board-shaped southern-style dolmens from the Iron Age on the valleys around Boseongjae Pass between Mosan Village in Hyosan-ri, Hwasun-gun and Daesin-ri, Chunyang-myeon. Through the excavations, dolmens, stone chamber tombs, jar coffin tombs, and stone cist tombs and pit tombs have been found together with other various stone tools, earthenware, bronze tools, and ornaments. There are traces of the cutting of a stone plate used as a cover stone for a dolmen on a stone wall. This gives clues for research on the production process of dolmens. On the hill in Daesin-ri is a very huge cover stone for a dolmen. It has length of 7m, height of 4m, and weight of 200 tons. No other cover stone in the world is as huge as this one. The surrounding area of the dolmens has been preserved so well that the dolmens in this area are regarded as valuable remains for the comparative research on the ancient culture of the Korean Peninsula.
Location
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Images: KOGL (khs.go.kr) · Data source: Korea Heritage Service Open API (khs.go.kr)