The purpose of this thesis are to categorize the old formats of jar coffins in more details, examine the changes to jar coffins in the basin of the Yeongsan River more clearly, and look for their meanings. The previous studies on jar coffins seem to b...
The purpose of this thesis are to categorize the old formats of jar coffins in more details, examine the changes to jar coffins in the basin of the Yeongsan River more clearly, and look for their meanings. The previous studies on jar coffins seem to be stagnating in some parts being too much inclined towards the format determination in a single manner rather than explaining about the mutually organic changing process of each format. Attempting to complement them, the study defined detailed formats of each format and explained the common features and changing process among the formats of jar coffins based on the agreed aspects of jar coffin changes in the previous studies.
In categorizing the formats of jar coffins in a formal manner, the investigator extracted the name attributes of the mouth and body and then recombined them together. It's also assumed that the form changes of jar coffins followed the emphasis on the convenience of placing the body according to time. The jar coffins of Format I fall into the birth period and have four formats; those of Format II the development period and three formats; and those of Format III the prevalence period and four formats and the prevalence period and two formats, as well. Total 13 formats were defined. The significance of format determination through the name attributes was confirmed through the continuity attributes.
A couple of methods were employed to review the validity of the format categorization; first, the mouse face relations were checked; secondly, the overlapping relations and the construction order among remains at the relics were investigated; and finally, the validity and sequential relations of the format determination were tested by analyzing the artifacts excavated from jar coffins.
The test results proved the validity of the format categorization to some degree. Based on the results, I tried a detailed chronicle and defined total seven phases. The birth period includes the first and second phase from the early and middle to the late third century. The mouse face relations among the jar coffins of Format I were only confirmed with the format gaining huge popularity in the northwest of the Yeongsan River and the Younggwang좪Gochang. The development period includes the third and fourth phase ranging from the middle and late third century to the late fourth century. The period observes the jar coffins of Format I and II crossing over each other and mouse faceed and the highly diverse styles starting to appear. The regional distribution encompassed the southeast of the Yeongsan River. The prevalence period includes the fifth and sixth phase covering from the middle fifth century to the early sixth century. The diverse styles of jar coffins became uniform and their overall sizes grew larger. Concentrating in the midstream and downstream of the Yeongsan River, the jar coffins were different between the northwest and southeast of the river. And the decline period includes the seventh phase from the early to middle sixth century with the concentrated distribution of jar coffins in the southeast of the Yeongsan River.
In short, the jar coffins of the Honam Region first appeared as the jar coffins of the style called the Seonghwangri style in the area adjacent to the uppercheon of the Gomakcheon and expanded to the northwest of the Younggwang좪Gochang and the southeast of the Yeongsan River. In the process, the overall style became simple for the sake of convenient body placement. Those jar coffins were the most prevalent in the midstream of the Yeongsan River. It's estimated that each format of the jar coffins went through the same attribute changes involving the simpler style for body placement and the changing process of birth, development, prevalence, and decline. Those changes were not independent from each other but organic and well reflected in the formal characteristics of the detailed formats of the jar coffins.