The first excavation of waist drum in Korea was conducted by the Museum Research Team of Hanyang University around Mt. Isong Fortress located in 36 Chun Gung-dong, Hanam-si, Gyeongi-do, South Korea, in July of 1999. Since then, however, no specific st...
The first excavation of waist drum in Korea was conducted by the Museum Research Team of Hanyang University around Mt. Isong Fortress located in 36 Chun Gung-dong, Hanam-si, Gyeongi-do, South Korea, in July of 1999. Since then, however, no specific studies conducted yet indicating the origin of waist drums, for instance, what period they belonged to or what kind of relationship have had between other similar class of instruments. The principal objective of this paper was to analyse the characteristics of the waist-drum and find out its impact on the Korean music history from the aspect of the transmission process of the class of waist-drums to Korea from abroad around the 10th century.
Since the dancing heavenly being with the waist-drum was revealed in the ancient tomb mural of Gogureo period, another several records on the waist-drums had been appeared in the 5th~6th centuries' buddhist paintings in Goryeo period. One hand, as a written record, it had been said that there was an instrumental player who dealt with an hour-glass shaped drum, a sort of modification of waist-drum, worked for national musical institution in the regime of King Munjong in Goryeo period.
Therefore, this paper focused on comparison the waist-drum unearthed from the Mt. Isong Fortress with the general class of waist-drums which produced in the east-northern asia until approximately the 15th century and the other remains shown in the ancient paintings. To do this, this research examined about 30 waist-drums and the documentations remained on the ancient paintings, and it was possible to classify into the types of cylinder and that of waist according to the comparison of each shape of body of drum, the lengthy of bottle neck, and the coupling structure between the bottle neck and abdomen of drum.
To conclude, the class of waist-drum instruments was originated in India and had developed in diverse styles in the process of its transmission to east-northern asia including Korea. In this context, the waist-drum excavated in the Mt. Isong Fortress appealed our considerable attention in terms of its important role which proved the fact that the class of waist-drums had been employed around the 10th century, in the period of Untied Shilla, before the introduction of hour-glass drum.