The chronicles of Korean woodcraft works including furniture and other artifacts have been usually set up on the basis of their styles or patterns. The classification of them based on the styles are largely approximate such as "early Joseon" or "late ...
The chronicles of Korean woodcraft works including furniture and other artifacts have been usually set up on the basis of their styles or patterns. The classification of them based on the styles are largely approximate such as "early Joseon" or "late Joseon" periods. Tree-ring chronology can be useful in scientifically dating historic buildings or woodcraft works by matching them with me chronologies of living trees. Because living trees span only 200-300 years, old woods obtained from buildings and woodcrafts can be used to develop long-term chronologies. Tree-ring chronology means the plot of ring widths The master or standard chronology represents any one absolutely dated by me chronology of living trees. Tree-ring dating gives a calendar year to each tree ring and produces me cutting dates of logs or woods. There exists no error in tree-ring dating. It can produce even seasonal resolution.
In this study, we intend to extend our tree-ring dating applications to Korean woodcrafts. As a case study, we examined two kitchen boards (KB1, KB2), three pieces of furniture (FN1, FN2, FN3), two mask panels for the funeral bier (MP1, MP2), and a fish-shaped drum (FD1). Only pine woods, whose tree-ring database were well established, were considered.
The outermost rings of KB1 and KB2 were dated as AD 1931 and AD 1899, respectively. Due to the presence of bark in KB1 and KB2, the above dates denote cutting years. The localities of KB1 and KBⅡ were also identified by tree-ring patterns as around Daegwallyeong and Hangyeryeong in Gangwon Province, respectively. Since all the furniture did not possess any bark, so uncertainties or errors as much as 20 years should be added to the calendar years of outmost rings in order to obtain cutting dates. Gyeongsang Bandaji (FN2), Gyeonggi Bandaji (FN1) and Gangwon Bandaji (FN3) were dated as AD 1859±10, AD 1869±10 and AD 1930±10, respectively. The locality of FN3 was proved by tree rings, too. Tree ring patterns of drawers in FN3 indicated that the leg part of FN3 were added after the original manufacturing of FN3. The outmost ring of MP1 were dated to 1955, that was assigned as cutting date owing to the presence of bark. The outmost ring of MP2 were dated to 1894, which produced only terminus post quem because of the absence of bark. Tree-ring dating indicated that MP2 was about 50 years older. The calender year of FD1's outmost ring was 1824. This date seemed to be close to cutting date due to the shape of ring boundary.
This case study suggests that tree-ring dating should be a useful and accurate method to identify the critical dates for the chronicles of Korean woodcrafts such as furniture and other wooden objects. A high-resolution non-destructive measuring method such as CT (computerized tomograghy) should be employed for better quality of dating. Tree-ring data of oaks and zelkova trees are necessary to enhance dating samples.