Funeral Urn

This ceramic funeral urn was found in 1972, inside a stone chest on the slopes of a hill some 200m south of King Seongdeok’s Tomb in Joyang-dong, Gyeongju. The urn’s colors are a combination of yellow, brown, blue, and either green or indigo blue. This style of coloration originated from the Tang Period in China, where it was common for lacquers of different colors (such as yellow, brown, and blue) to be applied to pottery. Such technique was known as the Tricolor Application of the Tang. The urn had no lid, so a silver plate was used for this purpose. The urn has three legs attached to the bottom, one of which has been restored. This valuable jar was likely imported from Tang, at great expense, to be used as someone’s funeral urn.