Hilt-shaped Bronze Artifact

The Bronze Age cultures of the Korean Peninsula can be divided into the “Liaoning-type bronze dagger culture” (1000-400 BCE) and the “Korean-type bronze dagger culture,” which developed around the 5th to 4th centuries BCE. In addition to Korean-type bronze daggers, characterized by their long, slender blades, the representative bronze artifacts of the latter period include weapons like spearheads and halberds, as well as mirrors, bells, and other ritual objects shaped like hilts and shields. The diverse forms and elaborate decorations of the ritual objects, in particular, demonstrate the highly advanced bronze manufacturing technology of the period. These three bronze artifacts, which appear to be dagger hilts, came from a wooden coffin burial in a stone mound tomb site located in Namseong-ri, Asan, Chungnam Province. One of the bronzes has a small deer engraved near the top. Such animal motifs are known to have been used throughout Siberia as symbols of shamans, and the person whose tomb these artifacts were found in seems to have been some kind of an authority figure. These two facts have led experts to speculate that the late Bronze Age societies in the Korean Peninsula were theocratic. These bronze objects probably did not function as actual hilts, because they are hollow in the back, like split bamboo. They each have a pair of rings on the front, which might have allowed them to be hung.