On The History And Material Culture Of The Ancient Koguryo Kingdom

Koguryo is one of ancient nations lived in Northeast China. The political power established by Koguryo is also a local power of ancient China. A Collection of Chinese Ancient Maps definitely divided the ownership of Koguryo and the power. Koguryo was officially included in the record of World Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO in 2004, owing to its high culture taste, perfect architectural art, outstanding artistic achievements and special connotation of civilization.The word "Koguryo" first appeared on Hanshu, it's the name of Xuantu prefecture, means lofty black good horse. Some scholars thinks that the local nation were good at raising good horses and specially treasured black horses, so they named their nation as "Koguryo". Koguryo was an ancient nation which lived on the downriver of Hun River and Yalu River in Northeast China during Han and Tang Dynasties. It's a branch of Mo nation. The government of Han Dynasty set up Koguryo County in Xuantu prefecture, took the nation-name as the county-name, to govern the local Koguryo. The nation developed fastly, as a result, King power emerged rapidly based on the tribe unites, and Zhu Meng established Koguryo country.There were two ways the central governments of all the past dynasties in China controlled local ones: one was setting up prefectures and counts in the areas where the economy were flourishing and the main nation was Han; theother was setting up bridling states, subordinate departments and countries in backward areas. Koguryo was controlled by prefecture firstly, then changed to be as a subordinate country when local nation-power emerged.Koguryo passed 28 kings since Zhu Meng established the country in 37BC, until died out in 668AD. At the beginning of its establish, it's power limited in Hun River valley. Koguryo developed rapidly during Eastern Han Dynasty. At the beginning of 4^th century, Koguryo conquered Le Lang and its power extended to the east of Korean peninsula in 5 century. The power existed 700 years. It had many great achievements and creation in many aspects, such as politics, economy and culture. No matter what distinctive mountain agriculture and brave cavalry, also the mountain cities, ancient graves and fascinating underground picture gallery-Koguryo frescoes which still existing today, and Hao Tai King's tablet which is well known both in China and aboard, all these are called treasures in the treasure-house of national cultural heritage. Koguryo had created great achievements, and contributed on exploitation the frontier and creation our country's historic culture together with other peoples.We have to declare that documents about Koguryo haven't existed too much, therefore, archaeology references appear to be quite important. The archaeology finds of the last half-century have provided very plentiful material evidence for describe Koguryo's history. In this thesis, I'll study about Koguryo's history, society and culture according to the archaeologyfinds, take the method of history, archeology, ethnology and anthropology. People may have doubts: such an active power in ancient Northeast history, fighting all around, being insufferably arrogant, even once conquering north of Korean peninsula and the vast area of east Liaoning, how did it rapidly withdraw from the historical stage like the broad-leaved epiphyllum? And how did Koguryo people gradually mixed with different nations? And how did one part of them merged into the big family of the Chinese nation? These are what I'm going to account for in this thesis.This thesis mainly studied Koguryo's history, material culture and has six chapters. It discussed Koguryo's developing history, distribution and culture, revealed that Koguryo is a minority's power of ancient northern China, and further confirmed that Koguryo is a power established by a minority within ancient China through there is inseparable material relationship between Koguryo and Central Plains culture.Chapter 1 Rise and fall of Koguryo with central dynastyChapter2 Capital and mountain city of military block-houseChapter 3 Weapon and cavalryChapter 4 Economy and material lifeChapter 5 Culture art and religionThe conclusion recounted how Koguryo merged into the big family of the Chinese nation.