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The present city of Kyongju in southeastern Korea was the capital of the state of Silla from the beginnings of a polity known as Saro, by tradition founded in 57 BC, to a city of nearly one million people before the ultimate decline of United Silla in AD 935. Through time the city was known variously as Sorabol, Kumsong , and Kyongju. Each stage in the city’s thousand-year history has left its imprint on the landscape. But the city did not simply grow larger or merely form accretions of one stage on another. The center of the city moved northward as Kyongju enlarged, and the ®avor of the city shifted substantially. The experience of living in this city must have changed dramatically, because the landscape itself was altered by huge constructions. By the end of Kyongju’s reign as capital, the increasing emulation of the Tang Dynasty of China had so altered even the contours of the city that the new center of the city would have been unrecognizable to earlier inhabitants. At present, Kyongju is a composite of all its previous con¤gurations. However, it is important to note that much evidence is buried beneath later buildings, stones have been reutilized from previous buildings, and walls that were erected were torn down later. Only the general outlines of the earlier cities can be known, because Kyongju continues to be a living city. The time period of the state of Old Silla is traditionally known as the “Three Kingdoms” period. The other two kingdoms were Koguryo in the north of the Korean peninsula and beyond and Paekche in the southwest. A loose grouping of autonomous cities, collectively known as Kaya, occupied the Naktong River valley and its delta in the earlier part of the Three Kingdoms period. Historical documents specify the beginnings of the Three Kingdoms period as the mid-¤rst century BC, but most archaeologists consider the ¤rst three centuries to be merely formative. The era of mounded tombs, beginning in the early fourth century AD, is taken as the beginning of the Three Kingdoms proper. By AD 668, the Three Kingdoms period had come to a close, for Silla had conquered most of the Korean peninsula with the aid of Tang China. Following this event, Silla was known as Great Silla or United Silla. 10 Population Growth and Change in the Ancient City of Kyongju Sarah M. Nelson Of the Three Kingdoms, the Silla state was the farthest from China and was the most remote from the Chinese in®uence. This remoteness has been used to explain its unique culture, but in reality Silla was closely connected to the other contemporaneous Korean kingdoms. Koguryo and Paekche both accepted many facets of Chinese culture much earlier than Silla did, so in®uence from China could have affected Silla through one or both of them had Silla been receptive to such in®uence. Polities formed in the southern areas of the Japanese islands were also in close contact with Silla, and they, too, had sporadic contact with China. Isolation from foreign ideas was not a characteristic of either the state of Silla or its capital city. Preservation of its unique culture must be attributed to other factors . It is fair to say, however, that the geographic location of the city was not propitious for interacting with other polities. Trade and other interaction occurred in spite of the naturally protected aspect of the city. I have divided the changes in Kyongju into stages that correspond with its history. Before considering the details, let me offer a thumbnail sketch. In Stage I, the city of Sorabol had been formed from six villages located around the foot of the steep hills that protected the valley. Agricultural ¤elds, workshops, and houses surrounded forti¤ed hilltop castles. The castles follow the Korean pattern of meandering walls, rather than a square walled enclosure. The population must have been sparse, with no more than 10,000 inhabitants. Little evidence of interaction with China is apparent. In spite of this aspect, burials from Stage I show that, far from being isolated, the elite of Sorabol were connected to a vast trade network. Exotic items from both central Asia and the Mediterranean world were found in graves from this period. Stage II is characterized by large mounded tombs. During this time the city became known as Kumsong, “Gold Fortress.” Whereas the Stage I buildings clustered near South Stream and South Mountain, in Stage II enormous new tombs were...

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