Lecturer

Prof. Youngchan Oh (Ewha Womans University, Republic of Korea)

Youngchan Oh is a Professor of Korean History at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea. He received B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Seoul National University, and worked as a curator at the National Museum of Korea from 1997-2012 and a visiting curator at the British Museum in 2009-2010. His primary research in early Korean history is focusing on Lelang commandery, and he has also been interested in the history of the museum in Korea. Among his many publications are A Study of Lelang Commandery (Seoul: Sagyejeol, 2006), The Japanese Government-General of Korea and Colonialism (Seoul: Sahoepyeonron, 2022), and in English, “William Gowland’s Korean Collection at the British Museum,” Orientations 41, no.8 (2010), and “Legacies of Japanese Colonialist Historiography and Scholarly Views on Wiman Joseon,” Korea Journal 56, no.1 (2016).

Abstract

This lecture deal with the authenticity of clay seals from the Lelang site. Lelang (Kr. Naglang 樂浪) Commandery (108 BCE – 313 CE) was established in Pyongyang in North Korea by Han China. The clay seals from Lelang have been stored in three institutions: 197 pieces in the National Museum of Korea, 15 pieces in Tokyo National University of Japan and 9 pieces in the Tokyo National Museum. The seals were first found in 1919, and their authenticity has been continuously questioned because they were not excavated but discovered, and collected by the Museum of the Japanese Government-General of Korea as evidence of the existence of Lelang as a colony in early Korea. After Korea’s liberation in 1945, scholars from both South and North Korea, as well as pseudo-historians, questioned the authenticity of these seals in order to dispute the historical claim that Lelang Commandery was located in Pyongyang. Were the clay seals, in fact, forgeries? The issue of authenticity of clay seals from Lelang offers insight into the legacies of Japanese colonial history and archaeology in Korea, and to the responses to them by nationalists and pseudo-historians both academic and non-academic.