King Tangun´s Mausoleum
The Mausoleum of King Tangun, the ancestral father of the Korean nation, is at the foot of Mt. Taebak in Kangdong County, Pyongyang.
The name “Tangun” takes its origin from the “King of the Pakdal Tribe”.
Tangun was born into a family of the chief of the “Pakdal Tribe” based in Pyongyang area 5,011 years ago (as of 1993).
He was one of the historical pioneers who founded Kojoson (Ancient Korea), the first state in the East. The foundation of Kojoson marked the end of the primitive age in our country and the entry of our nation into the age of civilization.
Thanks to the correct policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea for protecting national cultural heritage, Tangun, who had been known as a mythical and legendary being for thousands of years, was identified as a real person and his tomb was reconstructed in a short period of a year.
With an area of 45 hectares, the mausoleum consists of three districts; the Monument to the Reconstructed King Tangun's Mausoleum District, Stone Statue District and the Tomb District.
King Tangun’s Mausoleum, a pyramidal stone tomb, is a square structure which is 22 m high and each side of whose base is 50 m long.
It is a nine-tier mausoleum built up with 1,994 cut granite stones. The entrance to the mausoleum has a door of stone with two leaves each weighing 1.2 t.
Two glass boxes which contain the skeletal remains of King Tangun and his wife are on the stone stands in the tomb chamber which can accommodate ten-odd people at a time.
On the four corners of the mausoleum stand carved stone tigers as guardians. Four dagger towers shaped like pipha-form daggers, symbolic weapons of Kojoson, the sculptures of the four sons of King Tangun and his eight royal subjects, stone lanterns, stone posts, a stone table and a stone incense burner and other exquisitely-worked stone sculptures are also found around the mausoleum.
In front of the mausoleum stand the monument to the reconstructed King Tangun’s Mausoleum which reflects the leadership exploits of President Kim Il Sung and the leader Kim Jong Il, and the monument to the record of the King Tangun’s Mausoleum repaired in 1936.
Besides, wide stairs and a motorway leading up to the mausoleum have been built for the convenience of the visitors and well-kept green areas harmonize with the scenery around.
During the ten years after its reconstruction, the National Foundation Day of Korea has been celebrated at the mausoleum with the participation of people of all strata from north, south and abroad, where they have renewed their resolve to reunify the country with the concerted efforts of all the fellow countrymen and burnish the time-honoured history and the future of the nation.
The King Tangun’s Mausoleum, another invaluable cultural property of the WPK era, will be conveyed down through the generations together with the noble love-the-country, love-the-nation idea of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il who clarified the founder of our nation and its 5,000-year-long history.