Among the national cultural heritages of our people with a 5 000-year-long history is the stone lamp of the Kaeguk Temple known as the stone lamp of the Koryo dynasty.
There was a stone lamp at the Kaeguk Temple in Kaesong City.
The Kaeguk Temple was built in 935. It was famous as one of the top ten temples of the Koryo dynasty, but it became dilapidated during the feudal Joson dynasty.
At the temple there was a seven-storeyed stone tower together with the stone lamp.
The structure of the stone lamp lets us believe that it was made at the same time as the seven-storey tower. According to the records of “Koryo History”, the seven-storey tower was built before 1018.
The stone lamp at the Kaeguk Temple, one of the biggest stone lamps existing in our country, is 3.72 meters tall. It is a square plane lamp made of smoothly faced granite which consists of a base stone, pillars, light space and a lamp head.
Every side of the square plane base stone is 1.92 meters long and the top is engraved with an up-side-down lotus flower.
The stone lamp is one of the precious cultural legacies that demonstrate the stone architecture of the early years of the Koryo dynasty characterized by simplicity and majesty.
At present, it is preserved as a national treasure in the Koryo Museum in Kaesong.
© 2021 KumChaek University of Technology