Thanks to an exceptional collaboration with the Gyeongju National Museum and other South Korean and French museums, the musée Guimet is presenting, for the first time in Europe, an exhibition on the kingdom of Silla (57 BC–935 AD), one of East Asia’s most brilliant civilizations.
Revealed first through historical chronicles and later through archaeological excavations, the arts of Silla are now regarded as a living heritage at the heart of the Korean Peninsula’s cultural memory. This unprecedented exhibition highlights a kingdom where art, spirituality, and power came together over nearly a millennium to shape a remarkably rich culture. From Silla’s mythical origins, as recounted in medieval Korean chronicles, to the kingdom’s fall, the exhibition unfolds across five thematic sections tracing the history, artistic expressions, and memory of a state that was both powerful and deeply rooted in spiritual traditions. It offers a fresh perspective on this civilization, revealing how political, religious, and aesthetic forces intertwined to produce a legacy that has endured to the present day. Transported back to the origins of the landscape city of Gyeongju in southeastern Korea, visitors will discover traces of a civilization whose imprint can still be seen in its mountains, vast “mountain tombs,” temples, and modern life. The city’s residents are fully committed to protecting their heritage. From the 4th to the early 6th century, the period known as the maripgan era marked a decisive stage in the emergence of Silla’s identity with the rise of the Kim clan. Gold became the kingdom’s dazzling hallmark and a symbol of its consolidated power. The treasures unearthed from royal tombs—gold crowns, jade ornaments, finely crafted jewelry, and figurative stoneware—bear witness to exceptional craftsmanship and to a kingdom connected to trade routes linking Japan, China, the steppe, Central Asia, and even the Mediterranean world. Political prestige and artistic splendor merged, giving rise to a visual language of extraordinary inventiveness. During the Unified Silla period (676–935), the kingdom established itself as the dominant power in the south, with Buddhism serving as both a spiritual force and a protector of the realm. Precious materials once reserved for royal tombs now found their place in monasteries, pagodas, reliquaries, and sacred images. Silla’s treasures of iron, gold, silver, glass, and stone form a living heritage that can still be felt in the landscape of Gyeongju and in collective memory. The exhibition brings together an exceptional collection of iconic works, including numerous national treasures being displayed outside South Korea for the first time. Nestled between wooded mountains and rolling plains, the city of Gyeongju, Silla’s capital, remains home to one of South Korea’s most distinctive landscapes. Pagodas, royal burial mounds, and monumental ruins coexist with the contours of a modern city dedicated to preserving its heritage. Visitors literally walk through the heart of history, in a place where the past remains visible, inhabited, and passed down.
Admission: From 0 to 15 euros.
Source: paris.fr — photo: Gyeongju National Museum