Korean TraditionSacred Site
Najeong
The well site in Gyeongju where, in the Samguk Yusa and Samguk Sagi, a white horse knelt beside the egg from which Silla's founder Bak Hyeokgeose was born; excavated as the site of an ancient shrine.
About Najeong
The founder's well
Najeong lies in the southern part of Gyeongju, the capital of ancient Silla, near the foot of Mount Namsan. According to both the Samguk Yusa and the Samguk Sagi, it was here, by a well in a wood, that the six village chiefs saw a white horse kneeling beside a great egg, from which the founder Bak Hyeokgeose was born.
A shrine excavated
The Samguk Sagi records that later Silla kings built a shrine at the founder's birthplace. Excavations at Najeong in the early 2000s uncovered the foundations of a large octagonal building, surrounded by walls, interpreted as that shrine, over the remains of earlier structures. The site is a Historic Site of South Korea; a memorial stele of the Joseon period stands there.
Other founder sites
Nearby are the Five Tombs (Oreung), traditionally the burial place of Bak Hyeokgeose, Queen Aryeong, and early kings, with the ancestral shrine Sungdeokjeon, and the Aryeong well of the queen's birth.
On the map
Najeong among other places of the Korean Tradition.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Iryeon, Samguk Yusa, Book 1, 'Silla's Founder King Hyeokgeose' (paraphrase)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.