Birth of Gaya on Guji Peak

[Narration]
We have now arrived at Guji Peak, and it is the setting of the legend about King Suro, the founder of Gaya. This peak’s name ‘guji’ means ‘a turtle’s head’ and it derives from its shape when viewed from a distance.

[Tourist]
I see. What is the legend of King Suro?

[Narration]
I’ll tell you briefly. Before Gaya was founded, nine different chieftains collectively ruled the Gimhae region. One day, a strange sound was heard coming from Guji Peak. A voice from heaven told the people to sing and dance to celebrate the coming of their new king. The news of the message spread and many people gathered at Guji Peak. They began to dance and sing in celebration and to honor the new king. Before long, six golden eggs wrapped in red cloth descended from heaven to earth. The first child to hatch from one of the eggs was King Suro, who went on to found Geumgwan Gaya in the Gimhae region. The word Suro means ‘firstborn’.

[Tourist]
What about the other five eggs?

[Narration]
Five men hatched from the five remaining eggs, and like King Suro, each founded a separate region of Gaya. As such, Gaya became a confederacy of polities.

[Tourist]
That’s an interesting story. By the way, what is the dolmen over there?

[Narration]
The dolmen is from the 4th century B.C., and it consists of five or six supporting stones with a cover-stone lying on top of them. Look at the cover-stone. There is a phrase saying ‘Stone of Guji Peak’ and it was engraved by a famous calligrapher.

Now, let’s take a look at the area surrounding Guji Peak. Shall we walk to the observatory on the peak?

Let’s stop and rest here. In front of Guji Peak are the tombs of various Gaya kings. The Daeseong-dong Tombs Museum is located next to them.

[Tourist]
Wow! I can see the whole of Gimhae from here.

[Narration]
Indeed. But can you believe that some parts of Gimhae was under water during the Gaya period? It was covered by sea.

[Tourist]
Really! That’s hard to believe. I can’t even see the sea from here…

[Narration]
I know. But when Gaya was established, Gimhae was just a mudflat, revealed each time the tide receded. Gaya’s proximity to this part of the coast offered a geographical advantage and permitted exchange with neighboring countries by sea. Shell middens discovered in the region also support the assertion that the area was formerly tidal. These shell middens were simply piles of everyday rubbish, and most of them found in Gimhae were full of seashells from the mudflat such as oysters, clams and cockles. You can see related exhibits at the nearby Dongsam-dong Shell Midden Museum.


Intimate Exchange Between Gaya and Japan Appeared in Legend

Mysterious legends concerning the foundations of ancient kingdoms are commonplace. The legend of King Suro, the founder of Gaya, is a good example.

According to the legend, King Suro hatched from a cloth-covered golden egg descended from heaven. Legends such as these served to emphasize the divinity of a nation’s founder and to justify the authority of a royal family.

Surprisingly, the foundation myth of Gaya closely resembles Japanese mythology. How are they related? Let’s learn a little about Japanese mythology. Legend has it that the founder of Japan also descended from heaven and was covered in a cloth. Egg and cloth from heaven… They are really similar, aren’t they?

But there’s an additional point of similarity between the two myths. In the Japanese legend, the region where the founder of Japan first appeared was named kuji furu take, which means ‘the peak of Kuji village’. Both the name and the pronunciation of the Japanese village bear a strong resemblance to that of Guji Peak in Gimhae.

As we can see, the foundation mythologies of both countries are almost identical. This fact raises a question about whether the ruling group of Geumgwan Gaya migrated to Japan during the early 5th century and influenced the foundation of Japan.