Description of the attraction
The Ethnographic Museum of Korea is located on the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace complex, in the northern part of Seoul. It is worth noting that this royal palace complex was the main residence and is also the largest of the Five Great Palaces. The museum was founded in November 1945 with the assistance of the US government, and officially opened in April 1946 and was called the National Museum of Anthropology.
Until 1975, this museum and the National Museum of Korea were located in the same building. And only in 1975, when the National Museum of Korea moved to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the Ethnographic Museum of Korea opened in the old building of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1993, the museum changed its location again - it moved to the building where the National Museum of Korea used to be.
The museum has three main exhibition halls with over 98,000 artifacts on display. The exposition of the museum is divided into three areas: the history of the Korean people (exhibits from the excavations of ancient settlements, from prehistoric times to the Joseon era), the Korean way of life (costumes, household items of ancient Koreans, tools for agriculture, hunting, fishing and much more) and the life cycle of Koreans (the exhibits will tell about the role of Confucianism in Korean culture and the influence on cultural customs, as well as about the different life cycles of the people, from birth to death). In addition, part of the exposition is exposed in the open air. Here you can see sculptures that were believed at that time to protect the village from evil spirits, a windmill, a mortar mill, and rice storage facilities.
Every Saturday, Korean folk music concerts are held outside the museum.
