The Dolmen Builders
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
The people of Darae’s village, rooted by the river, shaped pots from clay, sowed seeds, and paddled dugout canoes up and down the rivers and seas. One autumn, thousands of years later, strangers from the north came to the village where Darae’s distant descendants lived. The blade raised by the man in front was not stone or wood, but a metal that shone like the sun.
Characters
A child of the hill village
A farmer who plows the fields
She knows the old tales
Becomes the village leader
to the sun and the sky
That metal, bronze, came from the north
and spread across the Korean Peninsula over many long years.
The Bronze Age had begun.
NuriI’m Nuri. Our village sits on a hill overlooking the river.
A ditch and a wooden fence ran around the village. Down by the water at the foot of the hill were paddies divided into small plots.
When spring came, Dad stepped on his ttabi foot plow to turn over the field.
so flat-bottomed pots work better.
In autumn, the rice ripened golden in the low, flooded land.
and lots of people working for them.
They threaded a cord through a half-moon stone knife, hung it on the hand, and picked only the ripe heads, one by one.
no one ordered anyone around…
Houses with grain to spare, and houses without enough. High and low were appearing among people.
Around that time, in Nuri’s village too,
the fire for melting bronze blazed up.
NuriThat day, for the first time, I saw bronze being poured.
Bronze, made by melting copper with metals like tin, was precious. Not just anyone could have the materials, or the skill to melt them.
like the sun!
Whoever had bronze was the one who had power.
As grain piled up, people came to steal it.
I will defend this village!
Because the master of the big storehouse led the fight, the village kept its grain.
we were lucky it wasn’t worse.
He who led the fight now ruled over more land and more people. A leader like this is called a chieftain.
NuriThat day, for the first time, I saw my father bow his head to someone.
On the chieftain’s orders, people dug the ditch around the village (the moat) deeper and drove the wooden fence (the palisade) in tighter.
get past that ditch.
what does this look like?
Carving the sun into the rock, people prayed for a good harvest.
On the day of the rite, the chieftain held his bronze mirror high to catch the sun.
The people bowed down and dared not raise their eyes.
Before the flashing mirror, people believed the chieftain truly spoke with Heaven.
One autumn, chieftains from neighboring villages gathered in Nuri’s village.
Villages became tribes, and tribes joined together into ever larger groups.
Years went by, and the old chieftain passed away.
For him, the people decided to build
a tomb like none anyone had ever seen.
First, they split off a rock on the mountain to use as the capstone.
and pour on the water!
the rock will split.
They laid the old chieftain in the burial chamber between the support stones, and placed the things he had treasured beside him.
A bronze dagger, a polished stone dagger, red burnished pottery, jade beads.
They set the split rock on logs, and countless people pulled on the ropes.
The power to bring this many people together: that was the chieftain’s power.
And on top, the capstone came to rest.
When the earth ramp was cleared away, the dolmen appeared at last.
On the night the tomb was finished, the old priest called the children together.
Long, long ago,
had a son…
Stories like this must have changed little by little as they passed from mouth to mouth.
A bear and a tiger, and
the tale of one who came down from Heaven.
The story of Korea’s first kingdom is about to begin.
