# Ten-story Stone Pagoda from Gyeongcheonsa Temple Site > Unknown marble carvers, Gyeongcheonsa Temple commission - 1348 (the fourth year of King Chungmok, Goryeo) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/gyeongcheonsa-carvers/gyeongcheonsa-ten-story-pagoda/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-23 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown marble carvers, Gyeongcheonsa Temple commission - **Date:** 1348 (the fourth year of King Chungmok, Goryeo) - **Medium:** Marble - **Dimensions:** 13.5 m high; ten storeys on a three-tiered cruciform foundation - **Object type:** Sculpture - **Period:** Korean, Goryeo dynasty - **Current location:** National Museum of Korea, Seoul, standing in one of the main halls - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A marble pagoda 13.5 metres high, cut in 1348 for a temple in Gyeonggi Province and carved to look as though it were built of wood. In 1907 it was taken apart by an antiques dealer working for Tanaka Mitsuaki, Japan's Minister of Imperial Household Affairs, using some 120 to 130 armed men, and shipped to Japan without authorisation. It was returned in 1918 after an international press campaign run by two foreign journalists working in Korea, the Englishman Ernest T. Bethell and the American Homer Hulbert, who used his platform at the Second Hague Peace Conference to publicise the theft.The removal, the campaign and the return are documented in sequence and by named people, which is rare for a colonial-era case this early, and Korean-language historical journalism has since filled in most of the mechanism: the dealer's name, the false pretext Tanaka gave for taking it, and the reasoning that a display of colonial legitimacy inside Korea served Japanese administration better than a Japanese trophy would have. What still has no published answer is the single Japanese administrative act, if one existed, that authorised the return.What came back was a heap of dismantled marble, reportedly still packed exactly as it had been taken apart. The pagoda was not reassembled until 1960, was taken down again in the 1990s because acid rain was eating the stone, and was finally set up indoors at the National Museum of Korea in 2005, where it is now the subject of an evening light-and-sound show as well as a museum highlight. Its temple is gone and its site lies north of the line that has divided the peninsula since 1953. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1348-1907** Gyeongcheonsa Temple, Gwangdeok-myeon, Gaepung County, Gyeonggi Province `[documented]` (origin) Erected in the fourth year of King Chungmok according to the inscription on the first storey, at a temple at the foot of Mount Buso. The temple is recorded as no longer existing. The site lies north of the line dividing the peninsula since 1953. - **1907-1918** Tanaka Mitsuaki, Japan's Minister of Imperial Household Affairs `[documented]` (removal to Japan) Dismantled and taken to Japan without authorisation during the Japanese occupation, in the year Emperor Gojong was forced to abdicate and three years before formal annexation. Where the pagoda was kept in Japan is not established in the sources consulted. - **1918-1960** Returned to Korea; held dismantled on the grounds of Gyeongbokgung Palace `[documented]` (restitution) Returned in 1918. Two western journalists working in Korea, Ernest T. Bethell and Homer Hulbert, had run an international press campaign denouncing the removal; the sources consulted place the campaign and the return in sequence without establishing the mechanism that produced it. The Japanese colonial authorities intended to install it at their own museum; the outbreak of the Korean independence movement put the plan on hold, and the pagoda remained dismantled for forty-two years. - **1960-1990s** Gyeongbokgung Palace grounds, Seoul `[documented]` (re-erection) Reassembled and re-erected in 1960 under the direction of Lim Cheon, a museum researcher and architect. Stood outdoors at Gyeongbokgung, where acid rain attacked the marble. Designated National Treasure of Korea No. 86 on 20 December 1962. - **1990s-2005** Korean state conservation authorities `[documented]` (second dismantling for conservation) Taken apart a second time because acid rain was damaging the marble, and conserved. This is the second complete dismantling and reassembly of the monument in a century, the first having been the removal of 1907. The decade of the campaign is given in the sources as the 1990s; no start and end dates, cost or technical account were reachable here. - **2005-present** National Museum of Korea, Seoul `[documented]` (conservation and installation indoors) Installed indoors in one of the main halls of the National Museum of Korea in 2005 following the conservation campaign, a decision driven by acid-rain damage to the marble. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - The pagoda has never been sold, offered, or valued on any published market. It was dismantled and taken to Japan in 1907 by Tanaka Mitsuaki, Japan's Minister of Imperial Household Affairs, an act reported at the time as theft rather than purchase, and no sum is recorded against the removal in the sources consulted. Japan returned it to Korea on 15 November 1918 following an international press campaign, again with no payment or figure recorded; it has remained in Korean institutional hands since, dismantled and conserved twice more, and is now displayed indoors at the National Museum of Korea. ## Open questions - What proportion of the original stone and jointing survives the two dismantlings of 1907 and 1995? No published breakdown appears in the sources consulted, and this is a monument that has been taken apart and put back together twice. - Was the pagoda ever actually erected in Tanaka Mitsuaki's own garden, as Korean-language accounts report he intended, or did it remain crated in storage in Japan for the full eleven years before 1918? The sources consulted report the motive without confirming what happened to the stone once it arrived. - What single Japanese administrative order or ministerial decision, if any, authorised the 1918 return? The sources consulted document sustained international press pressure and one historian's argument about colonial legitimacy, but no cited legal instrument. - Is the popular Korean account that Kato Kiyomasa coveted this pagoda (and the Wongaksa pagoda) during the 1592-1598 invasions a documented historical episode or a legend attached retrospectively to the 1907 removal? It appears in historical-interest journalism, not in a primary record read here. - Who carved it, and where did the marble come from? Neither the workshop nor the quarry is recorded. - Has the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which administers the temple site at Gaepung, ever raised a claim or a position on the pagoda? Nothing in the sources consulted addresses it, and nothing new surfaced on re-verification in August 2026. - What did the 1995-2005 conservation programme by the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage cost and what did it involve technically, beyond running roughly a decade? No published account was reachable here. ## Sources - [1] Wikipedia, 'Gyeongcheonsa Pagoda', read as the raw article text on 4 August 2026: the 1348 inscription on the first storey, the temple site at Mount Buso in Gwangdeok-myeon, Gaepung County, the 1907 removal by Mitsuaki Tanaka, the Bethell and Hulbert campaign, the 1918 return to Gyeongbokgung, the ten-storey count and the thirteen-storey error, the marble against granite point, the cruciform foundation and timber-imitating carving, the Wongaksa descendant, and National Treasure No. 86 designated 20 December 1962. TERTIARY: to be replaced with the Korea Heritage Service record and the National Museum of Korea catalogue entry. Re-verified resolving on 23 August 2026. - [2] The Korea Herald, '[Stories of Artifacts] 14th century pagoda bears witness to Korea's history', 7 May 2023: the 1348 date and the inscription, the marble and 13.5 m height, Tanaka's smuggling of the pagoda to Japan, the return in 1918 following the Bethell and Hulbert press campaigns, the shelving of the colonial museum plan when the independence movement broke out, the 1960 reassembly at Gyeongbokgung under Lim Cheon, the 2005 move indoors because of acid-rain damage, and the iconographic programme by storey (Journey to the West, Buddhist ceremonies, a bodhisattva's path to enlightenment) per senior researcher Shin So-yeon. Re-verified resolving on 23 August 2026. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Wongaksa Pagoda', for the 1467 date, the marble, the 12 m height and ten storeys, the Tapgol Park location, National Treasure No. 2, the modelling on the Gyeongcheonsa pagoda and the glass enclosure installed in 1999. TERTIARY. Re-verified resolving on 23 August 2026; no reported change to its enclosed, outdoor display status. - [4] Wikimedia Commons file records for the photographs used, each carrying its LicenseShortName, author and description. Licences read per file on 4 August 2026: CC BY-SA 4.0 for the Ethan Doyle White and Tristan Surtel images, CC BY-SA 3.0 for the Steve46814 images. Re-verified resolving, licence unchanged, on 23 August 2026. - [5] National Museum of Korea, official highlight page, 'Ten-story Stone Pagoda from Gyeongcheonsa Temple Site', consulted 23 August 2026: the storey-by-storey carving programme (Journey to the West, Buddhist ceremonies, bodhisattva practice), the a-ja-character base plan, and current display in the museum's history gallery. - [6] National Museum of Korea, digital/immersive gallery page describing 'Lighting the Sky Pagoda', consulted 23 August 2026: the twelve-minute media-facade projection show, its Wednesday/Saturday evening schedule, and the accompanying daily augmented-reality programme. - [7] The Korea Times, 'Unique pagoda with memorable history', 19 January 2021: Tanaka's 1907 removal reportedly to decorate his own garden, Hulbert's press conference at the Second Hague Peace Conference denouncing the plundering of Korean cultural property, and the international press pressure that led to the 1918 return. - [8] Kyunghyang Shinmun, Lee Ki-hwan history column, '[Hi-story] Japanese minister Tanaka's plunder of the Gyeongcheonsa pagoda, the full story', 19 July 2017 (Korean-language, read via automated translation): Tanaka's delegation of the operation to the antiques dealer Kondo Sagoro, the 120-130 armed men gathered on 4 February 1907, the gunfire and swords used against local objectors, the dismantling into upward of 140 blocks and transport to Gaeseong railway station, the false claim that Emperor Gojong had granted the pagoda to Japan, and the return on 15 November 1918 in the same packaged state as taken. - [9] Kyunghyang Shinmun, Lee Ki-hwan history column on Japanese removal of Korean stone pagodas under colonial rule, 13 August 2023 (Korean-language, read via automated translation): the role of Governor-General Terauchi Masatake in policing similar removals from 1912, the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage's decade-long conservation programme from 1995, and an argument that displaying the pagoda in Korea served Japanese colonial administration better than removing it to Japan permanently. - [10] Academy of Korean Studies, Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, entry on the Gaeseong Gyeongcheonsa-ji ten-story stone pagoda, consulted 23 August 2026 (Korean-language, read via automated translation): the a-ja-shaped three-tier base, the storey-by-storey carving, the dedication praying for the longevity of the Yuan emperor, and the pagoda's role as model for the Wongaksa pagoda. TERTIARY (national reference encyclopedia); its stated 1909 removal date conflicts with the 4 February 1907 date given consistently by sources 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9 and is not used here. - [11] Seoul Shinmun (nownews.seoul.co.kr), feature article on the Gyeongcheonsa pagoda's history and the folk tradition of a curse on those involved in its removal, published 1 June 2026 (Korean-language, read via automated translation): the pro-Yuan aristocratic patronage, the legend of Kato Kiyomasa's earlier interest in the pagoda during the 1592-1598 invasions, the folk belief that Japanese workers involved in the removal suffered misfortune, and the observation that Tanaka Mitsuaki himself lived to 95, undercutting the legend. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.