Excavation Status and Meaning of the ‘⌗’ Inscription in Goguryeo Ruins

This paper summarizes the excavation status of the ‘⌗’ inscription in Goguryeo ruins and examines its meaning. The ‘⌗’ inscription has been excavated in 182 cases, including 132 cases (up to 229 cases) in the GukNaeSeong(國內城) Castle area and 50 cases (up to 56 cases) in the South Korea area. The ‘⌗’ inscription is found on a variety of artifacts, including stone carvings, antefixes, and roof tiles in the GukNaeSeong Castle region, but only on earthenware in the South Korea region. As for its shape, most of the examples in the GukNaeSeong Castle area are rhombic, but in the South Korea, they are more rectangular.<br/>There are two schools of thought about the meaning of the ‘⌗’ inscription: the literalist school, which sees it as the character ‘井’ for well, and the symbolic school, which sees it as a sign. However, the order of carving the ‘⌗’ inscription is different from the ‘井’ character for well. Furthermore, in the ‘大 夫井 ’ inscription of Shirubong Fort, the ‘⌗’ inscription was carved upside down in the opposite direction from the ‘大夫’ character. Therefore, it is difficult to see the ‘⌗’ inscription as a ‘well 井’ character.<br/>The example of Shirubong Fort suggests that the ‘夫’ and ‘井’ inscription may have originally been one character. By examining inscriptions on cloud-patterned antefixes and stone inscriptions from the 4th century, I found that the Goguryeo people created the ‘春’ character by modifying the ‘吉’ character of the auspicious phrase, ‘大吉’. The ‘井’ inscription is coded by selecting only the lower part of the ‘春’, which represents ‘大吉’.<br/>The ‘井’ inscription was initially used in connection with royal tombs and rituals. However, because the ‘⌗’ inscription represents the most common auspicious phrase, ‘大吉’, it gradually became wide- spread and spread to neighboring countries such as Baekje, Silla, and Japan. As a result, the ‘⌗’ inscription became widely accepted as a common symbol in Northeast Asia, representing ‘大吉’, which means ‘auspiciousness’.