The Korean Empire

The colored drawings used on my Korean Empire web pages are taken from the book 舊韓國勳章圖 (구한국훈장도) “Former Korea Honors and Decorations” which is located in the National Library of Korea 국립중앙도서관.

It can be viewed at the East Asia Digital Library. If you precisely enter “Korea Honors and Decorations” into the search box, you will find the general listing for the book. A listing of the digitized pages is located at https://eadl.asia/page/DM-NLKKOL000021931_DO. If you encounter any problems finding the pictures, just drop me a message through My Contact Form at the bottom of the page. Be sure to put “Korea” or “Korean medals” in the title line of the message. (I tend to be a little over zealous in purging unwanted email.)

The book was originally published by 刊寫地未詳 (간사지미상). The date of publication appears to be Taisho 13.2.22 (Feb. 22, 1924). The 古0389 within the stamp refers to “Antiquity 0389” (고0389).

For a nearly complete list of award recipients, see the book “Korean Empire Era, Decoration System” 대한제국시대 훈장제도. It does not list recipients who were part of the royal family, and it does not list the recipients of the Commemorative Medals 기념장.1


Footnotes:

  1. Yi Kang-chil 이강칠 (李康七) (1999), publisher 백산출판사, pp. 115–211