The Koguryo Graves - Combat-Ready for All Eternity,North Korea (331/418)

The site includes several groups and individual tombs - totalling about 30 individual graves - from the later period of the Koguryo Kingdom, one of the strongest kingdoms in northeast China and half of the Korean peninsula between the 3rd century BC and 7th century AD. The tombs, many with beautiful wall paintings, are almost the only remains of this culture. Only about 90 out of more than 10,000 Koguryo tombs discovered in China and Korea so far, have wall paintings. Almost half of these tombs are located on this site and they are thought to have been made for the burial of kings, members of the royal family and the aristocracy. These paintings offer a unique testimony to daily life of this period.