목간의 정의와 고려·조선 목간의 집계

초록

In order to organize the current state of wooden documents excavated in Korea, it is essential to clearly define what a wooden document is. One of the issues was whether bamboo materials should be included as part of wooden documents or to treated seperately. As an alternative, it has been proposed to define the material as “wood (including bamboo).” We had previously suggested excluding items that were clearly intended for stamping, printing, or purposes other than writing, even if they bore characters. However, in practice, determining such intentions or purposes proved difficult. Therefore, the following definition is proposed: “A wooden document refers to a piece of wood (including bamboo) with writing. The definition is limited to items discovered through archaeological excavations.” Based on this definition, we cataloged wooden documents from the Goryeo and Joseon periods. The existence of wooden documents from the Goryeo period was firstly recognized with the discovery of the Taean ship—a celadon transport vessel found in the waters near Daeseom, Taean. Wooden wedges with signature had not previously been regarded as wooden documents in excavation reports, but under the new definition, they must be included. In shipwrecks near Mado, Taean, both wooden and bamboo documents were found. Items without ink traces were excluded, and misidentified materials were corrected. A wooden pillar with writing found near Padori, Taean, was also classified as a wooden document. Including the wooden document excavated from the Bangu-dong site in Ulsan, the total number of wooden documents from the Goryeo period amounts to 188: 89 made of wood and 99 made of bamboo. As for the Joseon period, examples have been found from Mado Ship No. 4 near Taean and from Pasa Fortress in Yeoju. These include 65 items in total: 44 wooden and 21 bamboo. In addition, a full review of excavation reports—including those covering all artifacts from the Goryeo and Joseon periods—is necessary to determine whether any other wooden documents matching the proposed definition had been discovered. We examined 6,141 excavation reports, but no additional wooden documents meeting the criteria were found. However, in Japan, a significant portion of recently excavated wooden documents belong to the Early Modern period, and related researches are progressing. This suggests that with growing recognition and interest in wooden documents from the Goryeo and Joseon preiods, the potential for further discoveries remain high. To standardize terminology, the authors proposed a set of ‘recommended names’ through the Oh-Lee Wooden Documents List. As of April 2025, the Korean Society for Wooden Documents officially adopted ‘recommended names’ as the standard terminology. We hope that this will reduce confusion in the identification and retrieval of wooden documents in the future.

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