A landmine sweep turned up Korea’s oldest verifiable firearm, now on view in Seoul

A bronze tube just under 25 centimeters long and weighing about 1 kilogram, dug from a hillside in Naju during a mine-clearance survey in November 2023, has been authenticated as the earliest verifiable surviving firearm on the Korean Peninsula. Its 28-character inscription narrows the casting to December 1377 or December 1437, and the piece is on view at the National Palace Museum of Korea in Seoul through November 22, 2026.

A detector signal on Mount Geumseong

The object came out of the ground on Mount Geumseong in Naju, about 280 kilometers south of Seoul, where the military was checking for unexploded mines ahead of construction of a new walking trail. Nobody was looking for archaeology, and the first assumption was the usual one: a metal return on a detector meant ordnance.

Kyunghyang Shinmun, citing the Korea Heritage Service, reported that a soldier found it on November 14, 2023, roughly 10 centimeters down beneath a rock face, and that the military reported it six days later. Gizmodo’s account adds that the detector signal led soldiers to dig up a small firearm, not a mine, and that CT and X-ray scans followed. The National Naju Research Institute of Cultural Heritage then took custody. Heritage Service measurements put the piece at 23.75 centimeters long with a 1.66-centimeter bore and a mass of 1,032 grams, which squares with the rounded figures of about 25 centimeters and 1 kilogram in other coverage.

What 28 characters on a bronze tube prove

Most surviving early gunpowder weapons in any country arrive without paperwork: no maker, no date, often no known findspot. This one has all three kinds of evidence at once. According to Smithsonian Magazine’s account of the Heritage Service findings, 27 of the characters run in six columns on the socket and one sits on the muzzle, and the text reads that the Hwangja Hwatong was made in the twelfth month of a Jeongsa year, giving its weight as one geun and 14 nyang.

The rest names the supervising official, a Noksa called An Hyu-bo, and the artisan, Seok. “Hwangja” is a class designation, and the muzzle character is thought to be an inventory or production number, which the Heritage Service reads as evidence of state-organized manufacture rather than a private workshop piece.

Metallurgy backs the inscription. HeritageDaily’s report on the authentication says X-ray imaging and metallurgical analysis, after three years of study, showed a copper, tin and lead alloy with tin below 10 percent, enough to leave the metal ductile under firing pressure. Traces of silver and sulphur are consistent with historical casting practice and argue against a modern reproduction. The chamber is rounded, a form associated with early cannon before Joseon gunners adopted wooden wads to improve propulsion.

Cho Mi-soon, director of the Naju institute, put the find in plain terms at a press briefing. “This is an extraordinary discovery with immense academic, historical and cultural value,” she said, adding that the weapon “comes from a crucial transitional period between the late Goryeo and early Joseon dynasties.”

Two candidate years, 1377 and 1437

The inscription gives a year in the sixty-year sexagenary cycle, not a calendar number, so the date is a puzzle with more than one answer. According to the Kyunghyang report, researchers compared Jeongsa years between 1356 and 1448 against the record of firearm development and narrowed the candidates to 1377 and 1437. Both stay on the table, and no source consulted claims the choice has been made.

Each has a historical logic. In 1377 the Goryeo court, persuaded by Choe Mu-seon, created the Hwatong Dogam, a directorate for gunpowder weapons, at a time when Japanese pirates were raiding the coast. The mountain overlooks a stretch of the Yeongsan River that raiders used, and Eo Changsun, who heads academic research at the Naju institute, suggested the weapon may have been used to defend the area. In 1437 the reign of King Sejong was a period of active improvement in artillery.

Either date makes it the oldest of its kind with a legible date. The Kyunghyang report notes that the earliest nationally designated firearm with a verified inscribed date is the 1555 Cheonja Chongtong, so the new piece predates it by 118 years if cast in 1437 and 178 years if cast in 1377. The qualifier “verifiable” matters: two older-looking tubes at Kyung Hee University Museum, acquired in 1968, have no known findspot, so they cannot be tested the same way.

On view in Seoul, and what comes next

The piece went on display at the National Palace Museum of Korea on September 23 and the special exhibition runs until November 22, 2026, according to HeritageDaily and Kyunghyang Shinmun. Visitors can see a firearm that fired arrows or small projectiles,. The Heritage Service describes physical examples of gunpowder weapons from the late Goryeo and early Joseon periods as exceedingly rare.

The institute’s next steps, as Kyunghyang describes them, are to narrow the production year and to seek national Treasure designation. No gunpowder residue was identified in the powder chamber, so the dating rests on the inscription and comparison with records rather than a chemical test. Lee Sang-hoon, a former deputy director of the Korea Army Museum, said, as the Archaeology magazine summary of the identification and the Smithsonian report relay, that the artifact fills a gap in the history of Korean firearm development.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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