Cetaceans of a Rock Engraving at Ban-gu Dae in Korea

About a rock engraving at Ban-gu Dae, Naoichi Kokubu(1973) noted that the sea animals like dolphins, whales and sea turtles are depicted along with land animals. When I brought the work of Mawaki to a pause 1986, I purchased the original report of the rock engraving (Hwang et Moon, 1984, Ban-gu Dae Rock Picture in Ul-ju, Dongguk University, Seoul). The rock engraving exceeded my expectation, because whales and whaling scene are very vividly depicted.

However, the report leaves many things to be desired for identifying species of whales. I thought that more a detailed identification might be possible by help of cetologists because it seemed to me that the engravers had depicted whales with sharp distinctions across several species. I was present at the second Annual International Symposium of IBI at Kamogawa in Chiba Prefecture, in February 1990, and read a paper on archaeological studies of cetacean in East Asia. Taking advantage of the symposium, I received suggestions from a few cetologists and tried to examine the engraving of Ban-gu Dae my self. I presented the results at two meetings of the Japanese Archaeological Association and the Sea of Japan Cetology Research Group in May 1990. Then, I visited Ban-gu Dae with Prof. Koo-byong Park of National Fisheries University of Pusan in July.

The engraving was found at a rock wall facing a dam up the Te-hua River into Ul-san Bay in January 1972, when it was an unusually dry season. It shows Right Whale, Gray Whale and other whale hunting in the prehistoric age. They had been extensively hunted in Ul-san Bay or the near seas by the Modern whaling fishery of USA or Japan. It was generally thought before the find of the engraving that Korean whaling began under influence of Japan. However, the engraving shows prehistoric whaling in Korea. Their style and method have something in common with rock engravings of the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze ages in Siberia and north Europe.

• Hiraguchi, T., 1990, Prehistoric whaling in the Sea of Japan, Abstracts of the 56th general meeting of the Japanese Archaeological Association, ９:32-35. (In Japanese)

• .Hiraguchi, T., 1991, Archaeological studies of cetacean in East Asia. I B I REPORTS, 2:79-87 (English abstract)

• Hiraguchi, T., 1991b, Ancient whale fishing in the inshore of the straits of Korea/Tsushima. Nihonkai Cetology, １:20-29. (In Japanese)

• Hiraguchi, T., 2003, Prehistoric Whaling on the Coast of Japan. Bones and Woods as Human Resource, Revealed by Archaeological Scientific Analysis. 131-152. KUBA PRO. Tokyo. (In Japanese)
  

The engraving was found at a rock wall facing a dam
up the Te-hua River into Ul-san Bay in January 1972,
when it was an unusually very dry season.

The three whale pictures show the features of Right Whale.