Gyeongju is very old city. So it has plenty of the relics of various dynasties.
But Actually, dynasties in Korean history is not complicated, because each dynasty had lasted for long term compare to Japan and China.
Each dynasty had survived 500 or 1000 years over coming the challenges from in and outside.
But this long time reign of one dynasty looked not to helpful for historical dynamics.
In Gyeongju, there are several relics of later dynasty’s.
In this posting, I’d like to introduce you the Stone Ice Storage in Gyeongju.
There are lots of Stone Ice Storage preserved in various place in Korea.
Among them, Stone Ice Storage in Gyeongu was one of the best well preserved one.
Plus this stone ice storage is located on the palace wall of Shilla dynasty.
The palace well in Shilla dynasty has very specific feature. It was made like the shape of mountain.
It was not easy to identify the wall at first glance.
But you walk along the wall, you could recognize the wall was well organized.
Besides the scene around the wall was so beautiful, and the wall itself was a nice place to walk around.
Even though out side of water hazard was destroyed, the characteristics of geology and the structure of the wall was very well organized against the invasion of the enemy.
Interesting thing was the Stone Ice Storage was on the top of the wall.
It was curious that how they could keep ice until summer.
I looked around inside. There seemed nothing particular for me to find out the secret of keeping ice until summer.
Inside was built with stones.
One thing made me feel strange was the chimneys.
Why did this stone ice storage need the chimneys ?
If they’d keep ice, the chimneys were totally different matter in my eyes.
The chimneys would not be helpful to keeping the ice.
But the chimneys must be very useful in keeping the ice for a long time.
There might be a secret in the chimneys in preserving the ice for a long time.
Is there anybody to know this secrete ?