Geumgwan Gaya

Geumgwan Gaya (43 - 532), also known as Bon-Gaya (본가야, 本伽倻, "original Gaya") or Garakguk (가락국, "Garak State"), was the ruling city-state of the Gaya confederacy during the Three Kingdoms Period in Korea. It is believed to have been located around the modern-day city of Gimhae, Southern Gyeongsang province, near the mouth of the Nakdong River. Due to its geographic location, this kingdom played a dominant role in the regional affairs from the Byeonhan period onward to the end of the Gaya confederacy.

Part of a series on the
History of Korea
Prehistoric period
Jeulmun Mumun
Ancient period
Gojoseon 2333 BC–108 BC Jin
Proto–Three Kingdoms period
Buyeo Goguryeo Okjeo Dongye Samhan Ma Byeon Jin Four Commanderies of Han
Three Kingdoms period
Goguryeo 37 BC–668 AD Baekje 18 BC–660 AD Silla 57 BC–935 AD Gaya confederacy 42 AD–562 AD
Northern and Southern States period
Later Silla (Unified Silla) 668–935 Balhae 698–926
Later Three Kingdoms period
Later Baekje 892–936 Taebong (Later Goguryeo) 901–918 Later Silla 668–935
Dynastic period
Goryeo 918–1392 Joseon 1392–1897 Korean Empire 1897–1910
Colonial period
Japanese rule 1910–1945 Provisional Government 1919–1948
Modern period
Military governments 1945–1948 North Korea 1948–present South Korea 1948–present
Topics
Art Division Language Military (Goguryeo) Monarchs Naval Science and technology
Timeline

According to the Samguk Yusa, Geumgwan Kaya was made of 9 villages united by King Suro of Gaya. His wife and queen Heo Hwang-ok, whom he married in 48 AD, is believed to be from an Ayuta kingdom.[1]

During this early time in the history of Gaya, several waves of migration from the north, including the earlier-extant Gojoseon, Buyeo, and the Goguryeo, arrived and integrated with existing populations and stimulated cultural and political developments. A sharp break in burial styles is found in archaeological sites dated near the late 3rd century AD, when these migrations are to have taken place. Burial forms associated with North Asian nomadic peoples, such as the burial of horses with the dead, suddenly replace earlier forms in the tombs of the elite. In addition, evidence exists indicating that earlier burials were systematically destroyed. In the early 1990s, a royal tomb complex was unearthed in Daeseong-dong, Gimhae, attributed to Geumgwan Gaya but apparently used since Byeonhan times.[2]

After Geumgwan Gaya capitulated to Silla in 532 AD, its royal house was accepted into the Sillan aristocracy (probably because by that time, a major house of Silla, of the Gyeongju Kim clan, was related to the Gaya royal house, which was Gimhae Kim clan) and given the rank of "true bone," the second-highest level of the Silla bone rank system. General Kim Yu-shin of Silla (also of the Gimhae Kim clan) was a descendant of the last king of Gaya.