National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage

- Awards ceremony for the "Transverse Flute Storytelling Webtoon Competition" to be held alongside the conference. Signiel Busan.

To mark the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the Buyeo National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (Director Hwang In-ho), under the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage of the Korea Heritage Service, will host an international academic conference on "Musical Instruments and Wooden Tablets from the Gwanbuk-ri Site, Buyeo" from 1 p.m. on Tuesday, 22 July, at the Grand Ballroom of Signiel Busan (Haeundae-gu, Busan). The conference will be organised jointly with the Korean Society for the Study of Wooden Documents and the Baekje Society.

The Gwanbuk-ri Site in Buyeo is widely regarded as the royal palace of the Sabi-era Baekje Kingdom. Successive excavations have brought to light a range of features illustrating the layout of the palace, including a large hall structure, waterways and road systems. Most notably, the 16th excavation campaign, conducted between 2022 and 2025, yielded 329 wooden tablets — the largest quantity ever recovered in Korea and the earliest dated to the Sabi period. The campaign also produced the first known physical example of a bamboo transverse flute (hoengjeok) from Baekje, offering an invaluable insight into the kingdom's musical culture.

The conference has been convened to publicise these findings and to place them in a wider East Asian context, drawing comparisons with wooden tablets and ancient transverse flutes from overseas. In doing so, it seeks to shed comprehensive light on the governance, administration, documentary practices and courtly musical culture of Sabi-era Baekje.

Programme

The conference will run from 1 p.m. on 22 July to 3.30 p.m. on 23 July, comprising a keynote lecture, twelve thematic presentations and a plenary discussion by leading specialists.

◦ Keynote lecture: Professor Emeritus Park Sun-bal (Chungnam National University) will deliver a keynote entitled "The Baekje Court Chamber Seen through Documents and Musical Instruments".

◦ Session 1-1 — Contents of the Gwanbuk-ri Wooden Tablets and Comparative Studies Abroad: Researchers from Korea, China and Japan will examine the archaeological context and contents of the Gwanbuk-ri tablets, comparing them with Chinese and Japanese counterparts to bring out the distinctive features of Baekje's wooden tablets and their significance within East Asia.

◦ Session 1-2 — Significance and Reconstruction of the Baekje Transverse Flute: Held in parallel in the adjoining hall, this session will bring together Korean and Japanese scholars to analyse the origins, structure and acoustic properties of the Gwanbuk-ri flute from a range of perspectives, and to consider Baekje musical culture and Korea–Japan cultural exchange through comparison with ancient Japanese transverse flutes. A plenary discussion, chaired by Professor Emeritus Song Hye-jin (Sookmyung Women's University), will follow, addressing the scholarly value of the Baekje transverse flute, its reconstruction and directions for future research.

◦ Session 2 — Baekje Administrative Governance and Records Management: From 9.30 a.m. on 23 July, four papers will draw on the Gwanbuk-ri tablets to reconstruct the townscape of the Sabi capital and to examine Baekje's provincial administration, official ranks and records management. From 1.30 p.m., a plenary discussion chaired by Professor Emeritus Ju Bo-don (Kyungpook National University) will bring together the presenters and discussants from Sessions 1-1 and 2.

Fringe events

Following the morning session on 23 July, the awards ceremony and exhibition for the "Storytelling Webtoon Competition on the Hoengjeok Flute Excavated at the Gwanbuk-ri Site, Buyeo" will be held. The competition invited webtoon entries retelling the history of Baekje's transverse flute in an engaging visual format.

In addition, the Buyeo–Chungnam Traditional Music Orchestra will give two performances on the theme of "The Five Court Musicians of Baekje and the Transverse Flute":

◦ 1st performance: 14:00–14:30, BEXCO Exhibition Hall 1, Busan

◦ 2nd performance: 19:40–19:50, Busan Museum

Attendance

Attendance is by prior registration only. Further enquiries may be directed to the Buyeo National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage on +82-41-830-5612.

Through this conference, the Buyeo National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage intends to share the results of the Gwanbuk-ri excavations with researchers at home and abroad, to strengthen international academic exchange, and — through continued systematic investigation and study — to open new horizons in Baekje historical research and to disseminate its findings widely to the public and to the scholarly community.