Cultural heritage management to get thorough review

Following Prime Minister Chung Hong-won’s call for a special audit of the management of cultural heritage on Friday, the Culture Ministry and the affiliated Cultural Heritage Administration, both responsible for the inquiry, were still unclear Sunday about how the audit would be conducted.

The Culture Ministry said it was not aware of how the audit will be conducted since its affiliate, the Cultural Heritage Administration, would be in charge of carrying out the inquiry.

According to a Culture Ministry official in charge of cultural policy, the ministry will be supervising the inquiry and it doesn’t know the details such as the range or the number of cultural heritage items to be examined.

The Cultural Heritage Administration also declined to comment on details Sunday, citing the sensitivity of the issue, especially as the agency faces a Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea investigation after it was accused of mismanaging major cultural heritage.

A string of restoration and preservation problems was discovered at the newly renovated Sungnyemun Gate, National Treasure No. 1, and with a UNESCO-listed heritage site and artifacts ― mid-eighth-century Seokguram Grotto and Tripitaka Koreana dating back to the 13th century.

With growing public distrust and concern over the problems, Prime Minister Chung ordered the Culture Ministry to undertake a special inquiry into its management of cultural heritage in Korea.

“The Culture Ministry should examine what has gone wrong in the management of cultural heritage properties, review the entire process of cultural heritage management and come up with ways to address the problems,” Chung said.

The call for a special audit came after a restoration problem with Sungnyemun Gate was raised in October, just five months after it was reopened to the public following a five-year project to restore it after it was destroyed in an arson attack in 2008. There was also a recent discovery of more conservation problems surrounding two other major cultural assets.

A parliamentary audit in October revealed that Sungnyemun Gate had more than 20 spots with flaking paint and one of the wooden columns sustaining the pavilion had essentially split down the middle. The administrator of the Cultural Heritage Administration, an affiliate of the Culture Ministry in charge of the restoration work, was fired on Nov. 15.

“We should not forget the day when our National Treasure No. 1 collapsed in a fire five years ago,” Chung said. “An audit should find the causes of restoration problems and permanent solutions,” he stressed.

Recently, an internal report by the CHA also revealed cracks found in the Seokguram Grotto, a UNESCO World Heritage Monument in the historical city Gyeongju. The report blamed the cracks on previous restoration work done during the Japanese colonial period and in the 1960s.

Tripitaka Koreana, another UNESCO-registered heritage item, was reported have sustained heavy damage such as erosion on some letters and damage to the edges of several blocks. Exterior pillars of the building that stores the wooden printing blocks also show signs of damage.

A local news broadcast reported that some 300 wooden printing blocks require serious repair work while up to 10,000 blocks are in bad condition, quoting Ven. Sung An, director of restoration and preservation of Tripitaka Koreana at Haeinsa Temple, which has since 1398 been housing the Buddhist scriptures carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)