During my conference trip to Seoul and Gyeongju, South Korea, I had managed to visit Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty, one of the most complete dynastic tombs in Asia, which located around the city and nearby provinces. From all tombs, I decided to visit two clusters, Seonjeongneung, better known as Seolleung in Southern Seoul, and another at Taereung in Northeastern Seoul. The reasons why I chose these two sites because of both has museum and interpretive center for tourists as well as easy connection with subway.

The tombs are located inside the beautiful forest parks, the surroundings are well kept with fantastic green lawn; however from my experience the tombs are hard to appreciate, as the sites are off-limited, few chance to see the details of stone decoration, but the museum and interpretive center can help with computer graphic show how to construct the tombs, and most important, the royal funeral ceremony as well as full size replica of stone decorations.

In my opinion, the Joseon Tombs cannot be considered as a unique site, compared with Silla Tombs in Gyeongju, the latter are more interesting with treasure discovered and tumuli construction technique. Also, most of the ancient tombs in East Asia, noble or normal people, are constructed under Fengshui doctrine. In ICOMOS report, I was surprised that ICOMOS and Korea use Chinese Imperial Tombs for comparative study as Emperor (huangdi) and King (Wang or Taewang) is totally different in tomb size and status. To be fair, Joseon Tombs should be compared with the tombs of Chinese ducal or princely family (Wang or Gu), or Japan's shogun family, as they have equal rank under East Asian sovereign and nobility system.

Sadly, that most of the important tombs in China are destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, only few remain, and these tombs have many similarities with Joseon Tombs including stone decoration format design. The tombs of imperial eunuch even have more intricate details than the Joseon ones. So, what is the outstanding universal value for Joseon Tombs in my humble opinion, the number of well-preserved tombs is truly outstanding, better than in China or Vietnam, which dynastic line are shorter. All in all, Joseon Tombs are a fine World Heritage Sites, it would be good if visit the tombs together with Jongmyo Shrine for complete understanding on royal Korean Confucian ancestral worship ceremony.