Research on Korean mokkan (inscribed wooden tablets) only began in earnest some twenty years ago, and less than a thousand mokkan have been excavated to date. Even so, such research has already deepened our understanding of ancient Korean history in exceptional ways. To put it briefly, the excavation of Korean mokkan has led to the dramatic broadening of views on “script and people and place” in ancient Korea from the 6th to the 10th centuries. Of particular note are the major insights we have gained regarding the concrete realities of life, including the transmission of writing, the circulation of goods, dietary habits, rituals, and religious beliefs–insights that are not limited to the Korean peninsula but extend across East Asia. In other words, research on Korean mokkan has made it increasingly possible to finally connect academic scholarship in mainland China and Japan and explore the dynamics of cultural transmission and reception in the East Asia region. In this article, I argue that Korean mokkan allow us to reexamine the particularity of ancient Korean history within East Asia. In doing so, I draw upon the notion of hieroglossia – understood in this context as the ways that sinitic characters acted as a universal language and informed even the inner worlds of people in the ancient period. I begin by discussing the characteristics of mokkan used in rituals in Shilla and Paekche and their similarities to tablets from Japan; I also consider the probability of the existence of “poem tablets” – or mokkan inscribed with poetry written in hyanch’al (hyangga) – based on an analysis of extant historical materials, although such tablets have yet to be excavated from the Korean peninsula. Next, I contend that it is eminently possible to use extant materials to examine the hieroglossic relationship between sacralized and secular (“vulgar” or vernacular) languages in Korea, just as it has been examined in Japan. I then propose that it may be possible in the future to foster joint discussion with Japanese academia on the hieroglossia of sacralized (sinographic) and vernacular languages, through the mediation of hyangga (poem tablets).
한국목간의 본격적인 연구는 20여 년에 불과하며 출토점수 역시 아직 1000점에 이르지 못하고 있다. 하지만 그 연구성과에 의해 이전에는 알 수 없었던 한국고대사 상의 새로운 지견을 가져왔다. 한국출토목간에 의해 6~10세기에 이르는 시대의 ‘문자와 사람과 장소’에 대한 시야는 현격히 확대되었다. 특히, 문자 전달, 물자의 유통, 식생활, 제사, 신앙에 이르는 모든 방면에서 큰 성과를 얻었다. 이러한 것들이 가져온 성과는 한반도의 고대사뿐 아니라 동아시아 규모 속에서도 확장성을 보여주고 있다. 그렇기에 한국목간을 개척한 고대사의 새로운 세계에 대해 돌아보면서 고대인의 정신세계에까지 다다른다고 하는 이후의 가능성에 대해 검토하고자 한다. 즉, 보편어로서 漢語·한문(히에로글로시아)의 세계로부터 한국고대사의 개별성을 추구한다고 하는 과제를 설정하여 지금까지 출토된 한국목간을 돌아보면서 새로운 과제에 대해 제시하고자 한다.
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