Archaeologists uncover 'Unicorn's lair' The lair of a unicorn ridden by King Tongmyong, one of many monarchs from Korea's Koryo Kingdom, has been found, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state-run agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Lest you doubt the report, know that the KCNA's Introduction page tells us the agency "speaks …
Well, all the archaeologists in the story are claiming is that they found a square rock room labeled "Unicorn's Lair". The NK government is, of course, doing what governments the world over do when some scientists come up with some minor find that can be blown up into a propaganda parade.
It may be worth noting that Time's "Person of the Year" is supposed to be the most newsworthy person (or thing, or abstract concept, or whatever they decide to pick) for the year - not necessarily a good person, or even a (directly) influential one.
It's probably not worth noting that of course any Internet poll of even vague interest to a group of significant size will be gamed. Internet polls are designed to attract readers, not elicit information (except about which option is more appealing to people with nothing better to do).
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... my wife gets her NORKs off on my single horn ...
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever.
Bottom line, the North Korean people are three panes of glass away from freedom. It'll happen. Hopefully in my lifetime ... I have a couple 300 year old split-cane fly-rods that I'd like to restore for my Grandaughter. I *think* I know how to do the work, but I don't want to cock it up before I start ... The only folks who actually know how to rebuild that kit are in NK, alas ...
In the twelfth century a grave and lead cross were "discovered" at Glastonbury Abbey carrying the legend "Here lies interred the famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon".
The abbey church was being rebuilt at the time. There had been a fire, and the number of visiting pilgrims had dropped off dramatically...
so, a 'horned devil' (*two* horns!) or antelope, or even just a male deer ???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antelope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer
http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/210Traditions9158.html
or even
http://io9.com/5964879/no-the-north-korean-government-did-not-claim-it-found-evidence-of-unicorns
Anakin, you beat me to it, the Qilin or Kirin only slightly resembles the western unicorn. But you could have mentioned the most likely place for this crowd to find one - on a bottle of beer:
http://www.thebeerstore.ca/sites/default/files/styles/blog_full/public/happenings/kirin_brewery.png
Yes, illiad, very like a deer or antelope, if flames crawling over the body are normal for those species.
"Before the Mesopotamian empire, before the pharaohs of Egypt, the civilization of Old Europe imbued with divinity the sun, moon, sky, sea, horizon, and other aspects of the natural world..."
The Bosnian pyramids were apparently built 25,000 years ago. Even now there still seem to be people volunteering to help with excavations and prepared to fund this operation.
http://www.bosnian-pyramid.org/journal/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/26/bosnian_pyramids/
So you mean it can look like a unicorn, if you look at it from the right direction and squint a bit?
Meanwhile, every actual geologist who's taken a look has described the Bosnian pyramids as, er, "hills". I wish 'em luck with the excavations, it takes the aggregates industry several years to chew through a decent sized hill using explosives, humungous excavators and 40-tonne dumper trucks, never mind doing it with trowels and buckets.....
Presumably the pyramids were discovered right at the moment when Medjugorje stopped attracting the tourists and there was a vacancy in the Balkan-crystal-spiritual-day-trip market. See also the Serbian vampire village panic that's going on: http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=48759
the DPNK are alluding to sovereignty over the Korean peninsular based on a fairy tale of a unicorn ridden by an absolute monarch.
I would have thought absolute monarchy would not be something they wished to be proud of.....oh, hang on, I guess absolutism is what they have now eh?
Anyway, from my reading, King Tongmyong was founder of the most northerly of the three Kingdoms of Korea, not the entire peninsular.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_King_Tongmyong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea
.../ now, I must be off to feed the dragons at the bottom of the garden.
As an aside, I remember reading somewhere that legends of unicorns in the west came about from people finding the spikey thing from a narwhal`s head (actually a twisted tooth) and for some reason thinking they belonged to a type of mystical horsey. I would love to know the logic of this, why a horse?
Horns were things found on land animals. The more obvious ones would be sheep/rams (too small), cows (too small) and deer/elks. Well, they kinda look like that, right? But it's too straight to be useful when attached as pairs on either side of the head. Therefore we have a deer-like animal with a single horn in the centre of its forehead. Why a horse? Well, here was a deer-like animal with a nice flattish forehead, and thus was used as the template to draw the Unicorn.
Hmmm... just the sort of thinking that is thought to have given rise to the Centaur in ancient Greece - horses were used solely to pull chariots (ditto in Egypt, btw) and the concept of *riding* a horse would have been pretty much unknown. Can you imagine a Greek trying to make sense of a horse-and-rider trotting/galloping past? Especially if they were late in noticing it?
The inscriptions mention mythical beasts, just as ours speak of dragons. This mythical beast was known over China, Korea and Japan from the tales of travellers. It is thought that it referred to the giraffe and in Japanese they share the same name -kirin..... as well as for a beer!
http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/kirin.beer_.jpg
Your Korean history is something very different than North Korea's "Choson history". They may be Korean, but you know more about their dynastic period's history than the DPRK's history professors, I almost guarantee you. A South Korean probably not, but the DPRK has so perverted academics in their country that you follow the Political Line, or else, no matter what the truth really is.
They only teach things at all levels of the DPRK's education system that make the KWP, the KPA, and the Central leadership in the National Defense Commission look good by relating everything they possibly can to their version of Korean History. Since the Silla were from the area that's now part of South Korea (which is never capitalized in DPRK documentation, as you may know) they're not mentioned at all except for possibly at Kim il-Sung University in Pyongyang, as it is the University for the KWP elites, but even then they may not.
North Korea isn't as hard to figure out as people make it out to be. If its Juche, Songbun, or anything supporting the Suryeong, and has nothing to do with the puppets in the South or their "false" historic figures or their "puppet leaders" and "puppet army" (unless its something about their countrymen in the South "yearning for liberation" from the unequal and oppressive South Korean society), then its good as far as North Korea is concerned.
The scientists reportedly unearthed "A rectangular rock carved with words 'Unicorn Lair' ... in front of the lair."
That is some pretty compelling evidence, I'm convinced. Now we just have to see what excuses Seoul come up with for dodging this glorious manifest destiny.
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