Korean Constellations and Their Mythology

Submitted by on

Hey everyone!

 

I am a senior at Georgia Southern University working as an intern at the planetarium.  I am in the process of creating a public evening event that will be given in April.  Because I lived in Seoul twice, for a total of 3.5 years, I was wanting to do Asian constellations and mythology for my event, focusing mainly on Korea.

However, actually finding material on this subject is damn near impossible.

I'm trying to find scholarly information on the Korean constellations that make up the Western constellations Orion, Taurus, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Gemini, and Auriga.  I have found the Cheonsang Yeolcha Bunyajido - the ancient star map - but it does me no good if I don't know what the constellations are supposed to represent or the stories behind them.  If anyone could please direct me to some information (I do have an interlibrary loan system I may be able to use to get my hands on specific books or articles if those are provided) that would be very, very helpful!

Beyond actually giving me the information, if anyone can give me an e-mail for a professor or astronomer IN Korea that would be willing to work with me, that would be awesome, too!

 

Thanks guys!

Re: Korean Constellations and Their Mythology

Submitted by on

I'm personally a bit confused. Are you looking for pre-Chinese Korean mythologies or post? If you are looking for things that are only a couple thousand years old, it is better to just use the Chinese ones. Before the Chinese came, there was no written language in Korea, so it might be hard to get any accurate information. Then again, there are a lot of stories that are uniquely Korean about the stars and the moon in particular. Good luck!