「채인범 묘지명」의 복원과 그 의의 = The Restoration of the Epitaph Tablet of Chae Inbeom and Its Significance

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Epitaph Tablet of Chae Inbeom is the oldest among the surviving epitaph tablets from the Goryeo Dynasty. Since the front of the Epitaph Tablet of Chae Inbeom was damaged, it has been difficult to understand its contents in detail. However, during a three-year investigation into Goryeo-era epitaph tablets by the Archaeology and History Division of the National Museum of Korea (NMK) that began in 2018, a fragment of the Epitaph Tablet of Chae Inbeom was discovered. When the fragment and the damaged body were assembled, the inscriptions on the Epitaph Tablet of Chae Inbeom could be deciphered and interpreted in an almost complete form. This paper intends to present some facts newly identified through this deciphering and interpretation.
Chae Inbeom (934–998), a Chinese citizen who became naturalized in Korea, was born in Quanzhou, a port city in Southern China, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In 970, at the age of thirty-seven, he traveled to Goryeo Korea. At the time, he served as a seojanggwan (document officer), the third rank of Jiryesa envoy during the Southern Tang Dynasty. This indicates that Chae possessed scholarly knowledge and administrative capability. Rather than returning to his home country, however, Chae remained in Goryeo, “the old country of Boyi and the state of Jizi.” King Gwangjong of the Goryeo Dynasty appointed Chae as a nangjung (office chief) at the Yebinseong (the Office of Welcoming Foreign Guests). He continued to serve as an administrative official of the dynasty during the reigns of King Gyeongjong, Seongjong, and Mokjong. He married twice in Korea and fathered four sons and two daughters. Their names are not engraved on the Epitaph Tablet of Chae Inbeom. However, the inclusion of the Chinese character “濟” (ji) in the newly found fragment of the epitaph tablet increases the likelihood that Chae Chungsun, the prime minister during the reign of King Hyeonjong, may have been a son of Chae Inbeom. Such a finding can be viewed as one of the most fruitful outcomes of the NMK’s investigation into epitaph tablets from the Goryeo Dynasty.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 머리말
• Ⅱ. 「채인범 묘지명」의 입수경위와 현황
• Ⅲ. 복원된 「채인범 묘지명」의 내용
• Ⅳ. 「채인범 묘지명」을 통해 확인되는 사실들
• Ⅴ. 맺음말