Tomb Area of Ryu Sun-jeong and His Son Ryu Hong

About this place

This is the tomb area of Ryu Sun-jeong (1459-1512), a civil official of the early Joseon period, and his son Ryu Hong (1483-1551), a military official. Both father and son were meritorious subjects who rendered distinguished service, and this burial ground was created in the 16th century. As the only tomb area of two generations of meritorious subjects, father and son, in the Seoul area today, it holds value for understanding the characteristics of funerary customs and systems, such as the practices and institutions for building the tombs of meritorious subjects in the Joseon dynasty, through the style of the stone objects erected in front of the graves and the layout of the burial ground. Ryu Sun-jeong's grave is a vertically combined burial with his wife: the upper grave is Ryu Sun-jeong's and the lower one is that of his wife, Lady Kwon of the Andong clan. To the left of the couple's burial ground stands a memorial stele (sindobi) erected in 1567 (the 22nd year of King Myeongjong) to honor Ryu Sun-jeong's life and achievements. The inscription was composed by Kang Hon, who served as the Mayor of Hanseong (Panyun of Hanseong-bu), and the calligraphy was written by Song In, a renowned calligrapher. On a hill about 150 m to the southwest of Ryu Sun-jeong's grave lies the burial ground of his descendants, including his son Ryu Hong.