A couple in wedding attire is seen climbing atop the burial mound of a Baekje-era cultural heritage site. [Instagram capture]
A couple in wedding attire is seen climbing atop the burial mound of a Baekje-era cultural heritage site. [Instagram capture]

A video of a couple climbing atop the burial mound of a Baekje-era heritage site to take wedding photos has stirred controversy online.

The footage, posted to Instagram on Thursday, shows the couple at Majeon Tomb No. 1, a stone-lined burial chamber in Hyoja-dong, Wansan-gu, Jeonju, North Jeolla Province.

In the video, the pair — dressed in a wedding gown and suit — climb to the top of the mound and strike a series of poses for the camera.

The site is marked with an information board identifying it as a protected heritage site and is enclosed by a fence to restrict access, but the couple appears to have climbed over the barrier before shooting.

Online commenters criticized the couple. "There's even a fence telling you not to go up, and they went out of their way to climb over it — absolutely absurd," one user wrote. Others remarked, "Starting a new life by climbing on top of a grave?" and "What strange people."

Majeon Tomb No. 1 was excavated in 2006 during the development of Jeonju's western new town district and was restored at Munhak Grand Park in 2008 for public viewing.

The tomb is a stone-lined burial structure in which a coffin and grave goods were placed inside a stone chamber dug into the ground. It is an important archaeological record of the period between the 4th and mid-5th centuries, when the Baekje kingdom absorbed the Mahan forces of the North Jeolla region into its domain.

The site is regularly used as a backdrop for wedding photography, though most couples take photos around the mound rather than on top of it.

The person who posted the video, identified only as A, said she contacted the Wansan-gu district office after spotting the couple. "I've seen dogs wander up there without knowing better, but these were full-grown adults standing up there for quite a while," she said.

She said officials from the Cultural Heritage Administration called to verify what had happened. "They were startled and called to confirm whether the wedding photos had actually been taken on top of the burial mound," she said.

She added that the officials told her climbing on the mound was absolutely prohibited. "Would they not have known? I think they knew," she said.

However, legal penalties may be difficult to impose. According to Jeonju's National Heritage Management Division, the mound in question is not an actual ancient grave but a historically reconstructed replica of the original burial structure.

The city said that because the site is a reconstructed facility, heritage protection laws are difficult to apply, and no separate regulations exist to directly penalize unauthorized entry.

This is not the first time climbing on a burial mound has sparked controversy. Last April, a boy who appeared to be around 5 years old was filmed sliding down a burial mound at a heritage site in Gyeongju, drawing widespread criticism.


bbo@heraldcorp.com