Wang Kon, the founder of Goryeo, was a merchant's son from the coast who became a warlord and then a king, and he took the throne in 918 after the collapse of the earlier Silla order. The kingdom he built gave the modern word Korea its name. When he died in 943, he was buried on the hillside west of his capital at Kaesong, and the tomb has been rebuilt more than once. The present mausoleum, called Hyonjongnung, with its stone figures and a mound looking over the hills, was extensively restored in the 1990s, a fact that guides sometimes mention and sometimes do not.
I have to say plainly that riding here is not possible for independent travellers. This part of North Korea is controlled, and foreigners reach Kaesong only on a guided tour, so all that this entry can offer is the shape of the land and the story behind it. The city sits among low mountains with Mount Songak above, in the same bowl that held the capital of a medieval kingdom, and the royal tombs are scattered across the valleys to the west, in a landscape of pine, terraced fields and stone walls. Autumn there is crisp and clear, and winter is dry and cold.
Goryeo was a Buddhist kingdom. Its kings sponsored vast printing projects, including the Tripitaka carved on wooden blocks that survives in the south at Haeinsa, a response to the Mongol invasions that devastated the country in the thirteenth century. Its potters invented a unique celadon with inlaid designs, a famous glaze that European collectors prized when it reached them. The rulers took their legitimacy from the memory of Wang Kon, and so the mausoleum was treated with the highest reverence for centuries, and officials were sent to make offerings there.
Kaesong has a reputation for its cuisine and its ginseng, and visitors are often served an elaborate meal of many small dishes in brass bowls. The town's streets are lined with old tiled houses, and traffic is light. Anyone who wants to place this tomb in the context of the wider Goryeo story could visit the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, which shows celadons and Buddhist art of the period. The road network south of the demilitarised zone leads to dozens of other tombs and temples.