Namdaemun (South Gate)

The Namdaemun, or South Gate, is what remains of the original walled city of Kaesong. The stone arch sits over what was once the main road south out of the old city and now opens onto a small modern square. The two-tiered wooden gate-house on top has the elegant upturned eaves and bracketed roof typical of late Koryo architecture.

The bronze bell hanging in the upper storey is original and dates from 1346 — one of the oldest cast bells in Korea. The gate is usually a quick stop on tours, photographed from the square, but it gives a real sense of the scale of medieval Kaesong, when the city walls ran for over 27 km around the royal palace.

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A story
The original Namdaemun was built in 1391, in the final year of the Koryo dynasty. It was destroyed by American bombing during the Korean War and rebuilt in 1954 from the same stones, which had been salvaged from the rubble — a small but characteristic North Korean gesture toward historical continuity.