Public Archaeology in Korea: A Duet of Popularity and Nationalism

Abstract

Public archaeology is a relatively unfamiliar term that has yet to be widely used within the Korean archaeological community. There are, of course, a wide array of public lectures provided by various national and public museums, in addition to private museums and cultural heritage research institutes. The majority of these are educational lectures which deal with archaeology as well as history, ethnology, art history, and anthropology, and are often accompanied by field trip programs. However, it is only a limited percentage of the public that actually participates in such educational programs, and so there still exists a significant gap between the wider public and archaeological community.