Last week I featured the Jeoldusan Martyr’s Shrine as the Korea Finder for that week.  I decided to go ahead and up dig some pictures that I took when I visited this location back in 2008. The shrine is located in western Seoul in the neighborhood of Mapo-gu:

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This historic site is right along the banks of the Han River and near where the old Yanghwa Ferry used to be which people used to use to cross the Han River before the construction of the bridges that span it now:

The Jamdubong bluff that overlooks the ferry site is where many Catholics were executed in the religious persecution coming towards the end of the Joseon Dynasty in 1866:

Before the religious persecutions this bluff was used as a defensive fort and it saw action against a French incursion up the Han River in 1866 to attack the Korean government in retribution for their killing of French Catholics.  After the French left the Joseon government proceeded to kill even more Catholics in response to the French incursion.  At Jeoldusan Korean Catholics were beheaded with the heads of supposedly thousands rolling into the Han River.  Because of this religious persecution the Jamdubong bluff became known as Mt. Jeoldusan (Mountain of Beheadings).

In 1966, for the 100th anniversary of what became known as the Byeong-in persecution, the construction of Jeoldusan Martyrs’ Museum began:

This memorial hall was built on top of the bluff to commemorate not only the beheadings, but provide information about the history of Catholicism in Korea in general.  I found the museum to really not be all the interesting and I wasn’t even allowed to take pictures inside.

Outside the museum there is actually a nice little park with a number of statues and markers:

Here is a large monument that was constructed as a memorial to all the people beheaded here:

There is a statue recognizing the first Catholic family to be martyred at Jeoldusan:

The husband of this family was named Lee Ui-song and his wife was named Kim Ye-peun.  Their son was named Bong-ik.  The statue shows their cut off heads resting on the trunk of the body.

The most prominent statue in the park is St. Andrew Kim Tae-gon (1821-1846).  He was beheaded along the Han River at the age 25 in 1846.

Another statue was a bust of St. John Nam Jong-sam (1817-1866) who like many other people was beheaded for his Catholic beliefs:

Here is a statue of somebody that actually wasn’t beheaded:

This is a statue of the Virgin Mary but in a hanbok.  It was nice to see at least one thing in the park not related to someone getting their head cut off.  All in all a walk around Jeoldusan Martyr’s Shrine is an interesting side trip for anyone visiting the nearby Yanghwajin Foreigners Cemetery which is definitely a must see for anyone interested in the modern history of Korea.  For anyone else Jeoldusan and Yanghwajin would probably not be worth the time for you to visit.