ABSTRACT
Korean archaeologists have not only created new knowledge with excavations in Gyeongju, they have pondered and discussed what that new evidence, produced by excavations, means in terms of understanding both the details of Silla's history and the development of states in general. Ideology relating the Silla kingdoms to Steppes includes shamanic beliefs and rituals, reverence for the white horse, and sun worship. For the people of Gyeongju, family mattered, clan mattered, ethnicity mattered. Gender did not matter in the same way. Silla was geographically the least likely group in the Korean peninsula to ally with China, and yet became the force for unifying the peninsula with the help of Tang China. Silla's gold working, its sumptuary laws, its splendid imports from great distances, and its apparent lack of gender discrimination are facets of its history that capture the imagination.
