Selected for Museum Link, Korea’s First K-Museum Regional Traveling Exhibition and Tour Support Program

On View at the YU Museum Through October 2, Then Traveling to Busan from October 19

A Rare Opportunity to Encounter Traces of Animals from 1,500 Years Ago 

Revisiting Ancient People's Wishes and Ritual Culture Through Animals

[July 6, 2026]

<Special exhibition Animals Around Us at the YU Museum>

 The YU Museum (President CHOI Oe-chool) is presenting the special exhibition Animals Around Us after being selected for Museum Link, the inaugural K-Museum Regional Traveling Exhibition and Tour Support Program.

 The exhibition, which opened to the public with an opening ceremony at 3 p.m. on July 3, is accompanied by two educational programs for local children and youth: Animal Stories of the Apdok Kingdom Through Bones and Animals in Artifacts Reimagined Through AI.

Museum Link is a national initiative designed to expand access to cultural and artistic experiences beyond the Seoul metropolitan area and other major cities while fostering a sustainable regional cultural ecosystem by connecting exhibitions with tourism and local resources. Organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and administered by the Korean Museum Association, the program supports traveling exhibitions and exhibition-linked regional tourism programs.

Drawing on the YU Museum's extensive collection of artifacts and its long-standing research on archaeological animal remains, the special exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the historical significance of animals in human society. Through artifacts excavated from 1,500-year-old tombs and other archaeological discoveries, the exhibition offers a multifaceted exploration of the roles animals played in the lives and deaths of ancient people.

 The exhibition is organized into two main sections. The first section, Animals as Symbols of Earnest Wishes, explores the symbolic meanings of animals depicted on ancient artifacts. Visitors will discover how dragons and phoenixes symbolized sacred authority, birds represented the connection between heaven and earth, turtles embodied longevity, and fish expressed hopes for fertility and abundance, illustrating how ordinary everyday objects became powerful symbols of people's deepest aspirations.

 The second section, Animals as the Finest Feast and Ritual Offerings, forms the centerpiece of the exhibition, presenting for the first time an in-depth study of the large collection of archaeological animal remains excavated during the 1980s from the Imdang-dong and Joyeong-dong ancient tomb complexes in Gyeongsan. The exhibition highlights the significant scholarly value of decades of zooarchaeological research and preservation based on animal remains meticulously recovered through water-screening techniques—a method that separates and extracts biological materials such as plant seeds and other organic remains from excavated sediments. 

 Particularly noteworthy are the remains of a wide variety of marine fish and shellfish—including shark (dombaegi), pufferfish, and mackerel—which would have been difficult to obtain in inland Gyeongsan. These findings provide compelling evidence of the diverse diet and remarkable authority enjoyed by the region's ruling elite 1,500 years ago. The exhibition also introduces the ritual culture of ancient people through the remains of dogs, cattle, horses, and pigs that were sacrificed without butchering during the construction of tombs, reflecting beliefs that such offerings would ensure the well-being of the deceased while maintaining a connection between the living and the dead.

Animals Around Us will be on display at the YU Museum in Gyeongsan, Gyeongsangbuk-do, from July 3 through October 2, 2026, before traveling to the National Pukyong University Museum in Nam-gu, Busan, where it will be exhibited from October 19 through November 27, 2026.

 Meanwhile, the exhibition's educational program Animal Stories of the Apdok Kingdom Through Bones uses the exhibited animal remains to help participants understand the lives and environments of ancient people, recognize the changing relationship between humans and animals, and develop a greater appreciation for local cultural heritage. Another program, Animals in Artifacts Reimagined Through AI, is offered in collaboration with YU's Digital Humanities and Social Sciences (D-HUSS) Project Group, in which students from related disciplines use AI technologies to create videos and digital content for the exhibition, enhancing both their career competencies and their understanding of regional cultural heritage.

 LEE Eun-jung, Director of the YU Museum, said, "This special exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to discover the worldview and aspirations of ancient people through the many animals preserved in the museum's collections, each telling its own story across different historical periods. We hope it will provide meaningful time to reflect on the people who once lived on this land and to reconsider the significance of the animals that continue to share our lives today." 

 Meanwhile, Museum Link supports regional traveling exhibitions at 88 museums and art museums selected through a nationwide competition. Participating institutions present exhibitions in at least two different regions, while 50 of them also operate programs that connect their exhibitions with local cultural and tourism resources. The initiative is expected to transform museum visits into stay-based regional cultural experiences, contributing to the mutual growth of local culture and the tourism industry.