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Feb. 27th, 2020 04:40 pm
Behind the forbidden door
Work today was unexpectedly interesting.
I've gotten in the habit of heading into the old library to use the restroom because it's more steps and less busy. Around lunchtime today, I was coming out and happened to notice the head of facilities loitering near the entrance to one of the archival processing rooms. I began to tease him about not allowing me past the "forbidden door". Another colleague came by and joined the fun, getting him to relent and show me a staff area I'm not sure I've ever been in before.
It was a curious set of rooms and, as I was finishing up my exploration, an employee of the lock shop came by. Turns out there was a sturdy metal box which came to us as part of a bequest and which staff had spent much of the day before trying to bust into. My colleague the archivist gave the go-ahead to drill out the lock (since it was only the contents we were interested in) and I hung around to see what was inside.
We found three medals. Two of them looked like WWI medals from France. (The dead guy was part of a Marine unit which fought there.) But the third was most intriguing. The lining of the box bore the inscription "大韓民國文化勳章", indicating that this was a medal of the Order of Cultural Merit of the Republic of Korea. A Han'geul inscription on the medal itself confirmed this, adding that it was "No. 22".
However, a web search showed that the contemporary Korean Order of Cultural Merit looks nothing at all like the medal we have. And the lists of awardees only starts in 1974. So it seems that we have an earlier version of the same award. The dead guy did travel to Korea shortly before his death in 1955 and met with Syngman Rhee, so it's likely he received some kind of honour then.
Unfortunately, I've reached the limits of my research abilities in Korean without finding so much as a single image of an award resembling what we have. Hopefully this means we'll be able to get someone in Digital Preservation to create an image and post it online where it just might attract the attention of someone who can solve the mystery for us. Watch this space!
I've gotten in the habit of heading into the old library to use the restroom because it's more steps and less busy. Around lunchtime today, I was coming out and happened to notice the head of facilities loitering near the entrance to one of the archival processing rooms. I began to tease him about not allowing me past the "forbidden door". Another colleague came by and joined the fun, getting him to relent and show me a staff area I'm not sure I've ever been in before.
It was a curious set of rooms and, as I was finishing up my exploration, an employee of the lock shop came by. Turns out there was a sturdy metal box which came to us as part of a bequest and which staff had spent much of the day before trying to bust into. My colleague the archivist gave the go-ahead to drill out the lock (since it was only the contents we were interested in) and I hung around to see what was inside.
We found three medals. Two of them looked like WWI medals from France. (The dead guy was part of a Marine unit which fought there.) But the third was most intriguing. The lining of the box bore the inscription "大韓民國文化勳章", indicating that this was a medal of the Order of Cultural Merit of the Republic of Korea. A Han'geul inscription on the medal itself confirmed this, adding that it was "No. 22".
However, a web search showed that the contemporary Korean Order of Cultural Merit looks nothing at all like the medal we have. And the lists of awardees only starts in 1974. So it seems that we have an earlier version of the same award. The dead guy did travel to Korea shortly before his death in 1955 and met with Syngman Rhee, so it's likely he received some kind of honour then.
Unfortunately, I've reached the limits of my research abilities in Korean without finding so much as a single image of an award resembling what we have. Hopefully this means we'll be able to get someone in Digital Preservation to create an image and post it online where it just might attract the attention of someone who can solve the mystery for us. Watch this space!
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