Being part of the Jangseogak Archives means that I have access to Zhizheng tiaoge, the last officially published code of the Yuan dynasty, reportedly lost until it was found in Korea, 2002.
The story of the discovery itself is fascinating. When the descendants of the original owner, the Son family of Gyeongju (慶州 孫氏) planned to donate their collection of rare books, nobody recognized the importance of this book so they simply put them into a “throw-away” ramen box. The only one who recognized the potential was Dr. An Seongjun, now currently head of the Division of Old Documents, Jangseogak Archives.
For the first time since joining AKS, I had the opportunity to host an event where we open the rare books to researchers, introduce the work, and have a rare opportunity to see it together last Friday (2018.10.19). And here it is!
The 600+ year old copy itself had gone through an extremely thorough preservation process, but originally was falling apart. The participants, including myself, were instructed *not* to even touch the original. What we were able to touch and open was an official replica that itself costs more or less 10,000 USD.
For more photos, see my google photos album link here
Wonhee Cho 