Cheonbuin

According to the Gojoseon section of the Samguk Yusa, Hwanung, son of Hwanin the lord of heaven, often set his heart on the human world below. His father, knowing this, looked down on Samwi Taebaek, judged that it could bring wide benefit to humankind, and sent him down with three Cheonbuin.

Hwanung led three thousand followers to the sacred tree on the summit of Taebaek and called the place the City of God. With the wind lord Pungbaek, the rain master Usa and the cloud master Unsa, he took charge of grain and life, sickness and punishment, good and evil.

The record does not say what the Cheonbuin were. But because bronze swords, mirrors and bells are often buried together at Bronze Age sites on the Korean peninsula, the view that these three symbols of heavenly authority were the Cheonbuin is widely accepted.

This image is a composite made by the archive itself. Photographs of an ancient East Asian dagger, a bronze mirror in Han style and a Yayoi-period bronze bell are joined side by side to show "sword, mirror and bell" in one frame.