Cheomseongdae

Hello there. I stand in a big, green field in a beautiful city called Gyeongju, in South Korea. I look a little like a stone bottle reaching up to touch the sky. For a very, very long time, I have watched the sun say hello in the morning and the moon say goodnight. I have seen countless stars twinkle and dance across the dark sky. My job is to watch the heavens. I am Cheomseongdae, a special tower made for star-gazing. My name means 'star-gazing platform,' and that is exactly what I was made for. I am not a castle or a home, but a window to the universe. I have stood here through sunny days and stormy nights, always looking up and wondering about the beautiful lights in the sky.

I was built a long time ago, during the Silla Kingdom. A wise and wonderful ruler named Queen Seondeok wanted me to be built. She was a very clever queen who reigned between the years 632 and 647. She cared a lot about her people, especially the farmers who grew food for everyone. Queen Seondeok said, “We must understand the sky to help our people.” She knew that by watching the stars, her people could create calendars. These calendars would tell farmers the perfect time to plant their seeds and when to harvest their food. So, she had her best builders make me. They carefully stacked 362 stones, one for each day of the year in the lunar calendar. Royal astronomers would climb a ladder to my middle window. From there, they would gaze at the stars, tracking their paths to understand the seasons and even predict the weather. I was their special connection to the sky.

I have been standing here for over 1,300 years. That makes me the oldest star-gazing tower of my kind in all of East Asia. The world around me has changed so much. There are cars and bright city lights now. But the sun, moon, and stars that I watch are the very same ones Queen Seondeok looked at. Today, people from all over the world come to visit me. They don't need me to tell them when to plant their crops anymore. Instead, they look at me and imagine the astronomers of the past. They remember to look up at the amazing sky with curiosity and wonder, just like Queen Seondeok and her people did so long ago. I remind everyone that the sky is full of magic and that we should never stop exploring.