Wins Excellence Award in project supported by the Korea Heritage Service and hosted by the Korean Association of University Museums 

Researcher MO Yeo-ra receives Korea Heritage Service Commissioner’s Award for special exhibition curation

32 universities participate; academic re-evaluation of approximately 156,000 previously unprocessed buried cultural artifacts over five years 

[December 23, 2025]

<From left, second—KIM Hyun-jin, Researcher at the YU Museum; LEE Eun-jung, Director of the Museum; MO Yeo-ra, Researcher; WOO Myung-ha, Researcher; KIM Dae-wook, Curatorial Researcher>

As 2025 comes to a close, the Yeungnam University (YU, President CHOI Oe-chool) Museum is celebrating a series of remarkable achievements. 

 The Yeungnam University Museum (Director LEE Eun-jung) received the Excellence Award at the performance briefing session of the 2025 Project for the Preservation and Utilization of Unprocessed Buried Cultural Artifacts, held on December 18, 2025, at the auditorium of the Seoul National University Museum. The award recognized the museum’s contributions to rediscovering the value of long-forgotten artifacts. In addition, MO Yeo-ra, a researcher at the YU Museum, was honored with the Korea Heritage Service Commissioner’s Award for curating a special exhibition showcasing the outcomes of the project. 

<Researcher MO Yeo-ra of the Yeungnam University Museum receives the Korea Heritage Service Commissioner’s Award (fourth from the left)>

 The Project for the Preservation and Utilization of Unprocessed Buried Cultural Artifacts, supported by the Korea Heritage Service and hosted by the Korean Association of University Museums, was implemented from 2020 to 2025 with a total budget of KRW 15.6 billion.A total of 32 university museums nationwide participated, academically re-evaluating and organizing approximately 156,000 unprocessed artifacts excavated from 360 archaeological sites. The project has been widely recognized for its significant contribution to expanding the research foundation for buried cultural heritage. 

 As part of this initiative, the Yeungnam University Museum organized and documented 1,628 artifact cases comprising 2,199 items from the ancient Apdok Kingdom that had been excavated in three phases—in 1982, 1988, and from 1989 to 1990—in the Imdang-dong and Joyeong-dong areas of Gyeongsan, but had remained unexamined for more than 30 years. The museum published three volumes of excavation reports and completed the transfer of approximately 1,400 artifacts to the Daegu National Museum in December 2025 following the state ownership attribution process. 

 In addition, from July 11 to October 24, 2025, the museum hosted a joint special exhibition titled “A Long Wait, Stepping Out of the Storage” in collaboration with ten university museums in the Yeongnam region. The exhibition presented 233 previously unprocessed artifacts that had never been displayed to the public, providing an opportunity to share their historical and cultural significance. Researcher MO Yeo-ra, who played a leading role in organizing the exhibition, was awarded the Korea Heritage Service Commissioner’s Award in recognition of this achievement. 

Director LEE Eun-jung of the Yeungnam University Museum (Professor, Department of Cultural Anthropology) stated,

 “Unprocessed artifacts are not devoid of value; they are simply artifacts that have not yet had the opportunity to be systematically studied. We will continue to excavate, research, and widely promote the value of these cultural assets of our nation, contributing to the establishment of Korea’s stature as a ‘cultural powerhouse’ through the role of a university museum.”