The Twin-Lion Stone Lantern from Godalsa Temple Site / Courtesy of Korea Heritage ServiceThe Korea Heritage Service said it is moving forward with plans to relocate a Goryeo-era stone lantern from the National Museum of Korea back to a temple site in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, where it originally stood.The agency is working with the National Museum of Korea and the city of Yeoju to move the Twin-Lion Stone Lantern from Godalsa Temple Site — a Treasure, one of Korea's state heritage designations just below National Treasure — back to the Godalsa Temple Site, a state-designated Historic Site.The lantern is believed to date back to the 10th century, early in the Goryeo Dynasty. Unlike most twin-lion stone lanterns in Korea, whose lion figures typically stand upright, the lions on this lantern crouch — a feature regarded as evidence of Goryeo's creative approach to stone carving. It was designated as a Treasure in 1963.According to the agency, the lantern was found toppled over at the Godalsa site and moved several times before eventually reaching the museum: kept by village residents, then relocated to the rear garden of a wedding hall in Seoul's Jongno District in 1958, to the area near Gyeonghoeru Pavilion within Gyeongbok Palace in 1959, and finally to the National Museum of Korea in 2003, where it has remained on display since.After consultations among the three parties, the plan to return the lantern cleared a review by the Cultural Heritage Committee's architectural heritage division in August. The agencies plan to prepare the temple site and carry out conservation work on the lantern at the museum before the final move.The agency called the move "a meaningful moment for a piece of national heritage that had to leave its hometown through periods including Japanese colonial rule, as it finally returns to where it belongs."This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.Q.Q.Q.