Metal Detecting in South Korea

A while back, I was stationed in South Korea (Seoul Area) and a friend and I spent many happy hours metal detecting in the mountains there. We found a special way to look for coins, many dating as far back as the 17th and 18th century.

Imagine a mound of rocks 6 to 10 feet high, each rock placed on the mound independently by a climber. Now imagine a coin dropped within that mound much as you would a wishing well and this done for centuries.

Find a topographical map for the area you are hunting in. Locate saddles (A point along a ridge between two peaks where the topography resembles that of the seat used by a horse-rider (the original saddle).) that have trails up to them and a Village on each side of the range. (The villages were sometimes destroyed during the war, so look in all the saddles if you have the time.)

At the top of the range and in the saddle, you will find a large pile of rocks. This is a Son-Ang Dong (can?t guarantee the spelling of tyhis and it is my closest approximation of the word) and was the equivalent to us of a wishing well. When the Koreans passed these, they placed a coin with a rock on it (There were many other artifacts in these as well, most religious based.) We found hundreds of coins, using just our hands; metal detectors sped up the process though.

BE EXTREMELLY CAREFUL. It is also a great resting place for snakes and Korea does have some very poisonous snakes.

I have been told that many of these Son An Dongs are now being dug over to build roads. Search the sides of the roads in this case.
As you go further south in Korea, you will find less of these, But in the mountain ranges, especially near Seoul, we found one in almost every saddle we visited. (a friend from a few years ago confirmed that he found many of these in the central part of Southy Korea as well).


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