South Korean police are looking for a man who damaged the outer walls of Jongmyo Shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Jongno-gu, central Seoul, officials said Wednesday.
Surveillance footage showed the man, wearing a white shirt and apparently intoxicated, grabbing the roof tiles of the wall and pulling them off, destroying 10 tiles at around 12:45 a.m. on Monday.
The clerk at a convenience store that captured the video surveillance of the suspect said that he appeared drunk and complained about noise from what he claimed was a fight in his neighborhood.
The Korea Heritage Service completed repairs on the outer walls after reporting the incident to police.
Jongmyo Shrine is where the ancestral tablets of kings and queens from the Joseon era (1392-1910) are housed. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995, and was designated as a historical site by the KHS in 1963.
Damaging such a site or other cultural heritage is punishable under the Act on Conservation and Utilization of Cultural Heritage.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
