The National Heritage Night Tour will be held for three days from Sept. 4 to 6, 2026, at the Jisan-dong Tumuli in Goryeong, North Gyeongsang Province. On Sept. 5, the second day, the Daegaya Nakhwa Fire Play marking the third anniversary of the Jisan-dong Tumuli's World Heritage inscription will unfold around Ureukji Pond. It stages the falling embers together with the light reflected on the water, and is being presented as the leading nighttime attraction of the three-day program. The Jisan-dong Tumuli is a burial ground of the Daegaya ruling class, with large and small mounds running along the ridge.
The materials for the nakhwa fire play are plain. The old method is to grind charcoal fine, roll it into hanji paper and hang it from a straw rope. When the fire catches, the charcoal powder burns and turns into red grains that trickle downward, and if there is water below, the falling fire and the fire reflected on the surface are seen together. The crackling sound and the acrid smell of charcoal are of a different order from the roar of fireworks.
While Goryeong, west of the Nakdong River, prepares for its nights, the lights went on a week earlier in Changnyeong to the east. On Aug. 28, 2026, Changnyeong County opened the World Heritage Gaya Tumuli Festival at the Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli in Changnyeong. It is one strand of the 2026 World Heritage Festival-Gaya Tumuli, which raised its curtain the same day in Haman, and is the first event to bind the seven tumuli sites into a single stage since the World Heritage inscription.
The festival program runs through Sept. 10. Changnyeong County Mayor Seong Nak-in said the festival is an event that makes known the value of the Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli.
Booth programs will also operate at the Goryeong venue. Along with a guide exhibition on the Gaya tumuli, a "Catch 9.24 Seconds" game drawing on Sept. 24, the anniversary of the inscription, will be set up. A large "Jenga" printed with pictures of Gaya artifacts will also be laid out. Turning a date into a game measured in seconds and putting it in visitors' hands is an attempt to let people touch the heritage instead of explaining it.
A nighttime program of looking up at the constellations beside the tombs was also introduced. Details of how it will be run have not been disclosed. The idea itself touches precisely on the character of this heritage. A tumulus is a facility that placed the dead on a ridge close to the sky, and the sky that opens above the mounds spread out the same way 1,500 years ago. Sites where turning off the lights makes more things visible are not common.
Holding events at night comes at a cost. A mound is a fragile surface covered with earth and grass, and increased foot traffic in the dark is harder to control than in daylight. A production that handles fire is an even more careful choice on a lawn. Goryeong's setting of the nakhwa fire play stage at the waterside of Ureukji Pond, away from the mounds, is also a way of moving fire and people one step back from the heritage itself.
So these events are testing a way of opening heritage without standing on top of it. Watching the light reflected on the water and counting stars beyond the ridgeline of the mounds are both ways of sensing the site without treading on it.
On the evening of Sept. 5, red embers will fall twice on the surface of Ureukji Pond. Once from the sky, once from the water. The Gyo-dong and Songhyeon-dong Tumuli in Changnyeong can still be walked into, and Goryeong's three days begin next week. The paths between the mounds are bare earth, so it is better to choose low-heeled shoes.
