The Silla Kingdom established state-controlled copper mines near Gyeongju to produce bronze for Buddhist bells, mirrors, and ritual vessels. This mining was closely tied to the state's adoption of Buddhism as a national religion. The 'Divine Bell of King Seongdeok,' cast from local bronze, remains the largest extant Korean bell.

The 'Tamagubu' mines are central to Korean hyangga poetry, the vernacular verse of the Silla period. Poems like 'Hyehwa-ga' (Song of the Conflagration) use the imagery of the smelting fires and the casting of the 'bell' to represent spiritual purification and the casting away of earthly attachments. The 'copper' of the Silla mines is not a base metal but a sacred material, linking the miner's labor to the monastic craft of the 'metal smith.' In contemporary South Korean poetry, these ancient mines are reclaimed as symbols of a native, pre-industrial metallurgy, a 'green' mining that produced art, not just profit, in opposition to the chaebol-owned mines of the modern era.