Jotab-dong Pagoda has its origins in the Indian funerary monument known as a stupa. In the course of its migration east, the stupa took on, in China, the form of a tower. The building of such towers accompanied the spread of Buddhism beyond into the Korean peninsula.

There, in the Silla Kingdom, they were often built in stone rather than in wood, and sometimes in brick in imitation of wooden constructions. The five-storey Jotab-dong Pagoda is all that remains of an unknown Buddhist monastery. It is exceptional because it combines two construction materials normally used separately: the tower is in two parts, with stone at the bottom supporting an upper section of brick.

Surmounting the pagoda’s stone base; bricks form an additional five stories. The brick stores reproduce, by a succession of courses that increase in circumference and then decrease, the tiered-roof arrangement of wooden pagodas.