Gold Crown from Geumgwanchong (the Gold Crown Tomb)
Fifth century
Of all the Silla crowns this is the one that started the story. In 1921 workmen levelling ground for a house in the middle of Gyeongju broke into an ancient mound and gold began to appear in the earth. What they had found was the first intact Silla royal burial, and the crown is the finest object from it. Three tree-shaped uprights and two antler-shaped ones rise from the headband, hung with more than fifty jade pendants and hundreds of spangles, and the whole is taller and heavier than the later crowns. A separate inner cap of gold openwork and wing-shaped ornaments were found with it, and are displayed nearby.
Look closely at the headband. It is decorated with rows of punched dots and wave patterns, and the tree uprights have four tiers of branches rather than the three of the Cheonmachong crown, which is one of the clues used to date it earlier, to the fifth century. The jade pendants are larger and more varied in colour. The goldsmiths cut the sheets with chisels, punched the decoration from the back, and attached every spangle with a twist of gold wire; on a well lit day you can see each twist. The crown weighs about a kilogram, most of it gold.
Because the discovery was accidental, much of the context was lost before archaeologists arrived, and the identity of the person buried here is unknown. The tomb was simply named the Gold Crown Tomb. The find made Silla gold famous around the world and set off a wave of excavations in the nineteen twenties. A recent re-examination of the finds turned up a sword blade inscribed with a name, so the mystery may yet be solved. The crown has been in the museum's care since it opened.
Did You Know? Because the tomb was found by workmen rather than archaeologists, its treasures were collected in a matter of days, and the crown was almost the only object recorded in position.
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