I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a one-hour webinar on the Silla Gold Crowns, part of a larger series of Art in the Classroom by TEA-NCTA (Program for Teaching East Asia from the University of Colorado + the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia). The program was taught by Dr. Sunglim Kim, from Dartmouth University, she provided a wonderful PDF of the exhibition on Silla gold objects from the Metropolitan Museum that I linked below. The NCTA has lots of resources for history & social studies teachers; I highly recommend subscribing to their newsletter.
Art Historical Background:
There are six gold crowns excavated from royal tomb in Gyeongju, Korea; the AP Art History image focuses on the Jade and Gold Crown which was found in the large mount ever to be excavated. The tombs were located inside mounds that were literally in the middle of the city, however, they were not scientifically excavated until the 1970s because for so long people though they were natural hills. The presenter connected the excavation of these early history tomb mounds with a growing sense of Korean national identity: the 1970s (post-Japanese occupation and Korean War) was a time of global growth for Korea and with that, a interest in their unique history.
Inside the hill mounds, the tombs were constructed with timber roofs (that have since collapsed) and then mounds of stones around the entrance passages. On top of all this, they were piled with huge hills of dirt. The tombs date from the Silla Kingdom (4th century CE – 668), which was part of the Three Kingdoms period of Korea. The period ended when Silla unified the peninsula and ruled until the 10th century; this represents a shift from a tribal to a national identity. The construction of these large tomb mounds ended with the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century CE because they began to cremate the dead instead.
Read more: An AP Art History Pacing Guide
These tomb mounds were royal constructions and demonstrate cultural exchange with other steppe traditions of Central Asia, as seen in the reoccurring motifs found in the buried objects. The south mound was built for a man and the northern one for a woman; unfortunately they have not been identified but they were probably a royal couple. The man was buried with four attendants, it seems that they could have been buried alive (there are scratch marks and escape attempts)! The couple were also buried with many gold accessories (like belts, crowns, and bracelets) along with bronze and silver shoes and weapons, and glass beads.
The crown itself is exquisite, made with very thin gold sheets held together by a delicate gold wire. Comma shaped jade pieces dangle from the crown, the shape is believed to represent life (connection to a bear claw or a fetus). There are tall forms that resemble tree branches or antlers, which suggests an association with shamans (who wore antler crowns). As I mentioned before, these tomb mounds connect to nomadic burials across Central Asia. Indeed, blown glass found in this tomb demonstrate that Korea participated in larger Eurasian trade, such as the Silk Road, because there is no evidence that Korea had a homegrown glass tradition at the time.
Resources:
- National Museum of Korea: Gold Crown, the Unchanging Light of Eternity
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Precious Punctuation?
- Google Arts & Culture: Silla, the Golden Kingdom of Korea
- SmartHistory: Gold and jade crown, Silla Kingdom and beyond
- SmartHistory: Gold crown and gold belt from the north mound of Hwangnamdaechong Tomb
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Golden Treasures: The Royal Tombs of Silla
- Journal of Korean Art & Archaeology: The Manufacturing Techniques and Conservation Treatment of the Gold Crown Excavated from the Seobongchong Tomb in Gyeongju (Treasure No. 339)
- Silla: Korea’s Golden Kingdom by Soyoung Lee & Denise Patry Leidy
