Gold and Silver Ornaments That Decorated the Coffins of the King and Queen

The artifacts that you are seeing were used to decorate the coffins belonging to King Muryeong and the Queen. Most of them were found around the spot corresponding to where the King and Queen’s heads and waists would have been. It is supposed that they were decorations of either the shrouds, the silk cover for the coffin, or the wall coverings. How about we look at each ornament separately?

The gold artifact farthest to your right, shaped like four leaves, used to be a half sphere with four leaf-shaped ornaments attached to it.

To its left, the gold and silver flower-shaped ornaments were the most common type of ornament found in the Royal Tomb of King Muryeong. The flower petals were attached to half spheres made of gold and silver.

The third gold and silver sphere ornament on the right was made by pressing a gold plate into the shape of a cap.

Other artifacts included diamond-shaped silver ornaments and pentagonal gold ornaments. Although similar ornaments had been discovered in other tombs from the Baekje period, the quantity and diversity of the ornaments discovered in the Royal Tomb of King Muryeong is unsurpassed.