경주 황남대총 南墳에는 왜 金冠이 없었나?

Why was There No Gold Crown in the Southern Tomb of Hwangnam Daechong in Gyeongju?

필자는 10여년전 연구목적으로 경상도 지역의 사금을 채취하고, 그 성분을 분석한 글을 작성한 바 있다. 그 뒤 金에서 銀으로 채취범위를 넓혀보고자 하였으나, '砂銀'이란 단어가 애초에 존재하지 않는 것처럼 실패할 수밖에 없었다. 금년 초부터 문득 古代人들의 銀 채취와 황남대총 남분에서 金冠이 없었던 것이 불가분의 관계에 있음을 직감하고 이 글을 작성하기 위한 탐사를 계속하여 왔다. 그 결과 황남대총 남분의 피장자는 당시 금보다 高價였던 세계 최첨단의 銀器物, 장신구, 武具 등을 소유･향유하였던 ‘王中王’이었음을 확인할 수 있었다. 또한 銀은 단일광물로 나오는 경우가 흔하지 않으며, 금, 휘은석, 각은광, 담홍은석, 농홍은석과 방연석, 섬아연석 등에 일부 포함되어 있는 귀금속으로 '灰吹法'이라는 까다로운 제련과정을 통하여 획득할 수 있는, 특히 古代에는 최고가의 귀금속이었음을 확실히 인지할 수 있었다.

About ten years ago, I once wrote a paper analyzing the composition of gold collected from placer deposits in the Gyeongsang Province region for research purposes. Afterward, I attempted to extend my collection and analysis to silver, but, as if the very word “placer silver” did not exist, the attempt inevitably ended in failure. Earlier this year, I suddenly came to the intuition that the ancient practice of silver extraction was inseparably connected to the absence of a gold crown in the southern tomb of Hwangnam Daechong. Since then, I have continued an investigation in preparation for writing this article. As a result, I was able to confirm that the individual buried in the southern tomb of Hwangnam Daechong was a “king of kings” who possessed and enjoyed the world’s most advanced silver artifacts, ornaments, and weapons of the time － objects that were more valuable than gold. Through this process, I came to clearly recognize that silver almost never occurs as a single mineral; rather, it is a precious metal found in part within gold, argentite, proustite, pyrargyrite, stephanite, galena, sphalerite, and the like. It could only be obtained through the demanding refining method known as cupellation, which made it the highest-priced precious metal in antiquity.