A woman’s crown made of fine gilt bronze with refined glass inlay work was excavated from a Sui-Tang tomb called Kunlun M2 in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China. Very few female crowns and crown ornaments have been excavated in China thus far, and there has been a lack of systematic research into the technologies used to manufacture them. Importantly, this paper uses the M2 crown to investigate its surface inlays and overall shape, then conducts a comparative analysis of women's crown ornaments of the same type, providing a reference for study of the crown. Non-invasive and micro-destructive analysis including optical microscopy (OM), optical coherence tomography (OCT), micro X-ray fluorescence imagery (XRF), and Raman spectroscopy were applied. These identified the crown’s inlays as potash-lime glass, composed mainly of the raw materials: vein quartz or quartzite with potassium nitrate as flux. The inlays were sintered before embedding into gilt copper wire filigree. In comparison to the composition proportions in other ancient potash-lime glass, there is no specific percentage of the raw materials in Chinese potash-lime glass, where the ingredients were likely determined by the experience of the craftsman. Compared with existing research on other crowns and their inlays, this study speculates that the crown dates from the Sui dynasty (581–618) or early Tang dynasty (618–649), was made locally by Chinese craftsmen and belonged to the wife of a high official.To get more news about women of ancient china, you can visit shine news official website.

In January 2007, the Xi’an Kunlun Industry Company found two tombs at their premises in an eastern suburb of Xi’an. That month, the Xi’an Institute of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology conducted a rescue excavation of the tombs. A large number of crown ornaments were discovered in the M2 tomb. Archaeological investigation and research classify M2 as a typical tomb of the Sui dynasty (581–618) to early Tang (618–649) dynasty, with such ritual female crowns belonging to the late Sui and early Tang periods. There is a lack of archaeological information, such as an epitaph tablet, to further identify the Kunlun M2 crown, but scientific research can explore the intrinsic chemical character of the crown’s decorative elements and manufacturing techniques used, as well as placing it in the context of technological developments and exchange, and social significance in the Sui-Tang period (Fig. 1).

The crown was made using filigree inlay, a technique that originated in China in the Warring States Period (475–221 BCE), when it was called jin yin cuo (金银错 ‘gold and silver inlay’) and involved painting gold and silver onto the surface of bronze artworks. By the Sui and Tang dynasties, filigree inlay technique was mature, with the development of high level techniques for making fine gold and silver thread [1, 2]. Examples of exquisite ornamented female crowns include that of Sui dynasty Empress Xiao (566–648, wife of Emperor Yang) [3], and the Tang dynasty ‘phoenix crown’ found in the 736 tomb of the royal family member Li Chui [4] (Fig. 2). Tang dynasty women’s crowns were also recorded in the incised line drawings on the interiors of the stone sarcophagi in the Qianling tombs of Crown Prince Zhanghuai [5] and Crown Prince Yide [6], dating from 706. The filigree technique in the Kunlun M2 crown is not as elegant as these, however. This suggests that the owner of this crown was not of the highest status, though without epitaph tablets or other identifying information extant in the tomb, her precise status is difficult to ascertain. This paper analyses the physical evidence of the inlay materials and the way these were combined with the base metal to unlock more historical information about the crown, and compare it to other crowns and crown ornaments. Thus, we can combine the inlays’ physical and chemical information together with the typology of the crown to identify the status of crown’s owner more accurately, while shedding new light on the inlay techniques of the Sui-Tang period [7].

Due to the Kunlun M2 Crown’s rarity, elite character and significance as a nationally important Chinese cultural relic, destructive methods of analysis were not permitted. Accordingly, OM, OCT, microfocus XRF and Raman spectroscopy were used to analyze the ornament samples of the Kunlun M2 crown, OCT was used for the first time in China for high-resolution imaging of inlays, and microfocus XRF (not commonly used in archaeological analysis), with its highly focused beams of light, allowed precise control of the areas to be tested and accurate data to be obtained in seconds. The parts that were analyzed are shown in Fig. 3.