Abstract
In the Korean literature, records of systematic gold thread manufacturing such as gold foil(金 箔匠), gold foil bonded with fabrics(付金匠), gold foil bonded with paper materials(金箋紙匠), refining gold(鍊金匠), cutting gold(裁金匠), and making gold thread(絲金匠) can be easily found. We can infer from these literatures that the Korean people used to make gold threads. However, is not existent the gold thread making technique. Thus, a research was done using 67 pieces of gold thread artifacts used in textiles craft of Korea, China and Japan. The purpose of this research was to identify the characteristics of the Korean gold thread by studying the artifacts' form classification, gold foil, glue and the base. First, gold thread is divided into flat gold thread and wrapped gold thread. Wrapped gold thread was made in more various methods such as with a paper on the flat gold thread, metal thread and wrapped gold thread with gold foil on top. Compared to the flat gold thread, wrapped gold thread uses a thread that has a thinner and wider. Through this analysis, even making of the base of the gold threads was different according to the type. Secondly, we looked into the characteristics of materials according to form structure of the gold thread. After analysis of experiment results, we could know that to attach Korean gold thread, glue and the mixture of materials such as Red soil(朱土) was also added. The kinds of the base of gold threads were identified as paper, leather and intestines. Among those materials, for paper, Korea's Dakji, China's Sangpiji(桑皮紙) and Jukji(竹紙) and Japan's Anpiji(雁皮紙) seemed to have all been used, so because of the difference among countries, we can prove that Korea has also produced gold thread. By looking at the research, the base of gold threads and making features hugely vary according to the area.
