Shilla Gold Crowns Return After 104 Years, Captivate 280,000 Visitors... From the "Trump Effect" to Open-Run Crowds

Gyeongju National Museum special exhibition closed on the 22nd
All time slots sold out despite online reservation limits
Visitor numbers this year surge to 2.4 times last year's

Shilla gold crowns, brought together in one place for the first time in 104 years, attracted 280,000 visitors.

The Gyeongju National Museum announced on the 24th that a total of 285,401 people visited the special exhibition "Shilla Gold Crowns: Power and Prestige," which opened in November last year and closed on the 22nd.

From the outset, the exhibition drew a flood of visitors, leading to the unusual phenomenon of people rushing in as soon as it opened each day. A replica of the gold crown from Cheonmachong, which had been presented to U.S. President Donald Trump at the Korea-U.S. summit held just before the opening, acted as a catalyst. Although the museum introduced an online reservation system and capped the number of daily visitors at 2,550, all time slots were fully booked, and in the last two weeks before closing, lines stretched outside the exhibition hall.

The craze for the gold crowns led to an explosive increase in visitors to the museum as a whole. From January 1 to February 22 this year, the museum recorded 401,683 visitors. This is 2.4 times higher than the 169,464 visitors during the same period last year. In particular, during the four days of the Lunar New Year holiday (February 14 to 18), 72,005 people visited the museum.

The museum plans to once again create a comprehensive stage for gold crown artifacts from Korea and abroad in 2035. It aims to become the first museum in Korea to organize a recurring exhibition of a specific artifact on a 10-year cycle. Starting this year, it will present gold crowns in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province, and Cheongdo, North Gyeongsang Province, and hold special exhibitions in Paris, France, and Shanghai, China, highlighting Shilla culture and imprinting the essence of K-heritage on the global stage.