Crossroads 15 (April 2017) Granulation and the Tree of Life: How Goldsmithing Techniques and Religious Beliefs Connect the Far East with the West* Britta STEIN Introduction The tree of life is a myth that exists in a huge variety of regions, serving as a symbol for the annual decline in nature and the resurrection of vegetation in spring. It symbolizes the cycles of nature, rebirth and therefore life itself. Also, it is thought of as an axis mundi that connects this world with the under- world and the sky. 1 Crowns depicting trees and antlers are present in the archaeological record of both Korea and Japan. A lot of research has been carried out on crowns and jewellery in Japan, Korea and other regions of Eurasia, whereas only very few attempts have been made to do a comparative study of jewellery encompassing finds from the whole of Eurasia. Sarah Laursen’s recently published study about Murong Xianbei 慕容鮮卑 head ornaments 2 dealt only very briefly with finds from Korea and Japan. Especially studies that include not only a detailed morphological and icono- graphical analysis but also an analysis of production techniques have been rare, even though such an analysis provides an excellent tool to show interregional relations and exchange. Specifically, for regions with a scarcity of finds, or when a time gap exists between comparable finds from different regions, the analysis of production techniques is a possibility to close these gaps. With a strong focus on crowns, earrings and other jewellery from Kofun 古墳 period Japan and from the Three Kingdoms (Samguk 三國) period on the Korean peninsula, 3 this paper examines the distribution of such objects to * This article was originally presented as a paper in the panel “Trade and Interaction in North- east Asia, Part II: The Yellow Sea Interaction Sphere – Moving Beyond the Texts”, at the So- ciety for East Asian Archaeology (SEAA) Seventh Worldwide Conference held in June 6–10, 2016 in Boston, USA. 1 James 1966, 245-246. 2 Laursen 2011. 3 Kofun period: 250–600 CE, Three Kingdoms period: 300–668 CE.