There was gilt and gold, and yet more gold.

For the first time in nearly seven decades, the kingdom of Thailand crowned a new monarch on Saturday, in a coruscant display weighted with centuries of royal pageantry.

The ceremony to formally crown King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, began at 10 in the morning, the precise time designated by a royal augur. The king, 66, arrived at a gilded hall in Bangkok in a golden-hued car, donned a robe and pantaloon woven with shimmering thread and presided from a glittering, octagonal throne.

Shortly after noon, as he was seated under a nine-tiered umbrella, a heavy crown on his head, the king’s transformation was complete.

He was now considered, in Thai tradition, a deity.

The ceremony included a purification ceremony, with consecrated water drawn from holy sources across the country, then King Maha Vajiralongkorn received the Great Crown of Victory.

It weighs 16 pounds, stands more than two feet tall and is studded with diamonds.

The royal regalia includes other objects freighted with history — including a fly whisk made of the tail of a yak and a bejewelled sword of victory.

The most sacred object in the coronation was the tiered umbrella.

Unusually for such an ornate spectacle, the umbrella is made of simple white cloth, enlivened only by a few embellishments of gold. Its nine circles, diminishing with each tier, symbolise a monarch’s bountiful merit.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who was educated in foreign military academies, spends much of his time in Germany. He has been married four times, including to Queen Suthida, who was promoted to her royal position this past week.

Thailand’s last coronation, in 1950, was of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was the world’s longest-serving monarch at the time of his death in 2016.

(The current king’s coronation was postponed while the country entered a long mourning period.)

On Saturday, throngs of Thais wore yellow shirts as they chanted, “Long live the king.”

Each day in Thailand is marked by a colour, and King Maha Vajiralongkorn, like his father before him, was born on a Monday, which is denoted by yellow.

Across Thailand, yellow flags fluttered and giant portraits of the king, solemn in golden garb, marked the coronation nearly seven decades in the making.

The golden hue gave a sense of continuity to a country that has been shaken by political instability and is guarded by strict laws against royal defamation. Elections last month, the first since a military coup in 2014, have failed to bridge the political divide.

After his coronation, for which the three-day ceremonies will continue till Monday, King Maha Vajiralongkorn gave his first royal command.

“I shall continue, preserve and build upon the royal legacy,” he said, “and shall reign with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the people forever”.

Military junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, the speaker of the army-appointed parliament and the chairman of the Supreme Court — representing the three branches of government — also spoke to express “gratitude” to the king.