Organizer and Chair: Conrad Totman, Yale University
Discussant: Wayne Farris, University of Tennessee
The panel I am proposing is entitled "Historical Archeology in Japan." The last thirty years mark the archeology boom in Japan, but usually scholars focus attention on the prehistoric periods like the Jomon or Yayoi. This panel hopes to remedy the relative neglect of historical archeology (beginning about A.D. 200) by presenting four papers on topics of current interest where excavations and artifacts have begun to change conceptions of historical Japan.
The Panel Chair will be Conrad Totman of Yale University. Cornelius Kiley of Villanova University will discuss the wooden tablets from Prince Nagaya's estate and show how they contribute to knowledge about life of the Nara aristocracy. Ted Kidder, now retired from International Christian University, has obtained a wealth of information about one of the most well advertised religious projects of the eighth century, the provincial temples (kokubunji). Joan Piggott of Cornell University will focus on the "archeology of kingship" in Japan for which there is abundant archeological evidence from Himiko to Shomu. Richard Pearson of the University of British Columbia rounds out our presentations by looking at ceramics and state development in Okinawa from 1100 to 1600. Wayne Farris of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville will offer comments for further discussion.
New archeological finds are constantly making news in Japan and we wish to share the excitement and knowledge with our colleagues in Asian Studies.
Joan R. Piggott, Cornell University
A great cloud of witnesses makes it possible to gain a good deal of understanding of the process by which Japanese kingship emerged. There is archeological evidence provided by a landscape filled with chiefly tombs and associated hamlets. Charting the dispersion and relative sizes of these protohistoric barrows across the archipelago provides an array of evidence-I call it the keyhole hierarchy supplementing a written record the historicity of which is often doubtful. In recent decades, a number of inscriptions have been discovered on artifacts-especially swords and mirrors. There is also a hierarchy of central places-capitals, palaces, provincial and district offices-whose artifacts include tens of thousands of wooden tablets and offer a wide range of evidence as to kingship in the late seventh and eighth centuries. Archeological finds have made it possible in some instances to confirm or problematize the written official written record in the Nihon shoki and the Shoku nihongi. When such finds are taken together with the nearly ten thousand records on paper from the royal storehouse known as the Shosoin, there is a great deal we can know about kingship not only in the eighth century, but earlier. To deal with the varied evidence-written and archeological-I have developed an approach that might be characterized as, to paraphrase Michel Foucault, "the archeology of kingship," which I propose to discuss at the Annual Meeting.
Cornelius J. Kiley, Villanova University
During the seventh and eighth centuries, wooden slips were used for a wide range of documentary purposes that went far beyond mere labeling. Any official message or memo that did not require long archival preservation could be routinely written on a small strip of wood. It might be discarded once the information had reached its destination, but might also be retained for a time as an administrative record. The recent discovery of about forty thousand mokkan dating from 711 to 716 at the site of the palace of Prince Nagaya (684-729), who was eventually eliminated in the course of a dynastic struggle, has provided much new information about how the household chanceries of Nara period grandees operated. It is now clear that Prince Nagaya's menage had a compound structure, including at least two, and possibly three, separate but interlocking chanceries, one for Prince Nagaya himself and a higher level one for the senior ascendant imperial family member living there, probably Princess of the Blood Hidaka, who became Empress Gensho in 715. Some mokkan point to a third chancery, that of his wife, Princess of the Blood Kibi. In this case, mokkan have provided new information about the matriarchal elements of kinship and inheritance among ancient Japanese nobility.
J. Edward Kidder, Jr., University of Tennessee
Starting in 677, a series of orders went out to the provinces from Asuka, Fujiwara and Heijo to read and collect sutras, make images, build Buddhist "houses," erect seven storied pagodas and, in 741, to put up monasteries (KBJ) and nunneries (KBNJ). A deadline of 750 was eventually set for their completion. About 120 were erected. Few of these temples survived beyond the tenth century (the latest tiles on the site). Occasionally, when one was destroyed, a neighboring temple was renamed KBJ (Izu, Noto and probably Omi), and a small number were rebuilt in Kamakura times (Bizen, Bingo and Tango).
In the 1970s each prefecture was gently pressured to identify and, if possible, dig and give good protection to the sites. In view of the rapid commercial and industrial development in some prefectures with higher priority on salvage archaeology, this was not entirely fair since some prefectures, like Tokyo, Toyama, Nara and Aomori, etc., have only one, whereas others, such as Kyoto, Osaka, Chiba, Shimane, Okayama, Mie and Shizuoka, have three. Today, some are well preserved sites, but others range to the undiggable, such as Osumi (Kagoshima) because it is covered by school buildings. Identification has been no problem where local names of Kofu, Kokufu (Kokubu) and Kokubunji still exist, but in some cases so called hai ji (abandoned temple) sites had to be dug. The Katayama hai ji in Shizuoka city was finally identified in 1956 as the Suruga KBJ site. Most archaeologists believe that all the KBJ are now identified, with perhaps only one or two open to argument, but the KBNJ-with fewer permanent buildings-present far greater problems.
Archaeologically, one looks for a site that is called a 2 cho temple (c. 120x120 yds., but it may be smaller); tiles that can be dated to the middle of the eighth century; if the base stones of the pagoda site remain, spacing for a first floor wall face of a minimum of 33 shaku (feet); a large enough center-pole base stone to support a pole up to 225 shaku in height. Most center-poles have a depression in the middle, perhaps to hold a sutra in a container, but many have a nipple instead. Only about two thirds are in the conventional north south axial plan with the pagoda to the east or west, probably because some temples under construction or existing temples in other plans were appropriated to serve as KBJ.
Richard Pearson, University of British Columbia
Long distance exchange networks have been important to the people of the Ryukyu Islands since prehistoric times. In the rise of chiefdoms and secondary states, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai ceramics played an important role in reinforcing political alliances and generating wealth. In this paper the mechanisms of exchange of these wares are reconstructed through study of their temporal and spatial distribution and association with architectural features, the use of secondary historical materials, and limited examination of production centers. Tributary trade and trans-shipment to ports in East and Southeast Asia predominated from the late 14th century, but were preceded by small scale private trade which continued to be significant in later times.
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