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LIVING AND DOCUMENTED CULTURE · 04

Pottery, bronze and a new social image

Vessels, mirrors and bells in Yayoi communities

These objects help study differences in wealth and ritual practices that varied between regions.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

Image of Ceramics, bronze and a new social image
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

History and context

Regional variation prevents turning Yayoi into a single style.

Evidence and interpretation

Synthesis based on Yoshinogari Historical Park; Fukuoka · Itazuke; Izumo Museum · dōtaku. The comparison serves to formulate questions, not to fill gaps in the record with certainties.

Catalogue facts

Civilisation or trajectory
Yayoi and ancient Japan
Scope
Visual and Material Arts
Main area
Northern Kyūshū and western Japan.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

Mirrors were not green when they left the workshop

The Kyoto National Museum explains that triangular-rimmed mirrors combine copper and tin, with small amounts of lead. Their high tin content produces a hard and brittle material, of silvery grey tone with a slight golden hue. The reflective surface was polished and, in many examples, convex; the figures of divine beings and animals occupied the reverse. Thus, the current green appearance is the result of corrosion. Reconstructing their social presence requires imagining shine, reflections and contrast between both faces, not transferring the museum’s patina to the past.

Location and territory

Physical world map with routes of human evolutionPresent-day world coastline from Natural Earth in an equirectangular projection. The overlaid markers let you explore each milestone.Map base: Natural Earth 1:110m · public domain · present-day reference coastline

REGIONAL AREA

From Kyūshū towards western and eastern Japan with uneven rhythmsFrom Kyūshū towards western and eastern Japan with uneven rhythms. The footprint indicates the orientative centre of the area, not a boundary nor an exact point.

Sources and references

Consult the sources of this cultural synthesis

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