Navy Blue Armor (helmet, Large Sleeves)

A Suit of Armor Laced in Dark-Blue Silk

On the island of Miyajima, a short walk past the exit of the famous over-water shrine, a fireproof hall holds a suit of armor that has kept its shape for more than eight centuries. The Konito-odoshi Yoroi, or dark-blue-laced great armor, is built from hundreds of small black-lacquered iron plates bound together with cords of deep indigo silk. It stands about 72 centimeters tall and comes complete with its helmet and a pair of broad rectangular shoulder guards.

This is one of several National Treasure armors preserved at Itsukushima Shrine. It was never carried into battle. From the start it was an offering to the gods of the sea, and that is why it has survived in a condition that fighting armor almost never does.

What the Armor Is

The piece belongs to a class of armor called ō-yoroi, the "great armor" worn by high-ranking mounted archers during the Heian and Kamakura periods. An ō-yoroi was not a single molded shell but a box-shaped cuirass assembled from rows of small scales, each lacquered against the damp and then laced to its neighbors with colored silk braid. The lacing color gave each armor its name, and here that color is kon, a dark navy blue.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the armor as a work of the Heian period. Its construction points to the later part of that era, around the twelfth century: the scales are large and wide, the lacing cords are thick, and the breast plate is narrow, all features that armor specialists read as marks of an older style. The cuirass is shaped with a two-stage front plate, a back assembly of pressing plates and reversed plates, four stages along the long sides, and a skirt of three sections in five tiers that protected the thighs of a rider.

The helmet is built from twenty iron plates lacquered black, with a silver-plated band running front to back and a bowl of eighteen ridged sections studded with rows of standing rivets. The two shoulder guards, the ō-sode, rise through six laced stages and measure about 42.8 centimeters; in use they hung at the sides and swung forward to shield the arms while a rider drew his bow.

Why It Was Designated a National Treasure

The armor was first recognized as an Important Cultural Property in 1899, in the early decades of Japan's modern heritage system, and it was raised to National Treasure status on June 9, 1951. The reason given by cultural authorities is simple and unusual: it keeps almost its original form. Battlefield armor was repaired, re-laced, and cannibalized for parts over the centuries, so very few early examples reach us intact. This one was placed in a shrine and largely left alone, which makes it a rare survival of Heian craftsmanship rather than a reconstruction.

Conservators have compared it with two other early armors: the shrine's own Kozakura-gawa Kigaeshi-odoshi Yoroi and the Akaito-odoshi Yoroi at Mitake Shrine near Tokyo. The dark-blue armor differs in feeling and shows more refined workmanship, yet it shares telling details with the other two, the narrow metal fittings, the patterns of its dyed leather, the shape of the helmet, and the way the cuirass is put together. Those shared traits place all three within roughly the same generation of armor-making.

What to Look For

Up close, the armor rewards slow looking. The dyed leather that wraps the metal fittings carries a design of lions set within roundels among peony scrolls, a pattern borrowed from the textiles of the continental courts and dyed onto deerskin. A copper edging finished in gold runs along the borders, and the small trim is sewn down in cords of purple, white, and blue. These were the visible luxuries of a warrior aristocrat, meant to be read as rank as much as protection.

Look too at the lacing itself. The main cords are a steady navy, but the topmost row, the ear thread, is worked in a speckled braid called takuboku, named for the mottled plumage of a woodpecker. Red tanned leather laces the seams and cross-stitches, setting warm flecks against the blue. Much of the present lacing on the cords and fastenings is later repair, a normal part of caring for an object this old, so the surviving original braid is what specialists examine most closely.

Shrine tradition holds that the armor was offered by Taira no Shigemori, the eldest son of the warlord Taira no Kiyomori, whose family raised Itsukushima Shrine to national fame in the twelfth century. The link to Shigemori is a tradition passed down at the shrine rather than a documented fact, and it is best treated that way, but it fits the period and the standing of an armor this fine.

Visiting Miyajima and the Shrine

Itsukushima Shrine sits on Miyajima, an island in Hiroshima Bay reached by a ten-minute ferry from Miyajimaguchi. The shrine and its great vermilion torii standing in the sea form one of Japan's most recognized views and are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The armor is kept at the shrine's Treasure Hall, a registered cultural property in its own right, which sits just beyond the shrine's exit, about fifteen minutes on foot from the ferry pier.

The Treasure Hall is open daily from 8:00 to 17:00, with admission of 300 yen for adults. Because the original armors are fragile, they are shown to the public only at certain times, and a faithful replica may stand in the case at other periods. Travelers who want to see the genuine piece should check the shrine's current exhibition schedule before the trip. The island itself repays a full day: the five-story pagoda, the hall known as Senjōkaku built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the wild deer that roam the lanes, and the climb or ropeway up Mount Misen.