Nagato Province Coin Minting Relics

Nagato Province Coin Minting Relics: Tools From a Nara Mint

The Nagato Province Coin Minting Relics (長門国鋳銭遺物, Nagato no Kuni Chusen Ibutsu) are a group of Nara-period objects used for casting coins at the mint of Nagato province (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture), designated a national Important Cultural Property in 1964.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the relics are owned by the Tatsuuma Archaeological Museum and kept at the Kyoto National Museum in Chayamachi, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto.

Yamaguchi Prefecture's tourism site says the Nagato Coin Mint Site in Chofu, Shimonoseki, yielded a Wado Kaichin coin together with the mould used to cast it, crucibles and bellows nozzles, and that these are designated as the Nagato Province Coin Minting Relics.

Background: The Nagato Mint and Wado Kaichin

The Nagato mint was attached to the provincial government. The tourism site says it opened in the Wado era (708 to 715) and closed in 825. Its site was designated the Nagato Coin Mint Site, a Historic Site, in 1929.

Kakuonji Temple, which stands on the site, says about 100 minting objects, including coin moulds, bellows nozzles and crucibles, were found in its grounds in 1911, with large quantities more in later excavations. A surviving set of casting tools shows concretely how the Nara state made coins in the provinces.

The Agency's own description of the Nagato Province Coin Minting Relics consists of a single line, "materials of the Nara period", and gives no count or breakdown.

What to Look For

A coin mould is the form into which molten copper was poured to make the coin; crucibles held the melting copper, and bellows nozzles were the tips of the pipes that blew air into the furnace. Together they let you read the whole process of melting, casting and removing the coins from the tools themselves.

Visiting

The relics are kept at the Kyoto National Museum but are not on permanent display. Works from the Tatsuuma collection are shown from time to time in special displays there, so check the Kyoto National Museum's schedule.

The find site, the Nagato Coin Mint Site, lies in and around the grounds of Kakuonji in Chofu Anyoji, Shimonoseki, and can be visited as an outdoor Historic Site.