Yayoi
Hyogo · 弥生Browse Hyogo’s cultural heritage from the Yayoi period (300 BCE – 300 CE). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Discover the Sakuragaoka Dōtaku, a National Treasure collection of 14 bronze bells and 7 bronze halberds from the Yayoi period, unearthed in Kobe. See rare pictorial bronze bells at Kobe City Museum.
Discover the Ryūsui-mon Dōtaku, National Treasure bronze bells adorned with flowing water patterns and pictorial scenes of Yayoi-period life, housed at Kobe City Museum in the heart of Kobe's historic foreign settlement.
The Kamo Site in Kawanishi preserves one of the Kinki region's largest Yayoi villages, on a river terrace, known for a rare slope moat and a fenced timber hall.
The Funaki Archaeological Site in Awaji City, Hyogo Prefecture, is a major Yayoi-period settlement spanning approximately 40 hectares atop the hills of northern Awaji Island. Excavations have uncovered iron workshops, Chinese bronze mirror fragments, salt-making pottery, and the Kinki region's first iron fishing spear. Designated a National Historic Site in 2021 and part of the Japan Heritage story of Awaji's Kuniumi creation myth, Funaki holds vital clues to understanding ancient Japanese society just before the rise of the Yamatai kingdom.
Seven bronze dagger-axes found with fourteen bells on a Kobe hillside in 1964. Shaped like weapons yet never sharpened, they are a Yayoi National Treasure.