Materials Related to the Sho Dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom

A Body of 1,292 Items, National Treasure since 2006

Materials Related to the Sho Dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom (琉球国王尚家関係資料) is a body of material kept at the Naha City Museum of History, Kumoji, Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, designated a National Treasure in 2006, on 9 June. The quantity is 1,292 items, in the categories of historical materials, calligraphy, books and documents. It belongs to the City of Naha.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as comprising 85 works of applied art and 1,166 documents and records. Those two figures come to 1,251, forty-one short of the 1,292 in the quantity field. The numbers do not agree within the same record. This article follows the quantity field and notes the difference.

The period runs from the second Sho line to the Meiji era. The Sho family ruled the kingdom for more than four centuries, from Sho En, who became king in 1470, to Sho Tai, the nineteenth and last king, deposed by the Ryukyu Disposition of 1879.

It Escaped Two Destructions

The weightiest passage in the Agency's account explains why this material survives.

The documents seized by the Meiji government were reduced to ashes in the Great Kanto Earthquake, and the material remaining with the Sho family at Shuri, documents included, was destroyed in the Second World War.

What was in Tokyo burned in the earthquake; what was in Okinawa was lost in the war. What remains is the documents and records that had been brought to Tokyo and handed down within the Sho family.

The Agency calls these a body of first-rank material for investigating the reality of the Ryukyu Kingdom as a state. The accident of escaping two destructions is what fixes the standing of this collection.

The documents and records were presented to the City of Naha by Sho Hiroshi between 1994 and 1996. The Agency records that the gift made study possible and brought their importance to light again.

Applied Art and Documents Were Designated Separately

The material was designated in two stages.

The 85 works of applied art became an Important Cultural Property in 2002, in the applied arts category, under the name Heirlooms of the Ryukyuan Royal Sho Family. The designated name at that point differs from the present one.

The whole, with the 1,166 documents and records added, then became a National Treasure in 2006 under the present name. The scope widened from applied art alone to the body as a whole.

The Agency gives the reason: taken together, the applied art and the documents and records form a body of material without parallel for grasping the Ryukyu Kingdom in the round, and the only unified body of material that speaks for the kingdom of the southern seas and its history and culture, of the very highest value.

In the round is what carries the argument for putting objects and documents together.

The Only Surviving Royal Robes

The applied art consists chiefly of things used in ceremonies at the royal house, ranging from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.

The Agency singles out one item: among the applied art are royal robes, and they are the only surviving example of the robes of a Ryukyuan king. Nothing else of the kind survives.

The documents and records centre on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They include the pictorial registers, documents on ceremonies of the royal house, material on the investiture relationship with Qing China, material on the tribute and escort ships, material showing relations with the Satsuma domain, material on internal administration and finance, material on foreign ships that came to the Ryukyus including Perry's, and material on the Ryukyu Disposition and Tokyo.

The Agency records that this last group forms the core of the documents and records. As evidence of what went on behind the scenes for those being dispossessed, it is described as of the greatest value for study of the Disposition.

Seeing It

The City of Naha owns the material and the Naha City Museum of History keeps it. All 1,292 items are unlikely to be shown at once.

It is not necessarily on permanent display, and whether and when items are shown depends on the museum's programme. Hours and admission may change, so check before travelling.

Textiles such as the royal robes are vulnerable to light, and display periods for them are usually short. If a particular item is the purpose of the visit, check the notice of any showing.

The museum is on the fourth floor of Palette Kumoji at 1-1-1 Kumoji, Naha City, on foot from Kencho-mae Station on the Okinawa Urban Monorail.