Gilt Bronze Openwork Saddle Fittings

Two Saddles Dug from an Emperor's Satellite Tomb

In August 1848, gilt bronze horse trappings came out of the ground at a small round mound in the village of Konda in southern Kawachi, in what is now Habikino City, Osaka Prefecture. The mound, Konda Maruyama Kofun, presses against the outer moat of Konda Gobyoyama Kofun, the colossal keyhole-shaped tomb that the Imperial Household Agency identifies as the mausoleum of Emperor Ojin. The dig yielded fittings for two complete saddles, their surfaces pierced through with dragons rendered in gilt bronze openwork.

The objects passed into the keeping of Konda Hachimangu, the shrine that has watched over the great tomb since the sixth century. The government designated them an Important Cultural Property in 1934, then raised them to National Treasure status on November 22, 1952, under the registered name Kondo Sukashibori Kura Kanagu, the Gilt Bronze Openwork Saddle Fittings.

They are counted among the oldest horse trappings ever excavated in Japan.

Anatomy of a Fifth-Century Saddle

A saddle of the Kofun period (roughly the third through sixth centuries) was built around a wooden frame with two arched boards: the pommel, or maewa, rising in front of the rider, and the cantle, or shizuwa, behind. On the Maruyama saddles, sheets of gilt bronze cut into openwork sheathed these arches almost completely. The wood has long since decayed. What survives is the metal skin, and it is extraordinary.

The pattern is a procession of dragons. Their bodies stretch and coil until they read almost as arabesque scrollwork, and each creature turns toward the center of the plate, so the design converges rather than scatters. Stand close and the individual animals resolve out of the tangle: a jaw here, a clawed limb there. Step back and the whole surface shimmers as a single lattice.

Two sets were recovered together, conventionally called Saddle No. 1 and Saddle No. 2. The second is built slightly smaller than the first, and one theory holds it was intended for a woman, though this remains conjecture. The recovery of two ornamental saddles of this caliber in a single mound has few parallels in Japanese archaeology.

Specialists generally agree the fittings were not made in Japan. Openwork gilt bronze saddle ornaments of closely related type are known on the continent, in the territory of the Three Yan states of northern China and in Silla royal tombs in Korea such as Cheonmachong at Gyeongju. The Maruyama saddles are thought to have crossed the sea in the fifth century, a period when horses, and the very practice of riding them, were recent arrivals on the Japanese archipelago.

Why the State Called Them a National Treasure

The official record lists the designation as two saddle sets (ni gu bun), but the National Treasure also embraces a cluster of accompanying items, designated as tsuketari: a gilt bronze bridle cheekpiece, flower-shaped strap dividers known as tsujikanagu, the remains of a sword fitted with antler mounts, fragments of armor and long-necked iron arrowheads, and a bound file of papers documenting the 1848 excavation. That last item deserves notice. Digs of the Edo period rarely produced written records, and this file anchors the find to its mound with a certainty most early discoveries lack.

The fittings carry weight on three counts. They are among the earliest evidence of equestrian culture in Japan. Their craftsmanship, the confident cutting of the openwork and the fire-gilding over bronze, had no equal in the islands at the time. And they are physical proof of the traffic in prestige goods that bound the Kawachi rulers to courts across the sea.

The archaeologist Mori Koichi rated these as the finest saddle fittings recovered from any Japanese tomb, and argued that such gleaming equipment served a ruler precisely because it caught every eye in a great assembly. Most excavated Kofun-period horse gear is plain and practical, often nothing more than a bit. Gilded saddles of this order belonged to the very top of society.

Seeing the Saddles in Person

The fittings are kept in the treasure house on the grounds of Konda Hachimangu. The building opens once a week, on Saturday afternoons from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. The procedure has a pleasing informality: call at the shrine office, pay the 400 yen fee, and a member of staff unlocks the hall for you. Inside, the same room holds the shrine's other National Treasure, a Kamakura-period portable shrine decorated in mother-of-pearl and gilt bronze, traditionally said to have been donated by Minamoto no Yoritomo.

If your schedule cannot stretch to a Saturday, the ema votive hall in the precinct displays explanatory panels with photographs of the treasures, free of charge.

When you do stand before the cases, give the metalwork time. Notice how the gilding survives in the recesses where centuries of handling never reached. Compare the two saddles and judge the size difference for yourself. Then consider that this object was already more than thirteen hundred years old when it was lifted from the earth in 1848.

Around the Shrine: A World Heritage Landscape

Konda Hachimangu stands a ten-minute walk from Furuichi Station on the Kintetsu Minami-Osaka Line, about thirty minutes by train from Osaka Abenobashi Station. The shrine claims descent from a sanctuary founded by order of Emperor Kinmei in the sixth century, which would make it the oldest Hachiman shrine in the country, and tradition holds that Emperor Go-Reizei had the halls rebuilt on the present site in 1051. The current main hall is said to have been reconstructed through the patronage of Toyotomi Hideyori in the early seventeenth century.

Directly north rises Konda Gobyoyama Kofun, second in size only to the Daisen Kofun attributed to Emperor Nintoku. Maruyama Kofun itself, a round mound about 50 meters across and 7 meters high built in the early fifth century, lies just beyond the moat. Both belong to the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019. A walking course threads among dozens of mounds in the Furuichi area, and the burial grounds read best on foot, where the scale of the largest tombs becomes physical rather than abstract.

Time a visit for September 15 and you will see the shrine's autumn festival, when the portable shrine is carried in procession toward the imperial tomb. In the New Year season the shrine serves its celebrated sacred wine, a red vintage from local Kawachi vineyards poured into a white cup, nicknamed the Rising Sun offering for its colors.