Excavated Items from the Kannonji Temple Site in Tokushima

Excavated Items from the Kannonji and Shikiji Sites: Awa Provincial Records

The Excavated Items from the Kannonji Temple Site in Tokushima (徳島県観音寺・敷地遺跡出土品) are a group of wooden tablets, wooden objects, pottery and other finds of the Asuka to Heian periods from the Kannonji and Shikiji sites in Kokufu-cho, Tokushima City, designated a national Important Cultural Property in 2015.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the sites adjoin the presumed site of the Awa provincial government, and the group comprises 213 wooden tablets, 292 wooden objects, 353 pottery and clay items, 43 metal objects and 4 bone and antler objects. They belong to Tokushima Prefecture and are kept at the Tokushima Prefectural Archaeological Research Center (Rekishiru Tokushima) in Itano.

Tokushima Prefecture gives the total as 922 items, which differs from the sum of the Agency's breakdown. The prefecture says the finds came mainly from two old channels during excavations from fiscal 1997 to 2008 ahead of a ring road.

Why They Were Designated

The Agency singles out the wooden tablets, rich in both number and content. A late 8th-century kanjaku tablet records how the provincial governor of Awa checked household registers with central government offices, and a mid-7th-century tablet carries a passage from the first chapter of the Analects of Confucius on one face of a four-sided stick, which the prefecture calls valuable evidence of how the Analects reached Japan.

There are also ink-inscribed pottery, belt fittings of officials and inkstones showing the work of a provincial office, together with wooden ritual objects, farming and craft tools and textile equipment. The Agency judges the Excavated Items from the Kannonji Temple Site in Tokushima of high scholarly value for reconstructing the administration of a provincial office and the lives of its officials.

According to the prefecture, late 7th-century tablets mentioning a fifty-household tax and a governor of Itano show the formative stage of the provincial government, while flat board-shaped human and sword figures added from the end of the 7th century show local and state rituals layered together.

What to Look For

The best-known object is the Analects tablet: copying Confucius near a government office shows local officials studying Chinese classics.

Look too at the wooden figures used in rituals; changes in their form trace how state ritual reached the provinces.

Visiting

Rekishiru Tokushima, which keeps the finds, opens from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closes on Mondays, national holidays (except Sundays) and over the New Year; admission is free. Designated items are not always on display, so check first on 088-672-4545.

It is 20 minutes on foot from JR Itano Station, 5 minutes from the Inubushi stop on Tokushima Bus, or 5 minutes by car from the Itano interchange of the Takamatsu Expressway. There is parking for 70 vehicles.