Items Excavated from Bunnemaro Tomb

A Single Lot, National Treasure since 1952

Items Excavated from Bunnemaro Tomb (文祢麻呂墓出土品, Fumi no Nemaro Bo Shutsudohin) are archaeological material at the Tokyo National Museum, 13-9 Ueno Park, Taito Ward, Tokyo, made an Important Cultural Property on 19 July 1952 and designated a National Treasure on 22 November of the same year. The quantity is one lot, and the owner is the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage.

About four months separate the two listings, matching the four months for the engraved mirror. This is the second case here where the two dates fall within one year.

The Agency's commentary reads: material of the Nara period. This is the nineteenth one-sentence commentary here, and the second, after the Tetsugen printing blocks, to say material rather than work.

The Same Year 707, Called Nara by One and Asuka by the Other

The period is entered differently in different records.

The Agency's record reads Nara, 707. The Tokyo National Museum's record for the memorial tablet reads Asuka period, the fourth year of Keiun, 707.

The year is the same. One calls it Nara, the other Asuka.

With the Vajrabhadrani Sutra and the Meihoki, two databases differed over category. With the Five Wisdom Buddhas they differed over the name. Here they differ over the period.

Period names are a matter of where the divisions fall; the year itself does not move. This article follows the Agency and gives Nara, while noting that the holding museum gives Asuka.

Containers Nested Three Deep

The museum's record describes what was found in detail.

In the Edo period a farmer working the land in what is now Uda City, Nara Prefecture, found the memorial tablet inside a gilt bronze box.

The record continues: a gilt bronze jar came to light with it, and inside that jar stood a glass jar packed with the ashes of cremated bone.

A glass jar within a bronze jar, and ashes within that. Counting the box as well, the containers run several deep. Charcoal had been laid in the pit where they were buried.

With the Thirty-Cho Booklet, contents and box were separate National Treasures. With the Sarashina Diary, the box became an appendage. Here everything sits within one lot.

One Tablet, Two Separate Records

The memorial tablet is itself recorded in two ways.

An entry titled the tablet and its case gives the quantity as one set; an entry titled the tablet alone gives one plate, of cast bronze.

Counted with its case it is one set; counted as the plate itself it is one sheet. The same tablet is recorded twice over, as a set and as a single object.

With the Yasaka Shrine documents, one property counted itself two ways within a single record. Here the counting is split between two properties.

The inscription is recorded as well, naming the man, his office as a commander in the Jinshin conflict, his rank, and the day of his death in the ninth month of 707.

The museum notes that only sixteen such memorial tablets have so far been found in Japan, and that this is a valuable example of an early one. The figure comes from the museum's record.

Seeing It

The material is at the Tokyo National Museum, owned by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage. It is a museum holding, not kept on permanent display.

The museum records something of the man too: he took the side of Prince Oama, later Emperor Tenmu, in the Jinshin conflict, distinguished himself, and rose to a high court rank.

It adds that the tablet gives a rank higher than the one he held in life, so a further promotion appears to have been granted after his death.

On the katana with the gold-inlaid attribution to Masamune, an appraiser added the maker's name afterwards. Here a rank conferred after death is cut into the metal. In both, a judgment made later is fixed on the object.

Exhibition plans can change, so check the museum's information before travelling.