Artifacts Excavated from the Hoki Ichinomiya Sutra Mound

Buried in 1103, National Treasure since 1953

Artifacts Excavated from the Hoki Ichinomiya Sutra Mound (伯耆一宮経塚出土品) are the objects recovered from a sutra mound at Miyauchi, Yurihama Town, Tohaku County, Tottori Prefecture, designated a National Treasure in 1953, on 31 March. They had become an Important Cultural Property on 9 June 1951. The quantity is recorded as a single lot, the category archaeological materials, and the designation number 00013. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the period as Heian, 1103.

Tottori Prefecture records that the inscription on the sutra container among the finds shows the mound to have been raised in 1103 by the monk Kyoson, in preparation for the appearance of Maitreya and in prayer for the enlightenment of himself and others. Who raised it, why, and in what year are all in the inscription.

A sutra mound is a deposit made in anticipation of a future age, in which scriptures are buried. This one was raised for that purpose.

Sealed in a Stone Chamber

The prefectural record describes the structure in detail.

The mound is 16 metres across and about 1.6 metres high. In 1915 a stone chamber was found at its centre. The chamber was walled with flat slabs of pyroxene andesite and covered with a capstone, measuring 1.2 metres long, 0.9 metres wide and 0.5 metres high, with coarse sand spread over its floor.

Against a mound 16 metres across, the chamber runs 1.2 metres. Most of the mound is fill; the space holding the objects is a small part at its centre.

Walled in stone, capped, and floored with sand: the structure keeps water and soil away from what it holds. The care taken to preserve the deposit sits at the middle of the mound.

The Mound Carries Its Own Designation

Mound and finds are designated separately.

The finds are a National Treasure in the archaeological materials category, designated in 1953. The mound itself is a national Historic Site, designated on 24 December 1935. The site designation came eighteen years earlier.

The mound was opened in 1915, the site designated twenty years after that, and the finds made an Important Cultural Property sixteen years later again. Thirty-eight years passed between the discovery and the National Treasure designation.

The mound stands on the ridge southeast of Shitori Shrine, on the eastern shore of Lake Togo. Shitori Shrine is the first-ranked shrine of Hoki province, and the name Hoki Ichinomiya comes from it.

Designated as a Single Lot

The quantity is recorded as a single lot. Rather than counting individual pieces, the designation covers the finds as a whole.

The finds from Okinoshima are treated the same way. A group of objects from a sutra mound or a ritual site tends to be designated in this form, because their meaning lies in the group.

The one object the prefectural record singles out is the sutra container. Carrying an inscription, it is the piece that conveys the year and the purpose.

The Agency's commentary is a single line, material of the Heian period, with no words of assessment. The low designation number, 00013, marks an early entry among archaeological materials.

Seeing Them

The Agency's database leaves both the location field and the holding institution field blank. The present place of keeping cannot be read from the official record.

The finds are understood to be deposited at the Tokyo National Museum. To see them, check that museum's information for any planned display.

The mound itself stands on the ridge southeast of Shitori Shrine at Miyauchi in Yurihama Town, and Tottori Prefecture records it as open. Objects and mound are in different places.

The mound is about ten minutes by taxi from Matsuzaki Station on the JR Sanin Main Line, then about five minutes on foot.