The restudying of Denseikyou in kofunperiod

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The mirrors excavated from Ancient Tombs of mid-Kahn period are called “heirloom mirrors". There is a theory which states “heirloom mirrors" are the bronze mirrors imported to Yayoi societies in Kinki area where mirrors were supposed to be passed down to the next generation but buried durin g Ancient Tombs period when strong political centers started to appear. One of the evidences that su pport this theory is unclearness of “Mirror back pattern", which is found on the bronze mirrors and speculated to be caused by “Tezure", abrasion by long-term use. There are however other explan ations for the unclearness. One is “Yubie", one of the faults in casting the mirrors and another is “casting a mirror using a finished item as the pattern". Considering above background, we conducted the following two surveys.First we researched what we call “heirloom mirrors", through observing the mirrors such as “TLV mirrors with the Four Deities", “Mirrors with interconnected arcs", and “Deity-and-beast m … More irro rs with an image band", using digital microscope cameras which have lens of high power and allow us to see the details which can not be seen with the naked eye. We scrutinized especially the mirror excavated at “Tombs No. 4 of Tsuruo Shrine", which is one of the strong evidences to support the “heirloom mirrors" theory.From the result of this research, it turned out to be clear that what caused unclearness of the “Mirror back pattern" was not abrasion by long-term use, because the casting, surface was big even when the “Mirror back pattern" became unclear. We could not obtain the clear answer to the cause of unclearness; however, several circumstantial evidences made us assume it was caused by the problem of either casting techniques or the mirrors in themselves.Second we searched other places in Asia for the similar mirrors with an unclear “Mirror back pattern" as seen on “heirloom mirrors" excavated in Japan. We carried out research at Luoyang in Shanxi province, at Jinan in Shandong province and at Soul city in Korea and found on the back of two “Mirror with interconnected arcs" the similar unclearness seen on the back of “heirloom mirrors"through examining about 600 pieces of excavated or stored mirrors with the naked eye. Less