Collaborative Research Between Japan and Korea Based on Scientific Investigation into Pensive Bodhisattvas with One Leg Pendent

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In collaboration with a research team from the Korean National Museum, our team of sculptural history specialists, metallurgy specialists, archeologists, and scientific conservation specialists performed X-ray Fluorescence Analysis, XRF on some 100 sculptures, Coordinate Measuring analysis on 11 sculptures, and X ray photography on 7 sculptures of pensive bodhisattvas and related bronze Buddhist sculptures in Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Europe and America. As a result, we were able to make the provisional determination that with the exception of sculptures made by the Tori School, the bronze in Japanese-made Buddhist bronze sculptures used predominantly bronze that was native copper mixed with a slight bit of tin and that those made in Southern dynasties in China had especially high tin. Sculptures thought to have been made in Baekje also showed a tendency for the tin content to be high. Those made in North China contained the same levels of tin and lead. Also, related to the technic … More al methods of sculptural production, it was previously thought that the sculptures with high levels of pores（air bubbles that remain in the interior when the bronze is hardening）were those made on the Korean peninsula or in China, but with this analysis we were able to clarify that there was frequent use of a graver or burin (cold chisel) in the Japanese made sculptures, in comparison with the fabrication of the fine parts of the sculptures of the Korean peninsula and China, which were generally expressed at the mold stage, and that the quantity of pores did not necessarily have to do with the region in which the sculpture was produced. In 2009, bronze Liang Dynasty Buddhist sculptures were first excavated in Nanjing, and works thought to be Liang dynasty bronze Buddhist sculptures excavated in 2006 in the southern region of Cambodia and were introduced in 2010. Some of those were found to be similar to bronze Buddhist sculptures originating from excavations in the Korean peninsula and Shandong. Documentary evidence had previously indicated interaction between the Southern dynasties and Baekje; the actual works back up this documentation and further identified interactions between three regions including Shandong. Based on the above scientific analysis and the discovery of Southern dynasties bronze Buddhist statuary, we determined that it is necessary to reevaluate the production region of the sculptures passed down in Japan and Korea. It also became clear that it is necessary to incorporate the Southern dynasties into the investigation of the transmission of pensive Bodhisattva sculptures. Less