Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2016 number

The article is based on the results of work with the collections kept in the museums of Fukuoka prefecture (Kyushu, Japan), and on analysis of a wide range of literature devoted to the phenomenon of elite female burials in Yayoi culture accompanied with large numbers of bronze mirrors. It is illustrated with the most significant data on Sugu-Okamoto, Mikumo, and Hirabaru necropoleis. The events which occurred on the Japanese Islands during III BC - III AD marked not only the shift from one culture (Jomon) to another (Yayoi), but also fundamental changes almost in all cultural components. These changes included replacement of subsistence economy with the producing one; emergence of new technologies and the upgrade of former ones; modification of burial ritual and social structure. All these changes were connected with a strong migratory impulse from the territory of Korean Peninsula. Yayoi culture was spreading across the archipelago from the territory of Kyushu, where the new forms of social organization (complex chiefdoms) headed by charismatic leaders appeared. According to historical records and archaeological data, women occupied a special place among these leaders. The authors use these data to interpret the role of mirrors in Yayoi society. Mirrors belong to the traditional shamanistic attributes among aboriginals in North and Eastern Asia. With the emergence and spread of metallurgy mirrors became part of prestige economy and served as indicators of a special status of the buried persons. The case of the elite Yayoi burials on Kyushu shows parallel development of several interesting processes: moving from the import of bronze mirrors to their manufacturing with the local or Chinese molds; emergence of items with hypertrophic parameters based on prestige technologies; empowerment of chiefs with the unique skills to master the “magic” of the mirrors, and gradual institutionalization of mirrors into one of the Sacred Japanese Treasures.