Endō Hiroya site large hera-shaped pendant

ヘラ状垂飾

Source term: ヘラ状垂飾; hera-shaped pendant; spatula-shaped pendant

ヘラ状垂飾 (hera-jō suishoku): 'spatula-shaped pendant'

A palm-length blade of green serpentinite, pierced once at the top — and worn, on both faces, in a matching slant nearly 45 degrees off the hole. That doubled oblique groove is the whole puzzle: a cord that dragged hard and at an angle, as if the thing hung heavy or turned. Five such large blades cluster in Early Jōmon Kanagawa and Gunma; this one lay in a pit at the Endō Hiroya settlement some 6,000 years ago. Catalogued as a body ornament, it carries the slant a cord cuts when a blade is whirled.

Particulars

Object

A large serpentinite blade, over 10 cm long, pierced once near the top; around the hole, both faces are worn in a slant of nearly 45 degrees. From a pit at a settlement of pit dwellings and fire pits of the late Early Jōmon Moroiso a–b phase.

Function

Published as a hera-shaped pendant of the later Early Jōmon, excavated from a pit; one of five in the Kantō/Gunma cluster that share the same anomalous two-faced oblique wear, the wear a blade whirled on a cord would leave.