EA-MIKAMINE-268 - archaeological find
Mikamine site no.268 slate pendant
Sendai, Miyagi, Japan; Mikamine site no. 268 - East Asia
Function not recorded Candidate only
垂飾品 Japanese
Source term: 垂飾品; slate pendant; perforated slate plate; drilled pendant; non-classic sound-object candidate
垂飾品 (suishokuhin): 'pendant'
Twenty half-started holes pock one face of this thumb-length slate plate, ten more the other — drill after drill sunk and then abandoned before a single one broke through. Only the topmost hole was ever finished, bored from both sides, and one edge carries a worn groove as though a cord had once ridden there. Then the lower end snapped off. Some hunter-gatherer of the Early Jōmon, in a settlement near Sendai roughly 5,700 years ago, made and remade this small thing obsessively; whether it was hung to be seen, swung to be heard, or simply worried at by restless hands, the object itself no longer says.
- Object
- 垂飾品; slate pendant; perforated slate plate; drilled pendant; non-classic sound-object candidate. Specimens/count: one report-published specimen, no.268. Material: slate / 粘板岩. Dimensions: 59 x 19 x 6 mm; weight 13.1 g. Perforation: upper through-hole drilled from both sides; broken lower end; many drilled marks/perforation attempts on both faces; side groove. Context: K9 grid, layer I / artifact layer in Mikamine 6th excavation report; broader site is a Jomon Early settlement context. Date: Early Jōmon settlement of the Ōki 1–2a phase, ~5900–5500 cal BP.
- Function
- Published as an Early Jōmon slate pendant; its thirty-odd drilling marks and edge groove make it the best-documented broad-plate reference in the candidate lane rather than a strong instrument candidate itself.
- Map confidence
- low_medium - Approximate locality or municipality/site-cluster anchor from the local dossier; refine before public release.
- Source location
- Mikamine report object no. 268