EA-YOSHIMINE-001 - archaeological find
Yoshimine site
Tateyama, Toyama Prefecture, Japan; Yoshimine site, Early Jomon - East Asia
Function not recorded Candidate only
箆状垂飾 Japanese
Source term: 箆状垂飾; hera-shaped pendant; spatula-shaped pendant
箆状垂飾 (hera-jō suishoku): 'spatula-shaped pendant'
The Yoshimine terrace above the Jōganji River was being cut away for soil when Toyama archaeologists pushed through a rescue excavation in 1973–74; among the Early Jōmon houses and pits they salvaged was what the prefecture's own newsletter calls a 'rare hera-shaped pendant' — a spatula of polished stone twelve centimetres long and three wide, pierced once through the end. The official object page says almost nothing else: no material, no thickness, no wear notes, just the classification 'pendant.' The hera class it belongs to is scattered thinly across Early Jōmon Japan and has attracted a century of guesses — hairpin, waist ornament, insignia — none of which sits comfortably on a hand-length polished blade. At twelve centimetres Yoshimine's is among the largest, well into the size range of working bullroarers.
出土品の中には、珍しい箆状垂飾もあります。
Among the excavated finds is also a rare hera-shaped pendant.
Maibun Toyama, vol. 158 (2022), on the Yoshimine site
- Object
- 箆状垂飾; hera-shaped pendant; spatula-shaped pendant. Specimens/count: one labeled Early Jomon specimen. Material: stone; jade/nephrite not verified. Dimensions: 12.0 cm long; 3.0 cm maximum width; thickness unverified. Perforation: single end perforation visible in official image and newsletter image. Context: excavated site on river terrace; dwellings and many pits reported; artifact among excavated materials. Date: Early Jōmon (前期), ~7000–5470 cal BP, per the official object page.
- Function
- Published as a rare hera-shaped (spatula) pendant from the 1973–74 rescue excavation; the pendant label is classificatory rather than argued, and the atlas queries the large end-holed blade form.
- Map confidence
- low_medium - Approximate locality or municipality/site-cluster anchor from the local dossier; refine before public release.
- Source location
- Toyama official virtual museum object page; length 12.0 cm