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Autumn Special Exhibition 2012 Saturday, September 1 to Sunday, December 9, 2012 Dogū, a Cosmos Ancient Clay Figurines Where did the strange forms of dogū, or the clay figurines from Japan’s prehistoric Jōmon period (14,000 BCE–300 BCE), come from? Some have three fingers, raised arms, amazing physiques, strange expressions, traces of red pigment, or no face. Who or what were they?
If we today could travel in time and meet the people of Jōmon period, we would likely be amazed by their great skill and energy. Making even one Jōmon (cord-patterned) earthenware was not merely a matter of kneading and firing clay. First, the clay had to be found, tempered with sand or other materials, wedged, decorated with amazing patterns, dried, and finally fired.
In addition, these were not fired in kilns but out in the field so the larger the piece, the more ingenuity was required to maintain uniform overall temperature. Such earthenware pieces are rarely found in large quantities.
The Jōmon people also made lacquerware. These objects included sake bottles and cups, earrings, bracelets, and combs that skillfully incorporated red and black lacquer, and beautiful accessories made of decorative beads strung together with red-lacquered string. The upper echelons of Jōmon society were quite fashionable, indeed!
The Jōmon people also collected jade from the Itoi River basin and took it to all parts of Japan. Known as taishu, or the “great jewel,” large jade pieces were made to have smoothly polished surfaces with holes bored through them to carry cords. These were dispersed from as far north as Hokkaido and as far south as Okinawa.
It was not as though thin, hard stones to bore holes in jade were readily lying around in the vicinity. However, the Jōmon people gathered sand that contained quartz and other abrasive materials and used it with rotary tools such as those made with thin bamboo to penetrate jade, which was a lengthy process. Unlike obsidians, which could be made into arrowheads, a large piece of jade would not fill one’s belly. So why would these people take such trouble to polish jade and even drill holes in them?
The Jōmon people built several large monuments. On a dry river bed about 7 kilometers from Ōyu, Akita Prefecture, was found two adjoining stone circles, formed from over 5000 rocks, each of which a single person alone could not have carried. At an embankment site of Teranohigashi, in Tochigi Prefecture, is a ring-shaped earthen mound—measuring 165 meters in diameter, 25 meters in width, and 5 meters in height on the inside—which is said to have been the result of over 400 years of continuous construction.
At the Sannai-Maruyama site in Aomori Prefecture was discovered a towering structure composed of six massive wooden pillars with diameters measuring over 80 centimeters each, standing in two parallel lines of three pillars. Apparently, each pillar is thought to weigh about 10 to 15 tons. The sun rises between the two rows of pillars on the day of the summer solstice and sets between them on the day of the winter solstice.
At many of the Jōmon sites, the sun can be seen rising and setting over the major mountains of the respective regions during the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes. It makes us wonder what kind of worldview they held. Dogū figurines played a major role in Jōmon festivals.
This autumn, many important examples of dogū from all over Japan, including National Treasure-designated Jōmon Venus and the earliest dogū found in Shiga Prefecture, will be assembled at MIHO MUSEUM. Please look forward in discovering who they were.


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