The iron or was excavated at the Inariyama Kofun in 1968. Inariyama Kofun is a megalithic tomb located in

Saitama Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km2 (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture ...

. In 1978,

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

analysis revealed a gold-inlaid inscription that comprises at least 115 Chinese characters. This sword was described as the discovery of the century for the study of ancient Japanese history. The sword is designated a

national treasure of Japan Some of the National Treasures of Japan A is the most precious of Japan's Tangible Cultural Properties, as determined and designated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs (a special body of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science ...

Creation

Japanese research suggests that the metal used in the sword was smelted from

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

-bearing

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With ...

originating in the

Jiangnan Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (; formerly romanized Kiang-nan, literally "South of the River" meaning "South of the Yangtze") is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, incl ...

region of China, later brought to Japan, and then used to

forge A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to th ...

the sword.

Inscription

The inscription is in Chinese, but includes several Japanese proper names written using Chinese characters as syllabograms. The original inscription and translation (by Murayama Shichirō and Roy Andrew Miller) is as follows. ;Front : ;Reverse :

Interpretation

The year is denoted as "''xin-hai''" (that is "Year of the Metal Pig") according to the Chinese

sexagenary cycle The sexagenary cycle, also known as the Stems-and-Branches or ganzhi ( zh, 干支, gānzhī), is a cycle of sixty terms, each corresponding to one year, thus a total of sixty years for one cycle, historically used for recording time in China and t ...

, in which the name of the year is recycled every 60 years. It is generally regarded in Japan to correspond to 471 AD, but Seeley suggests that 531 is a more likely date. The person buried in the tomb, named Wowake, was an influential warrior in the region. King Waka Takiru in the transcription is thought to be the same person as Ōhatsuse-wakatakeru-no-mikoto as mentioned in the '' Nihon Shoki'', an alias of Emperor Yūryaku. Joan R. Piggott, ''The Emergence of Japanese Kingship'', Stanford University Press, 1997 The name Waka Takiru is also apparently mentioned on another inscribed sword, the

Eta Funayama Sword Eta Funayama Kofun () is a ''kofun'', or burial mound, located in Nagomi, Kumamoto in Japan. The mound was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1951. The designation includes and . Several artifacts excavated from the mound have be ...

Notes

Works cited

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External links