Red-colored Pottery from Shinano Province

Shinano Province covered the area that is present-day Nagano prefecture. In the north of  this province, from the latter half of the mid-Yayoi period to the late Yayoi period, characteristic types of pottery developed in which pieces were painted with a slip containing red iron oxide, then polished and fired. This red-colored pottery is namely Kuribayashi-type pottery from the mid-Yayoi period, and Hakoshimizu-type pottery from the late Yayoi period. The area where particularly Hakoshimizu-type pottery was distributed is called “Red Pottery County”, and archaeological surveys in recent years have revealed that, together with the development of advanced agriculture and rice cultivation, a distinctive Yayoi culture was formed there in accompaniment to the use of bronze and iron implements. 

This thematic exhibition features the red-colored pottery representative of this area. Pieces from the Nagano Prefectural Museum of History, which were excavated from the Matsubara site and the Shinonoi site in Nagano-shi, are displayed together with samples of the red iron oxide as well as the tools used to crush the oxide. In addition, red-colored pottery in the Tokyo National Museum collection, which is from around the same era and comes from the Tokai region and Northern Kyushu, is displayed in contrast to highlight the characteristics of the Shinano Province red-colored pottery. As a whole, this exhibition attempts to present the ideas that people of that era had about the color red.

This exhibition is held as a part of Tokyo National Museum’s annual archaeological objects exchange program.