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Family Gallery: Animals with Horns and Antlers

  • Image of "Monarch of the Glen, Original by Edwin Henry Landseer, 19th century (Gift of Glasgow Museum)"

    Monarch of the Glen, Original by Edwin Henry Landseer, 19th century (Gift of Glasgow Museum)

    Japanese Archaeology and Special Exhibition (Heiseikan) Thematic Exhibition Room
    April 16, 2019 (Tue) - May 26, 2019 (Sun)

    Every year at the Tokyo National Museum, an animal-themed exhibition is held in collaboration with Ueno Zoo and the National Museum of Nature and Science.

    This year’s theme is “Animals with Horns and Antlers”, such as deer, oxen and rhinos.

    This thematic exhibition introduces how people have depicted animals with horns and antlers in artworks and craft objects. To further explore how people have perceived horns and antlers, the exhibition also features imagined representations of deities and sacred beasts with horns and antlers.

 Major works in this exhibition
* Works listed below are in the TNM Collection unless otherwise indicated.
 Major works in this exhibition
* Works listed below are in the TNM Collection unless otherwise indicated.
Rhinoceros Horn Libation Cup, Lotus flower and grape design in openwork, China, Qing dynasty, 18th century (Gift of Mr. Hirota Matsushige)
Wind God and Thunder God (Copy),Copied by Tsurusawa Moriyasu and others, Meiji era, 19th century

 

Highlights

Part 1: Comparing Horns

From long ago, people hunted horned animals and raised some of them as livestock. This section of the exhibition features works of art with horned animals such as deer and oxen. Looking closely will reveal that each type of animal has distinctive horns.

 

Tile, With sheep head
Attributed provenance: area around Xingyang county, Henan province, China, Western Han-Eastern Han dynasty, 1st century BC–2nd century AD

Some wild sheep have horn that grow in a spiral shape, while most domesticated sheep have no horns at all.

 

 

Part 2: Transforming Horns

People sometimes saw horns as features that represented a kind of that only animals had. This section of the exhibition features tools made from horn, animals viewed as messengers of the gods, and artworks with imaginary horned animals. The theme is how people "transformed" horns.

 

Deer Antler Pendant
Excavated at Kamegaoka, Kizukuri, Tsugaru-shi, Aomori, Jomon period, 1000–400 BC

People made tools from horns, sometimes believing that they had special properties.

 

Pamphlet

Family Gallery： Animals with Horns and Antlers


The pamphlet is distributed Information Desk in Heiseikan during the thematic exhibition period.

PDF（PDF, 2.3MB）

 

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