Yamatai
Yamatai ( Japanese 邪 馬 台 国 , -koku or Yamaichi 邪 馬 壹 國 , -koku ) was the first written association of 32 kuni ( 国 , here: district ) of the Wa (Chin. Wo ) on the Japanese archipelago. Yamatai was under the sovereignty of "Queen" Himiko until 248 AD . It is described for the first time in an itinerary that is part of Weizhi Dongyi zhuan ( Chinese 魏志東 夷 傳 , W.-G. Wei-chih Tung-i-chuan , Japanese 魏志東 夷 伝 , Gishi tōiden , dt. "Reports on the Wei : Description of the Eastern Barbarians ”) is. Inaccuracies and the interpretation of this travelogue have occupied generations of researchers. To this day, the question of where exactly Yamatai could have been and whether it is a forerunner or even identical to the later nucleus of the Japanese state, Yamato , has been discussed . In addition to looking at historical sources, archaeological finds have recently become relevant to the question of localization.
Historiographic sources
The Wei Zhi ( 魏志 , Wei Zhi ), comprising 30 books, is one of three parts of the historical work the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms ( Chinese 三國志 / 三国志 , Pinyin Sanguo Zhi ), which in turn to the historiography, the 24 dynastic histories , belongs . In the Wei Zhi, in the section on the "Eastern barbarians" ( Tung-i-chuan ), there is a travel description from the Taifang commandant ( Chinese 帶 方 ) to the Wa Confederation under the rule of Himiko in Yamaichi ( Chinese 邪 馬 壹 , W.-G . Hsieh-ma-i ). There it says:
“The Wo people are in the middle of the great sea, southeast of [the headquarters] Tai-fang [...]. To reach Wo from the commandant's office [Tai-fang], one drives to the sea, following the sea coast. Passing the [Kor.] Han states, first to the south, then to the east, one reaches their [ie the Wo] northern coast, the land of Kou-hsieh-Han , more than 7000 li [from the Tai-fang command center ].
For the first time you cross a sea and then, [after] more than 1000 li , you reach the land of Tuei-hai [...]. Crossing a sea further south […] one arrives [after] more than a thousand li to the land of I-ta […]. Crossing another sea, after more than a thousand li , one reaches the land of Mo-lu […]. Traveling south-east across the country, after five hundred li one reaches the country I-tu […].
To the southeast you come [after] a hundred li to the land of Nu […]. Traveling eastwards, after a hundred li , you will reach the land of Pu-mi […]. To the south one comes twenty days by water to the land of T'ou-ma […]. Traveling south for ten days by sea, one month by land, one reaches the land of Hsieh-ma-i, where the queen has her residence [...]. "
Even if one can calculate an average value for the distance li ( Chinese 里 ) based on topographical conditions , this description leads to a point in the ocean, somewhere south of Kyūshū . This inaccuracy has led to the assumption of two types of errors in the text corpus. On the one hand, the distance information in connection with transcription problems was doubted, and on the other hand the directional information, whereby the distances were assumed to be correct values. Depending on which premise is used, one arrives at two localization theories: the kyūshū or the kinai theory.
The theory Yamatai was located in Kyushu, divided into two camps, one of which postulates southern and the other northern Kyushu as the territory of the Wa. For the advocates of the Kinai theory, who see the location of Yamatai in the Kinki region, the question arises whether Yamatai has a connection to the historical province of Yamato.
Kyushu theory
The Yamatai research began with the historian Matsushita Kenrin ( 松下 見 林 , 1637–1704) and his work Ishō Nihonden ( 異 称 日本 伝 , 1688). Based on the Nihongi , he assumed that Himiko was Jingū -kōgō. He also accepted Yamato as the rulership of the regent. It is likely that Kenrin is referring to the scholar Urabe no Kanetaka ( 卜 部 兼 方 , 1192–1333), the author of Shaku Nihongi ( 釈 日本 紀 ). Urabe lists various names for Nihon-koku in Shaku Nihongi, summarizing Chinese sources . Including the term "Yeh-ma-t'ai", which goes back to the Hou Hanshu , and the term "Yeh-mi-tui", which comes from the Sui Shu . Since the names end in t'ai or tui , Kenrin came to the conclusion that Yamaichi , which he found in the Japanese annals, must be a (spelling) error. He then replaced the symbol ichi ( 壹 ) with tai ( Kyūjitai : 臺 , modern: 台 ). So Yamaichi became Yamatai or Yamato until the 1960s .
In the earlier past, Furuta Takehito ( 古 田武彦 , * 1926) was the first to examine Kenrin's presentation in search of evidence for the Kyūshū theory. Furuta recognized the changes Kenrin and rejected the name Yamatai from, whereby the obvious identity with the province of Yamato became obsolete. At the same time, the competing Kinai theory was weakened.
| Characters | Modern Chinese | Middle Chinese | Reconstructed Chinese | Archaic Chinese |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 邪 馬 臺 | yémǎtái | yæmæXdoj | jiamaɨ'dəj | jama: t'ḁ̂i |
| 邪 馬 台 | yémǎtái | yæmæXdoj | jiamaɨ'dəj | jama: t'ḁ̂i |
| 邪 摩 堆 | yémóduī | yæmatwoj | jiamatwəj | jamuâtuḁ̂i |
| 大 和 | dáhè | dajHhwaH | dajʰɣwaʰ | d'âiɣuâ |
Kinai theory
It was the neo-Confucian scholar Arai Hakuseki who first suggested that Yamatai was in the Kinai area. In doing so, he relied on the one hand on the similarity of names between Yamatai and Yamato, on the other hand he assumed that the directions given in the route description were incorrect. He assumed that there was a copy error in the section of the road from Fumi (Chinese: Pu-mi) and that instead of traveling south, one had to turn east. In this way, the route across the water from Toma (Chinese: T'ou-ma) to Yamatai was explained.
Motoori Norinaga , who assumed that the directions were correct, criticized Hakuseki for the fact that another one-month stage on land after the crossing did not seem plausible, as Yamato was not so far away from the port of Naniwa (today: Osaka ), which was presumably headed for. Norinaga therefore assumed central or southern Kyushu to be likely. The gold seal found by a farmer on Shika-no-shima in 1784 also suggested that Yamatai was in Kyūshū, as kuni Na, located in the Fukuoka plain, represents a stage in the travel description.
It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that Naitō Torajirō was able to show that confusion of directions in Wei Zhi was not uncommon. In addition, archaeological finds, such as bronze mirrors, contributed to the revival of the Kinai theory.
Recently, Barbara Seyock has argued that neither incorrect distance nor incorrect directions, but rather an incorrect geographical conception speak for the Kinai theory. Based on the principles of the Kangnido map from 1402, Hu Wei made maps in the 17th century that show Japan at 90 degrees to the mainland. Using this map as a basis for the route description from Wei Zhi, one actually arrives at the Kinai region in central Japan. However, it must be taken into account that there are around 1500 years between the creation of this map and the Wei Zhi. So it remains to be seen whether other and older cards can confirm this assumption.
Archaeological evidence
Based on the bronze mirrors found in the Yamato area, many archaeologists in the early 1930s assumed that the Kinai theory was correct. Masukichi Hashimoto (1880–1956), however, criticized the randomness of the finds that had not been systematically excavated. He argued that the artifacts from China could also have been filed at a later date. Excavations over the past 70 years have uncovered bronze mirrors from the late Yayoi period, i.e. the lifetime of Himiko, both on northern Kyushu and in the Nara plain. This means that different cultural centers on Kyūshū, such as in the Kinki region, remain under discussion as possible sites of Yamatai.
Well-equipped kofun that have only been found in the past 10 to 15 years indicate the presence of a higher-ranking person. Research into these finds could provide future localization.
A tumulus with stone chamber and wooden coffin found in Tenri , as well as the keyhole kofun found in 2001 at the Katsuyama excavation site in Sakurai , which can be dendrochronologically dated to the late Yayoi period, speak for the kyūshū theory .
A mound near Akasa-imai in Mineyama could be significant for the Kinai theory . It is the largest grave structure from the Yayoi period to date. In addition to a wooden coffin decorated with vermilion, a headdress and comma-shaped crooked beads were found there, which point to a female leader from one of the 29 kuni .
Remarks
- ↑ The usual translation “country”, as well as the English translation country , is avoided here, as it suggests a uniformity and size that would be incorrect. It was more of a territory of a few hundred square kilometers (based on Seyock 2004, p. 135).
- ↑ Queen is not to be understood here as an official title for the dignitary of a sovereign state
- ↑ See also the graphical representation attempt .
literature
- Keiji Imamura: Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia . University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu 1996, ISBN 0-8248-1853-9 .
- Barbara Seyock: Hu Wei's "Map of the Four Seas" and its significance for Yama'ichi Research. (PDF) In: Journal of the German Oriental Society. 1999, pp. 191–202 , accessed on May 1, 2013 (English).
- Barbara Seyock: On the trail of the Eastern barbarians: on the archeology of protohistoric cultures in South Korea and Western Japan . In: Bunka - Tübingen intercultural and linguistic Japanese studies . tape 8 . Literaturverlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7236-X , Yamatai and Yamato, p. 135 ff . ( limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on April 13, 2013] Dissertation Tübingen from 2002).
Web links
- Walter Edwards: Mirrors to Japanese History. In: Archeology , Volume 51 Number 3, May / June 1998.
Individual evidence
- ^ Walter Edwards: Mirrors to Japanese History. Archeology, 1998, accessed April 28, 2013 .
- ↑ Hu Wei's “ Map of the Four Seas ” and its significance for Yama'ichi Research (English)
- ↑ Jonathan Edward Kidder Jr .: Himiko and Japan's elusive chiefdom of Yamatai: archeology, history, and mythology . University of Hawaii Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8248-3035-9 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ 桜 井 市 勝 山 古墳 第 ４ 次 調査 . (No longer available online.) Nara Prefecture Archaeological Research Institute, Kashihara , March 26, 2001, archived from the original on December 13, 2012 ; Retrieved May 2, 2013 (Japanese, press release).
- ↑ 赤 坂 今井 墳墓 出土 品 . (No longer available online.) Kyotango City, archived from the original on September 25, 2013 ; Retrieved May 2, 2013 (Japanese).