Is it the temple of Queen/Shaman Himiko (basis for Amaterasu myth) that is being excavated?

[repoman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himiko

http://www.archeolog-home.com/pages/content/makimuku-japon-over-100-postholes-dating-to-the-time-of-himiko.html

This is some cool stuff, I wonder if it is her temple. The dates seem to be right. There is nearby Kofun, massive keyhole shaped burial mound nearby. That will take Imperial permission, I think, to excavate. However, maybe she died just before Kofun were made or her tomb was the first Kofun.

Supposedly the 100 mirrors from China were magic mirrors which can reflect an image of the back forged pattern. This is not magic, but it seems like it.

http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/2014/01/31/himikos-magic-mirror/

The link below has a video that shows how they are made now, which probably is similar to then:

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/science-channel/30250-what-the-ancients-knew-the-magic-mirror-video.htm

39 mirrors where found in a tomb much further southwest on Kyushu. Basically, unless there is sometime convincing there is no reason to assume any temple or tomb has Himiko in it.

I would think that the people of that time were totally wowed by these mirrors, but some people probably saw through it.

This is the best guess as to what she looked like:



Well, once you de-anime...

 

[credoconsolans]

Queen/Shaman Himiko (basis for Amaterasu myth)

No, the religious belief of Amaterasu predates the supposed life of Shaman-Queen Himiko.

 

[repoman]

I am not sure about that. I think that the legend of Amaterasu came after Himiko and was backdated to give the Imperial line more heft.

Those mirrors may have convinced the people she was a sun goddess or the incarnation/oracle of her.

 

[repoman]

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201501300078

January 30, 2015

By KAZUTO TSUKAMOTO/ Staff Writer
SAKURAI, Nara Prefecture--An animal bone unearthed from ancient ruins here indicates that a fortunetelling method imported from China was adopted by shaman queen Himiko and leaders of the Yamato State.

Sakurai city’s education board on Jan. 29 said the bone was discovered at the Makimuku ruins, believed to have been a key city for the Yamataikoku kingdom governed by Himiko.

The Makimuku ruins, a national historic site, date back to the early third to early fourth centuries.

Characteristics of the bone, a boar’s right scapula, showed that it was used in a fortunetelling method that was brought from China and spread in Japan during the Yayoi Pottery Culture period (around the fifth century B.C. to the third century A.D.)

The bone measures 16.7 centimeter long and 6.7 cm wide. Three round marks were apparently burned into the bone with a stick. The bone was unearthed along with pottery, a wooden item and other animal bones from an oval hole.

The fortunetelling method involved burning an animal bone and other materials, and “reading” the burned part of the bone and the change in its color.

This method is recorded in the Chinese history text “Gishiwajinden,” which describes ancient Japanese society and climate around the early third century.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201503020035

A bronze mirror found in China resembles those associated with Japan’s third-century shaman queen Himiko, providing perhaps the first solid evidence that she was given the mirrors by a Chinese emperor.

Wang Chenyi, a Chinese researcher from Henan province, recently reported in a local archaeological journal that he bought the bronze mirror from a farmer at an antiques market in the ancient capital of Luoyang around 2009.

The mirror is similar in design to Sankakubuchi Shinjukyo (triangular-rimmed deity-and-beast mirrors) widely discovered in Japan. They are believed to have been produced around the third century.

The mirror in China measures 18.3 centimeter in diameter and is 0.5 cm thick, relatively small compared with mirrors that have been unearthed in Japan. A circle in the middle of the mirror’s backside features engravings of deity figures and holy animals, while outer rings have a triangular rim with double-wave patterns.

Those characteristics are common in Sankakubuchi Shinjukyo design.

The farmer who sold the mirror was from the outskirts of Luoyang, but the exact location of the mirror’s discovery was unknown, Wang wrote in his article.

Luoyang was the capital of the Wei Dynasty (220-265). The Gishiwajinden (Biography of the Wa people) chronicle in Wei Zhi, the official history book of Wei Dynasty, says an emperor of Wei presented 100 bronze mirrors to Himiko’s emissary in 239.

Archaeologists suggest that the mirrors given to Himiko were Sankakubuchi Shinjukyo because some of them were inscribed with the year 239.

I seem to be the only interested in this.

But anyway, tt seems that this is kind of like the Chinese version of Herodotus being proven right about history.

I see that round mirrors (not "magic") are still used in Shinto shrines. Anything similar in China? Maybe in China it was not such a big deal, but for Japan it was part of when it became a more powerful country so it was retained.

Magic Mirrors were even used for the "Hidden Christians" during persecution:

 

[repoman]

Just read about a couple historical figure in Japan from about 900 CE that were basically Deified shortly after their deaths:

The first was a great poet and a politician who was demoted and exiled
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugawara_no_Michizane

The second was a samurai who led a rebellion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taira_no_Masakado

I wonder if the same thing happened with Himiko and Amaterasu, but it was before written language.