Tue, Nov 29, 2022
A Japanese government council on Nov. 18 [2022] recommended that “Soranjo,” a Tang-dynasty copy of Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi’s letters housed at the The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan (Tokyo), and three other items should be newly designated as national treasures. The council also told the minister for education, culture, sports, science and technology to register a total of 47 items including Nanban screens housed at the same museum as important cultural properties.
From the Sannomaru Shozokan, a manuscript of “Sarashina diary” copied and revised by Heian-Kamakura period poet Fujiwara no Teika (Sadai-e), and the Kanazawa version codex of the second and fourth (partial) volumes of “Manyoshu” (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) — regarded as masterpieces in the history of calligraphy — are also set to be listed as national treasures.
A group of 1,965 paleolithic-period artifacts made of obsidian and other material unearthed from the Shirataki ruins in Engaru, Hokkaido, is also set to be designated as a national treasure. Among excavated artifacts in Japan, Dogu, or clay figures, from the Jomon period have been registered as national treasures in the past. Shirataki’s artifacts are the first from the old stone age period, making them the oldest national treasure-to-be.
The “Arrival of the Nanban-jin” folding screens from the early modern period and a Momoyama-period folding screen of the world map based on a world map from Holland, both of which are housed at Sannomaru Shozokan are set to be designated as important cultural properties.
The council also said that Shin Onsen — a typical modern public bathhouse from the early Showa era (1926-89) in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto Pref. — and 108 other structures in 22 prefectures should be registered as tangible cultural properties.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun and other sources)
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