Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures offers substantial new insights
into early Japanese history (A.D. 100-800) through an integrated
discussion of historical texts and archaeological artifacts. It
contends that the rich archaeological discoveries of the past few
decades permit scholars to develop far more satisfactory
interpretations of ancient Japan than was possible when they were
heavily dependent on written sources. This is evidenced in the four
specific areas of inquiry on which the author focuses his study:
the age-old question of Yamatai, the "lost" realms of the
third-century Queen Himiko; the controversy over Japan-Korea
relations between 350 and 700; the creation of capital cities
during the age of apprenticeship to Chinese civilization between
645 and 800; and the appropriation of Chinese-style governing
arrangements during the same era. Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures
effectively illustrates how archaeology and history have mutually
informed, guided, and revised each other's postwar research on
ancient Japanese society. It synthesizes the enormous amount of
data accumulated by postwar archaeologists, only a small portion of
which has ever reached a Western audience.
