TsukuBlog
A Local Perspective on Life in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
An Exhibition of Early Buddhist Funerary Urns (now finished) and a bit on the complicated history of burial and cremation in Japan
20 August, 2020
A 9th century funerary urn unearthed near the shores of Lake Kasumigaura. During the previous centuries, in the very same area, men of importance had been buried in large tumuli filled with symbols of the deceased`s status and surrounded by a lively cast of animal and human shaped figurines– with the spread of Buddhism, local elites eventually came to have themselves cremated after death and their bones and ashes buried in simple urns