Monograph No. 31
ASUKA AND FUJIWARA IMPERIAL PALACE SITES EXCAVATION REPORT II
SURVEY OF THE WESTERN GOVERNMENT OFFICES AREA, AT THE SITE OF FUJIWARA-KYU, CARRIED OUT DURING 1972-1973
CONTENTS
Page
Chapter I. Introduction 1
Chapter II. Progress of the Survey 5
1. General Description 5
2. Daily Record of the Excavation Work 8
Chapter III. Sites 14
1. A conspectus of the Sites 14
2. Structural Remains 15
3. Cnronology of the Structural Remains 30
Chapter IV. Artifacts 35
1. Wooden Writing Tablets 35
2. Roof Tiles 36
3. Pottery (Earthernware) 51
4. Wooden Objects 71
5. Metal Objects and Other Artifacts 78
Chapter V. Studies 80
1. Structural Remains 80
2. Artifacts 86
3. Conclusion 107
Postscript 109
Appendix 111
Supplementary Tables 114
English Summary 123
PLANS AND SECTIONS
1. Topographical map of the whole Fujiwara Palace Site.
2. Layout of structural remains in the northern part.
3. Area 6AJL-A･B.
4. Area 6AJK-JL.
5. Area 6AJK-F.
6. Area 6AJL-A･B.
ASUKA, AND FUJIWARA IMPERIAL PALACE
ASUKA AND FUJIWARA IMPEPIAL PALACE SITES IN ASUKA AND AT FUJIWARA-KYU, RESEARCH REPORT II
The Nara National Cultural Properties Research Institute carried out a series of excavation surveys continuously from 1969 in the field of historical Asuka and Fujiwara. Today this area spans Sakurai City, Kashiwara City, and Asuka Village of Nara prefecture. The first volume of the excavation report, which recorded the results of the surveys, was published in 1976. This is the second volume of excavation reports on the Asuka-Fujiwara region. It summarizes the survey results on the area of government offices in the western portion of Fujiwara-Kyu (Imperial Palace).
Situated to the northwest of the Asuka region, Fujiwara-Kyo was the first political city in Japanese History. It served as the capital of Japan from 694 to 710. This city was patterned after ancient Chinese city, laying streets and avenues regularly on a checker board. The capital was split into left and right sectors and twelve precinct heads (borei) were named each to administer a rank of blocks.
Fujiwara-Kyo was made up of two parts: the Imperial Palace compartment which included the Imperial Residence and the central government offices; and the area containing markets, temples, and the residences of the government officials. Fujiwara-Kyo measured about 2.1 kilometers from east to west and 3.2 kilometers from north to south.
Fujiwara-Kyu is the name of the palace situated centrally near the northern border of Fujiwara-Kyo. Within the palace are contained the Halls of States (Chodoin) where official ceremonies were perfomed, the Imperial Residence (Dairi), and eight central government offices such as Kunaisho and Okurasho. According to the most recent information, the size of the Imperial Palace was 928 meters from east to west and 908 meters from north to south. Fujiwara Imperial Palace and the Capital which it commanded were most active in the formative period of the early Japanese centralized state, an era which saw the introduction of Chinese institutions such as the civil and penal statutes (Ritsuryo). For this reason the excavation survey of Fujiwara palace and capital holds an important key to understand the formation of the early Japanese state.
By chance, on the eastern edge of the site of Daigokuden Hall in the center of Fujiwara Palace, there stood Kashiwara City Kamokimi Primary School. Since this primary school was made of timber and built before 1945 it had being on to get decrepit and needed rebuilding. But with its being on land designated as an exceptional historic site, it had to remain in its poor condition. In 1970, a movement started that sought to rebuild the primary school. After discussions from the perspectctive of site preservation, in August 1971 it was decided to build a new primary school in the Nawate area of Kashiwara City, a place that would be on the western portion of the Fujiwara Palace Sites. For that reason the Asuka-Fujiwara Excavation Department of the Nara National Cultural Properties Research Institute carried out an excavation of the area planned for the new primary school before actual construction of the school began. This excavation survey is represented by numbers five through nine in the series of excavations of the Fujiwara Imperial Palace Sites (called the survey of the northern part). The survey itself began in March 1972 and was finished in September 1973. This area of investigation amounted to 23,000 square meters.
Also, in the southeast sector of the Fujiwara Imperial Palace Site there were to be built the Kashiwara City-run Shibu Living Units. Since construction of this municipal living units had already been planned, after the survey of the primary school site had been finished, from October 1973 through July 1974, the tenth excavation of the Palace Site was carried outin this place and is called the survey of the southern part. The excavated area was 2,400 square meters.
In surveys numbers five through nine (the northern part), buildings related to the Fujiwara Palace (period B) and those before that epoch (period A) were detected. We found four structures from the Fujiwara-Kyu era here. This group of buildings was all of hottate-bashira-style construction, in which the building is supported by large wooden posts resting in holes in the ground. The arrangement of the four buildings put a large structure (SB1200) running east and west in the northern part of the excavated area. SB1200 had a total length of 49.9 meters. To the southeast of SB1200 there stood a building (SB1020)of about the same size running north to south. Two other structures (SB1100 and SB1110) were located to the southwest of SB1200 and laid out, forming perpendicularly a queue, north to south. The distance between buildings SB1020 and buildings SB1100 and SB1110 was about fifty meters. In the center of this wide open space was a large rectangular disposal pit measuring six meters from east to west and thirty-three meters from north to south. In both areas to the east of SB1100 and between SB1100 and SB1110 wells were detected.
The rows of posts on the western side of buildings SB1110 and SB1100 were exactly even with the row of posts on the western side of building SB1200. Buildings SB1100 and SB1110 were at first made up with just the outside posts (SB1100A and SB1110A). Later they were rebuilt into buildings SB1100B and SB1110B as with inside posts. Under the southern half of SB1020 there were arranged base stones inside the building. Those stones probably served as the bases for floor posts for this section of the structurs.
This group of remains is thought to be the western office buildings, bounded by the extended center lines of the central and southern gates on the western side of Fujiwara-Kyu on the north and south respectively, and by that of the Western First Avenue of Fujiwara-Ky5 on the east. During these surveys we were unable to determine the names of the offices, but their scale was over twice that of Meryo, the largest among all the offices at the Nara Imperial Palace. The structures of this area were laid out on a checkerboard, in which each square was seventy-five shaku on a side. At present, since we have not carried out any other surveys of office blocks in Fujiwara Imperial Palace site, It is unclear whether we should view this western government offices site and its building layout as standard for the other government offices of Fujiwara-Kyu. This will become clearer as we do future excavation work.
The buildings which preceded Fujiwara Imperial Palace (Period A) may be categorized as belonging to four eras by examining the structures overlapping with one another and the directions they face. These buildings are scattered over a wide area, built and rebuilt continuously on almost exactly the same spot. All buildings were gone by the end of the fourth A period. The wells which were built along with these structures were also extinct by that period.
From the small scale and lack of planning in the arrangement of these A-period buildings it is difficult to see them asrelated to the Fujiwara Imperial Palace. Rather, they have much in common with ordinary village huts of the seventh and eighth century excavated here and there in the Kinki district in recent years. However there is a strong possibility that some of the buildings of the fourth A period have some relationship to Fujiwara-Kyo (and thus to Fujiwara-Kyo). We can draw this inference from the fact that a fence built in the fourth A period runs parallel to a road constructed as a part of the grid pattern (jobo) of Fujiwara-Kyo and the fact that fourth A period buildings all face the same direction as the road.
Timber from some of the well frames constructed along with the buildings of both A and B periods was converted from various previously used construction materials. Among these converted materials, fat posts which exceeded greatly the posts used in buildings of period A were included. This probably indicates that these posts were used in other earlier palace or office buildings.
In the tenth survey (the southern part), we discovered Ogaki, (the enclosing fence of the Palace), the inner moat, and six hottate-bashira huts which preceded the Palace’s construction. The Western Ogaki was previously surveyed by the Nara Prefectural Education Committee in 1968. Our survey continued that work in a southerly direction. We discovered twenty-eight spans of nine shaku each. The moat was unearthed 11.8 meter east of the Great Wall. Buildings constructed before Fujiwara Imperial Palace were similar to the village huts as the northern part.
As for artifacts, the earthenware uncovered in this survey and those of the preceding First Volume of Survey Report have made clear the chronological sequences of earthenware during the seventh century. The comprehension of earthenware chronology thus obtained should demon strate its efficacy in the future when dating seventh century remains. A clear understanding of the contents of each style of earthenware and the establishment of absolute dates will be themes of future research. In addition, because the earthenware used at Fujiwara-Kyu was brought in from several areas in the Kinai, it will be necessary to figure out the area of production by the form, color tone, clay contents, and method of manufacture. Various types of both round and curvedroof-edge tiles were unearthed. We uncovered a great number from the inner moat in the southern sector. These tiles probably shingled the Southern Gate on the western side. In this survey we attempted a classification of general round and curved tiles as well as those with a pattern, and included a study of the relation of the tiles to the kiln which produced them. Among wooden objects, a yoke used to work cattle, is a rare find indeed.
昭和53年2月28日 発行
奈良国立文化財研究所学報 第31冊
飛鳥・藤原宮発掘調査報告Ⅱ
－藤原宮西方官衙地域の調査－
