Historical Materials No.76

Col l ect i on of Shipping Label Wooden Tablets of the Seventh Century

Collection of Shipping Label Wooden Tablets of the Seventh Century

Nara National Cultural Properties Research Institute Publications on Historical Materials Volume LXXVI

English Summary

　This report includes photographs, transcriptions, and interpretations for 339 mokkan (wooden documents) of the seventh century used as shipping labels, selected from all of the materials made public nationwide through March 2005. Items regarded as shipping label mokkan in this treatment are tags used when rendering goods as tax payments, and do not include tags used for storing and sorting goods. Shipping label mokkan of the seventh century had in principle the date, location, payer, tax category, type of goods, and amount recorded in that order, but ordinarily portions of the record were omitted, and thus these items differ greatly from shipping labels of the eighth century on. With regard to the location as well, very few items recorded the entire set of administrative units in use at the time, being province (kuni), district (kohori), and village (sato, of fifty households), with the province and district names frequently omitted. Accordingly it becomes necessary to make a comprehensive judgment based on recorded information about the identity of the payer and type of goods, and details regarding the condition of the mokkan and the manner in which it was found, in making a determination of the location. It was possible to ascertain the location for 249 of the shipping labels presented in this volume. From an examination of these shipping label mokkan, it is possible not only to learn about one aspect of regional control in ancient Japan of the seventh century, but through the variety of inscriptions recorded on the mokkan, it may also be possible to obtain clues for considerations of the ancient Japanese language.

Contents

Color illustrations

Preface                              (7)

Contents                            (8)

Legend                              (10)

Monochromatic illustrations (PL.1~64)

Interpretations

　General remarks

　　Introduction                              3

　　Chapter 1 An outline of shipping label mokkan of the seventh century                        4

　　1. Sites yielding mokkan                                    4

　　2. Condition of the mokkan                               4

　　3. Inscriptions of the mokkan                            7

　Chapter 2 Several problems concerning the organization of regional governance                    11

　　1. Village (sato)                                   11

　　2. District (kohori)                               15

　　3. Province (kuni)                                17

　Chapter 3 Receipt of payments system in the seventh century                     18

　　1. Tax system                                      18

　　2. Receipt of payments system                                       21

　Concluding remarks                                23

Transcriptions                               29

Index                                 iii

English summary                i