江上波夫

Egami Namio (1906-2002), was a famous Japanese archaeologist who stunned the Japanese academic world in 1948 when he propounded his audacious "Horserider Invasion Theory", suggesting that the emergence of a unified, centralized state in 5th century Japan could best be explained by a sudden invasion by a horse-riding race of people from continental northeast Asia.

In Egami's view, this "Horserider theory" was the best way to explain what he viewed as the sudden emergence of a centralized state in Japan, as well as what he understood to be the fairly sudden appearance of images of horses and horse-related implements such as bridles and saddles in the archaeological record where previously they had been absent. Egami also tied the appearance in Japan of massive earthen tombs, or kofun, to the arrival of these supposed "horseriders."

What made Horserider theory so shocking to the Japanese establishment was that in 1948 most Japanese still believed strongly in the pre-war dogma that the Japanese were a unique race that lived in the Japanese isles since time immemorial. The idea that a group of marauding horseriders conquered Japan in the 4th century and established the Yamato state was also a full frontal assault on the cherished myth of an unbroken line of Japanese emperors going back to the god-emperor Jimmu in 660 BC.

Nevertheless, Egami seemed to have lined up a large amount of evidence behind his theory, even if that evidence was all circumstantial, and his theory came to be widely accepted among Japanese archaeologists and leftists, even as it was roundly and angrily rejected out of hand by the conservatives on the right.

Over the course of the 1960s and 70s, however, as gaps in the archaeological record were increasingly filled in, it became increasingly clear that there had never been a sudden invasion of Japan by a race of horseriders, as the introduction horse-riding technology to Japan and the evolution of the Japanese state were increasingly and convincingly shown to have been gradual events which occurred over hundreds of years. By the 1980s, horserider theory had come to be almost universally rejected by all credible scholars, in a turn that was energetically celebrated by the Japanese right, who felt vindicated.

It had also become increasingly clear, however, that even if there had been no sudden invasion, the formation of the Yamato state was intricately tied to gradual but increasing interchanges with continental Asia, particularly with the Korean Peninsula, and that indeed the the formation of the early Japanese state and the emergence of Japanese Imperial family is in all likelihood tied closely with immigrant groups of Korean ancestry. This interpretation is now widely accepted, and thus, even though he may have gotten the timeframe wrong, Egami was essentially right about the continental origins of the early Japanese state, and the myth of the unbroken line of Emperors did not survive "Horserider Theory" after all. (http://everything2.com/title/Egami+Namio)

Additional Notes:

So the "Horserider Theory" has been around a long time and engages historians, archeologists and other scholars interested in proto-historical Japan. It affects how we see the earliest form of the Japanese state taking shape, and how we read Japan's first histories, the Kojiki and the Nihon-shoki, and their list of Japan's early monarchs which they try implausibly to stretch back to 660 BCE in order to employ a 1260 year chronology rooted in 21 x 60 year units which was something auspicious in Chinese numerology.

So which of the early Japnese rulers were actually historical leaders and when did they rule? Where was this kingdom described by Chinese histories in 297 AD that they called "Yamatai" and claimed that it was ruled by a "Queen" Himiko over whom they constructed a huge burial bound after she died? Archaeologists see to agree that probably the Yamatai location mentioned in the Wei Chronicles and the female ruler Himiko can be equated with Princess Yamato who was related to the Sujin line of rulers who built tombs in the southwestern Nara Basin, and is the person buried in the Hashihaka Tomb probably around 248 CE.

There is definitely evidence from some of the tombs that the deceased were peninsular aristocrats. "[O]ne particularly well preserved tomb or kofun Takamatsuzuka near Asuka, was sealed so tightly against the elements that gorgeous colorful paintings were preserved on the rock walls of the inner chamber all the way until they were first discovered in 1972. These paintings depict people wearing surprisingly Korean-looking garments, which, along with the presence of similar massive earthen tombs in Korea during the same period, lends credence to the increasingly accepted theory that the ruling classes of premodern Japan were of Korean extraction.

The larger tombs however, may contain more magificent treasures. When an 1872 typhoon exposed a small burial chamber in the forward part of Daisen Kofun, archaeologists found ornamental swords made of gold and copper, silver-plated armor, fine glassware, iron pots, and clay dishes, which makes one wonder what wonders must lie in the main chamber! However, despite the fact that scholars have petitioned for decades to get the Imperial Household Agency to allow further investigation, these appeals have fallen on defiantly deaf ears."

My first encounter with all this was Gari Ledyard's 1975 article "Galloping Along with the Horseriders" in the Journal of Japanese Studies. I am no archaeologist nor a historian of pre-modern Japan, but his work fascinated me because he could handle not only Japanese sources but Korean and Chinese language materials as well. It is also a wonderful example of interdisciplinary work; there are questions here that cannot be answered by experts from one discipline only. He basically accepted some parts of Egami's thesis but rejected the timing and figured that the first rulers to migrate from the Korean Peninsula to Yamato were not mounted warriors but civilian aristocrats. Ledyard agrees with Egami that the first "Korean" ruler of some Japanese territory (the southern island of Kyushu) was very likely a man later called Emperor Sujin. But Ledyard says there is no evidence that Sujin was either a horserider or a conqueror. More likely, he says, Sujin led a peaceful fourth century migration of ethnic Wa people who apparently lived in the southern Korea area of Kaya. They would naturally have sought safety with their relatives on Kyushu when threatened by barbarians coming down from the north. The "horseriders" then would be Puyo tribesmen who first conquered the Paekche area and eventually began to chase the Wa across the Tsushima Strait. By the early fifth century, Ledyard thinks the Puyo had succeeded in pushing northward to the fertile Yamato Valley, under the leadership of a king who was later remembered as Emperor Ôjin.

(Ledyard vigorously objects to using purely posthumous names, like Sujin and Ôjin, or the title "emperor" for what were clearly regional leaders. However, no alternative designation has yet become widely accepted.)

Ledyard's theory is based largely on a painstaking linguistic analysis of ancient texts, taking into consideration known cultural changes of the time. And archeological evidence gathered without access to the imperial tombs generally supports his sequence of events--up to a point. Everyone agrees, for instance, that during the early fifth century (Ôjin's time) large numbers of people from the Korean peninsula did come to Japan, bringing with them a multitude of new skills and customs. A dramatic change is seen in pottery, which changes from soft, homemade, low-fired pots to a hard stoneware, known as Sue pottery m fired at temperatures of more than 1,000°C and turned out on wheels by professional craftsmen. And in some early fifth century noblemen's tombs, archeologists have found a few trappings associated with horseriding. One point that Ledyard's works makes, and with which most everyone else seems to concur, is that we have to look at Japan's early history not in terms of events on the archipelago only, but in terms of the complex interactions between a number of cheifdoms or polities scatterd around the Korean Peninsula and ther Japanese islands. And we need to remind ourselves that we cannot project backward in time a sense of national identity or formal state sturcture, i.e., entities later known as "Japan" and "Korea," at a time when no such entities existed. Before the 600 or 700s, there was no "Japan" or "Korea."

Although a lot of scholarly work has been done since the 1970s, the works of two archaeologists, Gina Barnes and J. Edward Kidder, seem especially pertinent. Two of their most recent books are:

1. Gina Barnes, State Formation in Japan (2007); and

2. J. Edward Kidder, Himiko and Japan's Elusive Cheifdom of Yamatai (also 2007)

Gina Barnes in her State Formation in Japan (2007) points out that Egami’s horserider theory (1948) promoted one particular cause of state formation in Japan: by horserider conquest at the turn of the 5th century.  [J. Edward] Kiddder’s (1983) rejection of the theory on technical grounds invalidates the timing, and there is no archeological evidence for conquest at any time during the Kofun period.  This does not mean, however, that horseriding equipment is absent in Japan.  Starting in the mid-5th century, the tombs began to yield horse-trappings; and in the 6th century they become the main grave goods.  Horse gear is only one of the types of artifacts adopted from the Korean Peninsula in the 5th century, which witnessed the migration of skilled craftspeople, scholars and elites from the Peninsula.  Such intensive technological transfer stimulated the development of administrative technology and managerial roles within Yamato….Barnes holds "that the Queen Himiko mentioned in the Chinese records can be identified as a personage connected to the Sujin line of sovereigns as portrayed in the Japanese chronicles, and that her tomb can be equated with one of the monumental keyhole tombs suilt in the southeastern Nara Basin." (State Formation, p. 195)

In her earlier book, The Rise of Civilization in East Asia (1993), Barnes also underscores the importance of Kaya which was famous for its iron production. When the commandery at Lelang fell, the iron resources became the focus of competition and perhaps even military conflict among polities on the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Islands in the late 4th to early 5th centuries. Tombs from this era in both Kaya and Yamato yield iron armor and weapons; it is not at all clear yet what these finds signify in terms of whose army was where and which polity dominated which areas. These archaeological finds feed into the debate over the 'Horserider Theory' and the 'Mimana Problem' as described below. (232)...

The role of Kaya in this sphere raises many difficult questions, particularly pertaining to to Yamato involvement on the Southern Korean Peninsula. There is little doubt that the area was producing iron for Insular consumption, and the transfer of stoneware technology from this region to Yamato in the early 5th century is an achaeological fact. The 'Horserider Theory' of Japanese state formation suggests that the southern Peninsular coast was a staging point for the Peninsular conquest of Yamato; conversely, the Nihon Shoki suggests that Kaya was a colony named Mimana belonging to Yamato. Problems abound with both interpretations: the arachaeological data for 'horseriders' in Yamato are too late to fit the theory, and textual criticism has revealed distortions in the use of the Mimana name in the Nihon Shoki. Nevertherless, recent excavations in Kaya burials have yielded much iron armor and weaponry of kinds also present in Yamato, so relations between the two areas--whether marital, economic, or political--almost certainly had a military gloss. A stele erected in 414 CE suggests that Yamato fighters joined Paekche in their conflict with Koguryo in the late 300s and protection of their source of iron was probably their motivation for doing so.

We know that there was significant immigration of craftspeople from Paekche to Yamato so that they could serve the Yamato elite.

Such close interaction with the peninsula caused the coastal area of Osaka Bay to be developed as Yamato's window on the world. Here are located the Ôjin and Nintoku mausolea (the two largest tombs in Japan), the Suemura kiln site, the Nonaka tomb with its iron armor and Kaya ceramics, and the recently excavated state storage facilities at Naniwa, consisting of sixteen large storehouses with an average of 90 square meters of floor space each. These were probably used for storing grain as well as whatever tribute goods Yamato was able to extract from outlying Pen/Insular communities. These developments partook of an indigenous trend toward urbanization that was cut short by the adoption of mainland models (the Ritsu-ryo system) in the ensuing period. (Barnes, The Rise of Civilization in East Asia, 245)

In his book, Kidder agrees with Barnes that something was going on at a site near Mt. Miwa (in the Yamato Plain or Nara Basin) known as Makimuku in the early 200s and that it can be linked with the elusive Princess Himiko figure mentioned in the Chinese Wei Chronicles. This community was apparently a confederation of tribal groups led by chieftans who used "magic" or ritual practices to loosely bind them together. Kidder concludes that "Makimuku was clearly the largest thriving community east of north Kyushu when the Yayoi period closed. The first large mounded tombs were built there, proving it to be the chief political center of its day. Logistically, such building required a sound economic base. On the craft level, the evidence is the abundance of numerous fine iron, bronze, ceramic, and stone burial goods, produced both locally and in workshops elsewhere. The recovered ceramics show Makimuku to have been the hub of a wide trade network...With the influx of people from other areas, Makimuku expanded, space had to be made for more uji deities, and the Sun Goddess, who must have been just one of many, was moved out to Ise. She was later elevated to cheif deity by Emperor Temmu and the Nihon shoki writers. In an era when access to higher forces in nature and credibly transmitting the will of the kami were regarded as the ultimate source of human power, Himiko, Sujin ("the first ruler of the land), and Suinin launched the Yamatai/Yamato polity into history." (281-282)

****

What almost all scholars can agree upon, then, is that the key to understanding this period in the protohistory of Japan and Korea is that there was a lot of interaction among the Peninsular societies during the Three Kingdoms  period (AD 300-668). The Three Kingdoms were Paekche, Silla and Koguryo, respectively, and, along with a confederation on the tip of the Korean Peninsula called Kaya, they had a huge impact on developments in the Japanese archipelago.  Paekche scribes, elites and crafts people had been emigrating to the Yamato area since the 400s because the kingdom of Koguryo was expanding and asserting its dominion making life there unpleasant for them.  Also, that emerging confederation of Kaya was the main source or iron for Yamato.  Silla conquered Kaya and then Paekche in 660; Silla was then poised to seek an alliance with the Tang dynasty to attack Koguryo stimulating the elites in Yamato to undertake Tang-style reforms in their own lands as a kind of pre-emptive defensive move.   These elites shared with state builders in Silla and the Tang Dynasty a common political philosophy, Confucianism, a state religion, Buddhism, and a Ritsuryo administrative structure modeled on the Tang system. But all of this reminds us that events that were taking place on the continent, such as the fall of the Han Dynasty, inevitably had an impact on the Korean Peninsula, and then, with a kind of pinball effect, an impact on the inhabitants of the Japaense Islands. Archaeologist Gina Barnes likes to talk about "Pen/Insular" events as a way to signal how closely interrlated people and events were in those days.

In sum, we can say that in the early 500s, "Japan" was still a confederation of very loosely connected territories headed by a Yamato king whose power was nominal and dependent on ritual power. As Yamato leaders increasingly adopted continental methods of statecraft, the stronger confederation evolved, coalescing by the early 700s into the ritsu-ryo state, the Japanese version of the Sui/Tang style centralized bureaucratic state with penal laws, administrative codes and a "divine ruler" at the apex.

 

The Jinshin War had been a war of succession and Prince Oama won becoming Temmu tenno and his consort, Jito, succeeded him. It was these two rulers who transformed the Yamato monarchs from Chinese style monarchs who ruled all under "heaven"(天 ten or tian) to akitsukami (現つ神) or bright or "shining deities" who traced their ancestry back to Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. To this end, the Kojiki and Nihon shoki were commissioned to establish divine descent and the Yamato dynasty's genealogy. And the rest is (Japan's official) history.