YamataiYamatai or Yamatai-koku 邪馬台国 (c. 1st century – c. 3rd century) is the Sino-Japanese name of an ancient country in Wa (Japan) during the late Yayoi period (c. 1,000 BCE – c. 300 CE). The Chinese text Records of the Three Kingdoms first recorded the name as /*ja-maB-də̂/ () or /*ja-maB-ʔit/ () (using reconstructed Eastern Han Chinese pronunciations) followed by the character for "country", describing the place as the domain of Priest-Queen Himiko (died c. 248 CE).
Ninigi-no-Mikotois a deity in Japanese mythology. Grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, Ninigi is regarded according to Japanese mythology as the great-grandfather of Japan’s first emperor, Emperor Jimmu. The three sacred treasures brought with Ninigi from Heaven and divine ancestry established the Japanese Imperial Family. The three generations of kami starting with Ninigi are sometimes referred to as the three generations of Hyūga, they are said to represent a transitional period between the heavenly kami and the first emperor.
Jōmon periodIn Japanese history, the Jōmon period is the time between 14,000 and 300 BC, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity. The name "cord-marked" was first applied by the American zoologist and orientalist Edward S. Morse, who discovered sherds of pottery in 1877 and subsequently translated it into Japanese as Jōmon.
HaniwaThe Haniwa are terracotta clay figures that were made for ritual use and buried with the dead as funerary objects during the Kofun period (3rd to 6th centuries AD) of the history of Japan. Haniwa were created according to the wazumi technique, in which mounds of coiled clay were built up to shape the figure, layer by layer. Haniwa can also refer to offering cylinders, not the clay sculptures on top of them as well as the "wooden haniwa" found in Kofun tumuli.
Shinto shrineA Shinto shrine is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, the deities of the Shinto religion. The honden (本殿, meaning: "main hall") is where a shrine's patron kami is/are enshrined. The honden may be absent in cases where a shrine stands on or near a sacred mountain, tree, or other object which can be worshipped directly or in cases where a shrine possesses either an altar-like structure, called a himorogi, or an object believed to be capable of attracting spirits, called a yorishiro, which can also serve as direct bonds to a kami.
Himiko, also known as Shingi Waō, was a shamaness-queen of Yamatai-koku in Wakoku. Early Chinese dynastic histories chronicle tributary relations between Queen Himiko and the Cao Wei Kingdom (220–265) and record that the Yayoi period people chose her as ruler following decades of warfare among the kings of Wa. Early Japanese histories do not mention Himiko, but historians associate her with legendary figures such as Empress Consort Jingū, who is said to have served as regent from 201 to 269.
Kofun periodThe Kofun period is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is the earliest era of recorded history in Japan, but studies depend heavily on archaeology since the chronology of historical sources tends to be distorted. The word kofun is Japanese for the type of burial mound dating from this era. It was a period of cultural import.
Yamato KingshipThe ja was a tribal alliance centered on the Yamato region (Nara Prefecture) from the 4th century to the 7th century, and ruled over the alliance of noble families in the central and western parts of the Japanese archipelago. The age is from the 4th to the 7th century, later than the Yamatai Kingdom. After the Taika Reform, the ōkimi as an emperor, at that time, was in power, and the Yamato period ended. The time period is archaeologically known as the Kofun period.
KojikiThe "Records of Ancient Matters" or "An Account of Ancient Matters", also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the 神, and the Japanese imperial line. It is claimed in its preface to have been composed by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Genmei in the early 8th century (711–712), and thus is usually considered to be the oldest extant literary work in Japan.
Susanoo-no-MikotoFORCETOC Susanoo (スサノオ; historical orthography: スサノヲ, ) is a in Japanese mythology. The younger brother of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and mythical ancestress of the Japanese imperial line, he is a multifaceted deity with contradictory characteristics (both good and bad), being portrayed in various stories either as a wild, impetuous god associated with the sea and storms, as a heroic figure who killed a monstrous serpent, or as a local deity linked with the harvest and agriculture.
