APPENDIX II 

 THE NEPHRITE QUESTION OF JAPAN 



It is well known that among the antiquities of early Japan which 

 may be dated roughly from a few centuries b. c. down to the sixth and 

 seventh centuries a. d., two kinds of ornamental stones are prominent, — 

 the kudatama, oblong perforated cylinders, and the magatama, curved 

 or comma-shaped beads, both referred to in the Kojiki and Nihongi 

 and found in large numbers in the ancient graves. They were pre- 

 sumably strung and worn as necklaces. The magatama were made of 

 various stone material of which N. G. Munro (Prehistoric Japan, 

 p. 456) enumerates the following list: — agate, jasper, chalcedony, ser- 

 pentine, steatite, quartz, crystal, glass, jade, chrysoprase and nephrite; 

 with the remark that the three latter are not found in Japan. Also 

 W. G. Aston (Nihongi, Vol. I, p. 49) gives nephrite as one of the 

 materials for magatama, and adds that some of these materials do not 

 occur in Japan. H. v. Siebold, I believe, was the first to suspect the 

 Chinese origin of these nephrite magatama, and the geologist E. Milne, 

 first brought to light the fact that this mineral is never met with in 

 Japan. But all authors express themselves in a general way, and none 

 has thought it worth taking up the investigation of the problem involved. 

 Even W. Gowland, one of the best connoisseurs of Japanese antiquity, 

 is content to say: "The stones of which magatama are made are rock- 

 crystal, steatite, jasper, agate, and chalcedony, and more rarely chryso- 

 prase and nephrite. The last two minerals are not found in Japan" 

 (Gowland, The Dolmens and Burial Mounds in Japan, Archaologia, 

 1897, p. 478). O. Nachod (Geschichte von Japan, Vol. I, p. 144, 

 Gotha, 1906) repeats the fact, without formulating the problem. 



But those engaged in the archaeology of Japan do not explain to us 

 either another fact no less extraordinary, that is the large number of 

 glass beads in the dolmens. Of 1108 beads discovered by Gowland in 

 one of them, there were 791 of glass, all dark -blue, with the exception 

 of a few green or amber colored, seventeen of silver, a hundred and 

 twenty -three of baked clay, a hundred and thirty-three of steatite, and 

 forty-one of jasper. To any one acquainted with the history of glass, 

 it must be clear at the outset that the ancient Japanese cannot have 

 manufactured these colored glass beads, but must have received them 

 from an outside continental source. 



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