Prehistoric Ceramic Figurines in Japan

Exhibitions of Primitive Art or Avatars?

Jan 20, 2010
Gina Barnes

Nishinomae, Yamagata. TNM - The British Museum, with permission

The Jomon peoples of post-glacial Japan created abstract and representational human forms from stone and clay. What were their functions?

Many prehistoric cultures around the world have produced ceramic representations of the human figure. Interestingly, the earliest ceramic figurines date to the Palaeolithic (prior to 10,000 BC) in cultures not having pottery vessels. In contrast, Jomon Japan (14,000-300 BC) has the earliest ceramic vessels in the world as well as a rich material culture of which figurines form a large part.

Primitive Art or Sophisticated Art?

The art of hunting-gathering or nomadic societies is often cast as ‘primitive’ despite its evident sophistication, both in manufacture and imagery. This label belies the important roles that such figurines can play in the social system: regulating relations among socio-political groups, between humans and their environment, and between humans and the cosmos.

They are forms of communication, which we perceive today mainly in aesthetic terms as ‘art’, since their messages can no longer be directly accessed. No artefact speaks directly of its meaning, but archaeology has techniques to bring out possible significance through context analysis.

Venus Figures or Avatars?

The Venus of Dolní Vestonice (29-25,000 BC) and the Venus of Willendorf (24-22,000 BC) are best known, and their interpretation as fertility figures set the framework for viewing others. But are Japan’s Jomon figurines Venus figures and nothing else? Although some have full breasts and buttocks, like the European examples, others have male genitalia, while a third set have features of both sexes. Reproduction, indeed, may have been in the mind of the maker, but why then are so many Jomon figurines found dismembered or beheaded?

The majority of figurines found in Japan are in fragments, scattered across the occupation site at which they were excavated. Such fragments were often widely separated, arguing against their having been mere ‘dolls’ which were discarded when broken. Japanese archaeologists speculate that they were used in rituals in which breaking the figurine and distributing the parts around the site were integral to the function and meaning of the objects. Were these figures avatars, in the ancient sense of manifestations of deities or spirits?

Other Jomon figurines, though few, have been found carefully buried, often with a part missing. Was this a ritual to take illness from a living person and dispose of it in the ground? Could these figurines have acted as avatars in the modern sense, as replacement humans, in this case functioning to take away sickness or heal wounds as suggested by the Tokyo National Museum? The contexts of discovery argue against simple fertility rituals or use of figurines as mere aesthetic objects.

Jomon Figurine (Dogu) Exhibitions

Within a year’s span, three exhibitions of Jomon figurines (called dogu) are:

“The Power of Dogu: ceramic figures from ancient Japan”, 10 Sept–22 Nov 2009, British Museum, London
“The Power of Dogu”, 15 Dec, 2009–21 Feb 2010, Tokyo National Museum (TNM), Japan
“Unearthed: figure-making and figure-breaking in ancient Japan and the Balkans”, 22 June–29 Aug 2010, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, England

The first two of these successive exhibits drew together 67 figurines, including three National Treasures and a number of Important Cultural Properties of Japan. Never before has such an exhaustive exhibition of dogu from all over Japan been mounted, allowing one to see in one sweep what would take many tours of regional museums to see. The third collects a different set of dogu to contrast with Balkan examples, a rare comparative exercise.

The variety entailed in dogu is fascinating: from flat pieces with arm and leg nubbins to large hollow creations with carved designs of clothing, headdress, eyeshades and perhaps tattoos. Faces are cat-like, goggle-eyed, or completely abstract dots and holes. The geometric sculptural treatment of some unique figures could have emerged from a modern sculptor’s studio. Some figurines are meant to stand up, others to sit, but most can do neither and must be propped or held for display. The most poignant is a sitting mother with child at the breast.

Human representations are accompanied by a number of clay sculptures of other objects or animals — a seashell, a wild boar — while human faces and forms occur on vessels as if they were protectors of the interior contents. Late in the Jomon period, a series of masks or facial parts which could be worn on the face were created in ceramics; the masks may also have been mounted on a pole in ritual activities. One such mask has holes along the jaw line as if to insert clumps of beard hair.

Jomon Japan: a Rich Hunter-Gatherer-Horticultural Society

The Jomon period is one of the longest archaeological periods in the world. It is unusual in having a rich ceramic repertoire without being an agricultural society. The Jomon people lived primarily in northeastern Japan, where lush temperate forests and abundant sealife provided an affluent lifestyle in sedentary villages. This allowed them to devote themselves to highly decorated, elaborate ceramics — both vessels and figurines. The dogu figurines are well presented in the three exhibitions, and commemorated in an excellent exhibition catalog from the British Museum.