At the Yoshinogari-koen train station, just three stops from downtown Saga, the tourist office lends bicycles for the 1/2 mile trek to the entrance to the historical park. It’s a nice ride through local rice fields.
Once inside the park, one of the first things to strike you is the seriousness of the ancient fortifications.
It reminded us of The Seven Samurai, the Kurasawa film, with row upon row of pointed stakes to blunt a mounted attack.
The reconstruction at Yoshinogari is the largest in Japan of a prehistoric moated village. It dates from the Yayoi period, roughly 500 B.C. to 200 A.D., and is unusual for covering all of the Yayoi period.
The reconstructed area is quite extensive and there is a shuttle bus to help people get around. From the size of the tour bus parking area, we were happy to have been there during the off-season.
Storage buildings were elevated. Habitations were dug into the ground to take advantage of the natural cooling and heating that comes from being in the ground. Ceremonial buildings seem to have been elevated And, of course, so were all of the watch towers and elaborate defensive positions.
We briefly joined a Yayoi king and his wife. The volunteer guide (day job: helicopter pilot for the Self-Defense Force) who briefly befriended us confided that the king’s wife is sitting Korean style (one knee raised). Scholarship indicates that the Yayoi swept into Japan from either Korea (the leading theory) or China near the Yangtze River, mostly displacing the native population (today’s Ainu).
An arms storage building for the very well-defended settlement.
Burial jars.
Birds on top of gates or tori are everywhere through the reconstruction. Birds with wings down indicate defense, while wings out signifies attack (or some such thing, according to the volunteer guide). Yoshinogari was well worth the visit.
Back in Saga, we walked to Saga Castle – also a reconstruction. It’s the largest wooden building in Japan and a special exemption was obtained for its reconstruction because it significantly exceeds the maximum size permitted for wooden buildings. Having now been in a number of large wooden castles and temples, it was interesting only for its dimensions.
Dinner was in a private room at a restaurant near the hotel, allowing us to unwind a bit.