Japan: Sada Shin Noh, sacred dancing at Sada shrine, Shimane - intangible cultural heritage

Sada Shin Noh comprises a series of ritual purification dances performed every year on 24 and 25 September at the Sada Shrine in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan as part of the gozakae ritual of the changing of the rush mats. The dances are undertaken to purify new rush mats (goza), upon which the tutelary deities of the shrine will sit. The replacement of mats elicits their blessings for the community. Diverse types of dance are performed on a stage specially constructed within the shrine. In some, performers carry swords, holy wooden sticks and bells; in others, dancers wear masks depicting the faces of old men or deities and re-enact Japanese myths. 

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Japan: Sado Island Gold Mines

The Sado Island Gold Mines are a serial property located on Sado Island, some thirty-five kilometres west of the Niigata Prefecture coast. It is formed of several component parts illustrative of different unmechanised mining methods. Sado Island is of volcanic origin and features two parallel mountain ranges stretching from southwest to northeast and separated by one alluvial plain, the Kuninaka Plain. Gold and silver deposits were formed by the rising of hydrothermal water to the land surface and forming veins in the rock; tectonic activity first submerged the surface deposits to the seabed, which was later raised again by tectonic movements. Placer deposits were exploited in Nishimikawa Area, located on the north-western side of the Kosado Mountains. In addition, the weathering of the volcanic rock exposed ore veins, which were mined underground in the Aikawa-Tsurushi Area, at the southern end of the Osado Mountains range. Mostly tangible attributes reflecting mining activities and social and labour organisation are preserved as archaeological elements, both above and below ground, and landscape features.

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Japan: Sacred Island of Okinoshima and Associated Sites in the Munakata Region

Located 60 km off the western coast of Kyushu island, the island of Okinoshima is an exceptional example of the tradition of worship of a sacred island. The archaeological sites that have been preserved on the island are virtually intact, and provide a chronological record of how the rituals performed there changed from the 4th to the 9th centuries AD. In these rituals, votive objects were deposited as offerings at different sites on the island. Many of them are of exquisite workmanship and had been brought from overseas, providing evidence of intense exchanges between the Japanese archipelago, the Korean Peninsula and the Asian continent. Integrated within the Grand Shrine of Munakata, the island of Okinoshima is considered sacred to this day.

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Japan: Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan

The property consists of 17 archaeological sites in the southern part of Hokkaido Island and northern Tohoku in geographical settings ranging from mountains and hills to plains and lowlands, from inland bays to lakes, and rivers. They bear a unique testimony to the development over some 10,000 years of the pre-agricultural yet sedentary Jomon culture and its complex spiritual belief system and rituals. It attests to the emergence, development, maturity and adaptability to environmental changes of a sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherer society which developed from about 13,000 BCE. Expressions of Jomon spirituality were given tangible form in objects such as lacquered pots, clay tablets with the impression of feet, the famous goggle eyed dogu figurines, as well as in ritual places including earthworks and large stone circles reaching diameters of more than 50 metres. The serial property testifies to the rare and very early development of pre-agricultural sedentism from emergence to maturity.'

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Sannai Maruyama Iseki

Japan: Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group: Mounded Tombs of Ancient Japan

Located on a plateau above the Osaka Plain, this property includes 49 kofun (“old mounds” in Japanese). These tombs were for members of the elite. These kofun have been selected from among a total of 160,000 in Japan and form the richest material representation of the Kofun period, from the 3rd to the 6th century CE. They demonstrate the differences in social classes of that period and show evidence of a highly sophisticated funerary system. Burial mounds of significant variations in size, kofun take the geometrically elaborate design forms of keyhole, scallop, square or circle. They were decorated with paving stones and clay figures. The kofun demonstrate exceptional technical achievements of earthen constructions.  

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Japan: Traditional skills, techniques and knowledge for the conservation and transmission of wooden architecture in Japan

The conservation and transmission of wooden architecture in Japan consists in a set of traditional skills, techniques and knowledge. Roughly seventy per cent of the country is forested. Therefore, wood has been used in houses since ancient times. In fact, the world’s oldest surviving wooden structure is the Horyu-ji temple that was built in the early seventh century. Some examples of the seventeen skills described in the nomination file, include sakan plastering, the harvesting of Japanese cypress bark, lacquer painting of traditional structures, the production of tatami mats (flooring material), and many more. Until the nineteenth century, master craftsmen trained apprentices as successors to transmit knowledge of the traditional skills. 

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Japan: Yakushima

Located in the interior of Yaku Island, at the meeting-point of the palaearctic and oriental biotic regions, Yakushima exhibits a rich flora, with some 1,900 species and subspecies, including ancient specimens of the sugi (Japanese cedar). It also contains a remnant of a warm-temperate ancient forest that is unique in this region.

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Japan: Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites

This property is a historic sericulture and silk mill complex established in the late 19th and early 20th century in the Gunma prefecture, north-west of Tokyo. It consists of four sites that correspond to the different stages in the production of raw silk: a large raw silk reeling plant whose machinery and industrial expertise were imported from France; an experimental farm for production of cocoons; a school for the dissemination of sericulture knowledge; and a cold-storage facility for silkworm eggs. The site illustrates Japan’s desire to rapidly access the best mass production techniques, and became a decisive element in the renewal of sericulture and the Japanese silk industry in the last quarter of the 19th century. Tomioka Silk Mill and its related sites became the centre of innovation for the production of raw silk and marked Japan’s entry into the modern, industrialized era, making it the world’s leading exporter of raw silk, notably to Europe and the United States.

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Japan: The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement

Chosen from the work of Le Corbusier, the 17 sites comprising this transnational serial property are spread over seven countries and are a testimonial to the invention of a new architectural language that made a break with the past. They were built over a period of a half-century, in the course of what Le Corbusier described as “patient research”. The Complexe du Capitole in Chandigarh (India), the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (Japan), the House of Dr Curutchet in La Plata (Argentina) and the Unité d’habitation in Marseille (France) reflect the solutions that the Modern Movement sought to apply during the 20th century to the challenges of inventing new architectural techniques to respond to the needs of society. These masterpieces of creative genius also attest to the internationalization of architectural practice across the planet.

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Japan: Temples, Shrines and other structures of Ancient Kamakura (tentative)

Kamakura was constructed by the samurai (warrior class) to be the seat of their political power. It is surrounded by hills to the north, east and west, and faces the ocean to the south. For this reason, it is ideally protected. The samurai government controlled all of Japan from here for over 150 years, and Kamakura became the center of politics, economy and culture. The samurai government of Japan continued from 1192 to 1868, during which period the cities of Kamakura and Edo were constructed to serve as places of administration. However, Edo later changed into the modern city of Tokyo, so that the only remaining place where one can find a grouping of cultural properties reminiscent of samurai culture is the area around Kamakura.

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Japan: Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining

The site encompasses a series of twenty three component parts, mainly located in the southwest of Japan. It bears testimony to the rapid industrialization of the country from the middle of the 19th century to the early 20th century, through the development of the iron and steel industry, shipbuilding and coal mining. The site illustrates the process by which feudal Japan sought technology transfer from Europe and America from the middle of the 19th century and how this technology was adapted to the country’s needs and social traditions. The site testifies to what is considered to be the first successful transfer of Western industrialization to a non-Western nation.

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Japan: Shrines and Temples of Nikko

The shrines and temples of Nikko, together with their natural surroundings, have for centuries been a sacred site known for its architectural and decorative masterpieces. They are closely associated with the history of the Tokugawa Shoguns.

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Japan: Shiretoko

Shiretoko Peninsula is located in the north-east of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. The site includes the land from the central part of the peninsula to its tip (Shiretoko Cape) and the surrounding marine area. It provides an outstanding example of the interaction of marine and terrestrial ecosystems as well as extraordinary ecosystem productivity, largely influenced by the formation of seasonal sea ice at the lowest latitude in the northern hemisphere. It has particular importance for a number of marine and terrestrial species, some of them endangered and endemic, such as Blackiston’s fish owl and the Viola kitamiana plant. The site is globally important for threatened seabirds and migratory birds, a number of salmonid species, and for marine mammals including Steller’s sea lion and some cetacean species.

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Japan: Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range

Set in the dense forests of the Kii Mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean, three sacred sites – Yoshino and Omine, Kumano Sanzan, Koyasan – linked by pilgrimage routes to the ancient capital cities of Nara and Kyoto, reflect the fusion of Shinto, rooted in the ancient tradition of nature worship in Japan, and Buddhism, which was introduced from China and the Korean Peninsula. The sites (506.4 ha) and their surrounding forest landscape reflect a persistent and extraordinarily well-documented tradition of sacred mountains over 1,200 years. The area, with its abundance of streams, rivers and waterfalls, is still part of the living culture of Japan and is much visited for ritual purposes and hiking, with up to 15 million visitors annually. Each of the three sites contains shrines, some of which were founded as early as the 9th century.

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Japan: Shirakami-Sanchi

Situated in the mountains of northern Honshu, this trackless site includes the last virgin remains of the cool-temperate forest of Siebold's beech trees that once covered the hills and mountain slopes of northern Japan. The black bear, the serow and 87 species of birds can be found in this forest.

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Japan: Itsukushima Shinto Shrine

The island of Itsukushima, in the Seto inland sea, has been a holy place of Shintoism since the earliest times. The first shrine buildings here were probably erected in the 6th century. The present shrine dates from the 12th century and the harmoniously arranged buildings reveal great artistic and technical skill. The shrine plays on the contrasts in colour and form between mountains and sea and illustrates the Japanese concept of scenic beauty, which combines nature and human creativity.

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Japan: Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama

Located in a mountainous region that was cut off from the rest of the world for a long period of time, these villages with their Gassho-style houses subsisted on the cultivation of mulberry trees and the rearing of silkworms. The large houses with their steeply pitched thatched roofs are the only examples of their kind in Japan. Despite economic upheavals, the villages of Ogimachi, Ainokura and Suganuma are outstanding examples of a traditional way of life perfectly adapted to the environment and people's social and economic circumstances.

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Japan: Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara

Nara was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784. During this period the framework of national government was consolidated and Nara enjoyed great prosperity, emerging as the fountainhead of Japanese culture. The city's historic monuments – Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and the excavated remains of the great Imperial Palace – provide a vivid picture of life in the Japanese capital in the 8th century, a period of profound political and cultural change.

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Todai-Ji 

Japan: Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities)

Built in A.D. 794 on the model of the capitals of ancient China, Kyoto was the imperial capital of Japan from its foundation until the middle of the 19th century. As the centre of Japanese culture for more than 1,000 years, Kyoto illustrates the development of Japanese wooden architecture, particularly religious architecture, and the art of Japanese gardens, which has influenced landscape gardening the world over.

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Kiyomizu-dera

Japan: Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome)

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. Through the efforts of many people, including those of the city of Hiroshima, it has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. Not only is it a stark and powerful symbol of the most destructive force ever created by humankind; it also expresses the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons.

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