Featured My Family's 50 year mystery

Hello, my mother and her sister immigrated from Hiroshima Japan in the early 60's and my aunt cleared out houses to be demolished to make room for new building to earn money for their plane fare. She found this pot wrapped in rice paper in the bottom of a cabinet. Over the years we have tried to find out more about it but so far all we have found is that the houses being demolished were temporary housing for scientists who came to study the after effects of the bomb. Any ideas at all would definitely make me a hit at the next family get together. It is about 3 3/4" tall and 4" in diameter.

Mystery Find by Eileen Jones posted Oct 20, 2019 at 9:13 PM

Side View by Eileen Jones posted Oct 20, 2019 at 9:14 PM

Bottom View by Eileen Jones posted Oct 20, 2019 at 9:15 PM

Top side view by Eileen Jones posted Oct 20, 2019 at 9:15 PM

 

Yayoi Doki
might I suggest looking in this direction...



or




a little left of center on the middle shelf..???

 

No guarantees, but take a look at Sueki Hasou kofun period Sanage Silla pottery

 

that may be closer than my suggestion........

 

I cannot thank you enough, you have gotten me closer in just a few hours than twenty some family members have in 50 years. I am astonished and so grateful.

 

Welcome Eileen, your family's mystery is a beauty.

It could be Neolithic, and I would say Japan, not Korea. I would look at Jomon ware, the earliest Japanese pottery.
Iron Age ware from the Yayoi period, which komo mentioned, is an option.
Haji is another name, haji ware manufacture started in the Kofun period which blooey mentioned. The Kofun period came after Yayoi.

A little about the other names mentioned:
- Sueki or Sue ware is grey.
- Silla, which is in Korea, is unlikely imo.
- Sanage ware only appeared ca 1000 yrs ago. Old, but too recent. The Sanage ware I know is partly glazed, so I would leave Sanage out of the search as well.

Is there a museum or archaeology department you could take it to? I don't think we have anyone on the forum who knows enough to say anything for sure, other than pre-historic to early ancient periods. But at least we gave you a little push.
Will you let us know how your search goes?

 

hey, we're antiquers...not tomb raiders !!

 

The terms I posted were to get the OP to the google page that showed the piece ..the ebay seller that had the pot put all those countries/eras in the title to get hits, a common practice. Obviously the piece is Japanese.

 

Again I cannot thank you all enough. I am in Arizona so am going to check with ASU to see if they might direct me to someone at the university. I will keep you posted. Thank you Thank you Thank you.

 

Very unlikely you will get any pointers from ASU - you would be better off sending a picture to a Japanese Museum directly imho.

 

I agree with blooey that a museum would be the best resource. I do hope you will share the results when you learn more about it, I think the piece is fascinating!

 

blooey, you are allowed to post an url or link on this forum. No problem as long as it is for information instead of advertising.

I know, we used to have several webshops (and a bricks and mortar shop a lifetime ago). We only used relevant keywords though, no keyword spamming.