This is a pot from the Jōmon Era of Japan, one of the oldest ceramics-making cultures in the world (about 10,000BCE-300 BCE; Kenrick, 23). One of the key characteristics of Jōmon pottery is the intricate linework and patternmaking. In fact, Jōmon in Japanese literally means “cord-marked,” alluding to its intricate style (Kobayashi, 25). The Jōmon were hunter-gatherers (Nabu and Hall, 90) that lived in small sedentary communities (Kobayashi, 100-4). Ceramic pots were used to store a myriad of foods, such as deer, wild boar, tanuki (raccoon dog), fish, and nuts.

Of course, the question remains: Why is Jōmon pottery so ornate? We don’t know much about Jōmon culture beyond what they left behind, but there may have been a difference between pottery with utilitarian and ceremonial purposes. Many of the earliest pots from the Incipient Jōmon and Early Jōmon periods (10,000 BCE-7,500 BCE and 7,500 BC-4,500 BC, respectively) have a flat, square base or a rounded bottom, much like a bullet. This may indicate that Jōmon pots were initially made to resemble previous antecedents, like animal skin sacks or fiber baskets (Kedrick 51-2). By contrast, the Middle Phase (3,000-2,000 BCE) had more flamboyant decorations and often employed large, even unwieldy handles like you can see in the picture above. Therefore, these pots may have been made for more artistic or ritual purposes based on their utilitarian antecedents (53-4).

Though thousands of years have passed, the artistic legacy of Jōmon pottery has continued to inspire the works of today. One of the strongest recent examples has been the video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, released in March 2017 for the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo Switch. The game is set in a world filled with relics of the fictitious Sheikah tribe. The ornate designs of this civilization were directly inspired by the Jomōn, according to art director Satoru Taikzawa:

“The Jōmon period in Japanese history was the inspiration for the Sheikah Slate, shrines, and all other ancient objects in the game. We ended up taking that aesthetic and using it as a base to expand upon for the game’s ancient civilizations. The reason for this was because the Jōmon period is relatively unknown to the rest of the world. It has a nuance of history and wonder that we found really appealing” (Nintendo of America, 7:52-8:57).

The creative flourishes of Jōmon pottery are a testament to the enduring legacy of design. The Jōmon were some of the first people on earth to adopt pots as utilitarian objects and to create new designs from them. Hopefully, the creative spark of human work with clay will last thousands of more years.

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Sources

Boaretto, Elisabetta, et al., “Radiocarbon Dating of Charcoal and Bone Collagen Associated With Early Pottery at Yuchanyan Cave in Hunan Province, China.”, PNAS, vol. 106, no. 24, 2009, pp. 9595-600.

Kedrick, Douglas. Jomon of Japan: The World’s OldestPottery, Keegan Paul International, 1995.

Kobayashi, Tatsuo. Jomon Reflections: Forager Life andCulture in the Prehistoric Japanese Archipelago, edited by Simon Kaner andOki Nakamura, Oxbow Books, 2004.

Habu, Junko and Mark E. Hall, “Jomon Pottery Production inCentral Japan.” Asian Perspectives, vol. 38, no. 1, 199, pp. 90-110.

“The Making of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Video– The Beginning.” YouTube, uploaded by Nintendo of America, 14 March2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30jGWna4-Ns&t=235s.