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THE BRITISH LIBRARY'S SADO MINING SCROLLS HAMISH TODD AMONG the nearly eleven hundred works acquired by the British Museum from the collection of Philipp Franz von Siebold^ in 1868 were three hand-painted scrolls depicting mining activities on the Japanese island of Sado. The scrolls belong to a genre of manuscripts known as Kinzan emaki #|IJ^# (Illustrated scrolls of gold mines)^ or Kwginzan emaki 4?IIUJ^# (Illustrated scrolls of gold and silver mines), which provide a detailed representation of both the underground mine workings and the various refining processes and administrative operations that went on above ground. Sado, an island measuring 857 square kilometres, lies thirty-five kilometres off the north-west coast of Honshu. For over eleven centuries from 702 it was a province in its own right but on the establishment of the prefectural system of local administration in 1871 it became part of Niigata Prefecture. Today it is well known as the home of the Kodo drummers but in the past its claims to fame were as a place of exile for disgraced notables^ and, more relevant to this article, as a source of gold and other precious metals. The earliest reference to gold from Sado is to be found in the Konjaku monogatarishu ^^^M^ (Collection of tales now past)'* which dates from the early twelfth century. One of the stories describes how the Governor of Noto, having heard of the abundance of gold on Sado, sends iron-workers to the island to bring some back. This story is generally thought to refer to gold-panning rather than to actual mining and for many centuries it was this alluvial gold, with some silver, dug from the sands of the seashore that constituted Sado's riches. During the latter half of the sixteenth century the exploitation of auriferous copper containing small amounts of gold and silver, mined from the hard rock in underground workings, allowed the island's full potential as a source of precious metals to be developed. Following the arrival in Japan of the Portuguese missionaries and traders, the increased need for gold and silver for trade acted as an incentive for the exploitation of Sado's mineral resources. A merchant called Toyama Mouemon ^UJ/^^f^P^ opened the first mine at Tsurushi in 1542. Then in 1589 the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi ®g:^^ (1537-98) ordered the samurai Uesugi Kagekatsu ±.Vi>f^B (1555-1623) to take troops to the island to seize control of the mine. Five years later, anxious to finance his campaign against Korea, Hideyoshi sent mining experts to the island to speed up production. Following the death of Hideyoshi and the rise to power of Tokugawa Ieyasu 130

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THE BRITISH LIBRARY'S SADO MINING

SCROLLS

HAMISH TODD

A M O N G the nearly eleven hundred works acquired by the British Museum from thecollection of Philipp Franz von Siebold^ in 1868 were three hand-painted scrollsdepicting mining activities on the Japanese island of Sado. The scrolls belong to a genreof manuscripts known as Kinzan emaki # | IJ^# (Illustrated scrolls of gold mines)^ orKwginzan emaki 4 ? I I U J ^ # (Illustrated scrolls of gold and silver mines), which providea detailed representation of both the underground mine workings and the variousrefining processes and administrative operations that went on above ground.

Sado, an island measuring 857 square kilometres, lies thirty-five kilometres off thenorth-west coast of Honshu. For over eleven centuries from 702 it was a province in itsown right but on the establishment of the prefectural system of local administration in1871 it became part of Niigata Prefecture. Today it is well known as the home of theKodo drummers but in the past its claims to fame were as a place of exile for disgracednotables^ and, more relevant to this article, as a source of gold and other precious metals.

The earliest reference to gold from Sado is to be found in the Konjaku monogatarishu^ ^ ^ M ^ (Collection of tales now past)'* which dates from the early twelfth century. Oneof the stories describes how the Governor of Noto, having heard of the abundance of goldon Sado, sends iron-workers to the island to bring some back. This story is generallythought to refer to gold-panning rather than to actual mining and for many centuries itwas this alluvial gold, with some silver, dug from the sands of the seashore thatconstituted Sado's riches. During the latter half of the sixteenth century the exploitationof auriferous copper containing small amounts of gold and silver, mined from the hardrock in underground workings, allowed the island's full potential as a source of preciousmetals to be developed. Following the arrival in Japan of the Portuguese missionaries andtraders, the increased need for gold and silver for trade acted as an incentive for theexploitation of Sado's mineral resources. A merchant called Toyama Mouemon^UJ/^^f^P^ opened the first mine at Tsurushi in 1542. Then in 1589 the warlordToyotomi Hideyoshi ®g :^^ (1537-98) ordered the samurai Uesugi Kagekatsu ±.Vi>f^B(1555-1623) to take troops to the island to seize control of the mine. Five years later,anxious to finance his campaign against Korea, Hideyoshi sent mining experts to theisland to speed up production.

Following the death of Hideyoshi and the rise to power of Tokugawa Ieyasu

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(1542-1616) the new Tokugawa government also began to take an interest in Sado andits riches. In 1600 the island was placed under the direct control of the Shogunate withan official called the Sado datkan '^miXt: (Deputy for Sado) and later the Sado bugyo\^m.^n (Commissioner for Sado) in charge of operations. Initially the focus of activitywas the Tsurushi mine but during the tenure of the first Sado datkan, Tanaka Seiroku15 4^^7^ , came the discovery of the Aikawa mine which was to prove the most importantand profitable of all those on the island. To encourage the development of miningoperations the Shogunate introduced a system called unjo nymatsusei '^}LMIV\ (levybidding) whereby prospectors were given freedom to search for deposits of gold andsilver. If they were successful in finding ore they were permitted to exploit it to recouptheir costs over a specified period. Thereafter every ten days an auction was held at whichcontractors submitted bids {nyusatsu) of how much levy (unjo) they would pay andmining rights were awarded to the highest bidder.^

In 1603 Ieyasu appointed Okubo Nagayasu X^^^"^ (1545-1613), who was, like hispredecessor, an experienced and able administrator trusted by the Shogun, to take chargeof operations on Sado. Nagayasu was responsible for technological and administrativeimprovements which considerably increased the profitability of the mines for thegovernment. He established his office (Jin^ya WM. or Bugyosho ^tfpff) at Aikawa andrevised the way in which the mines were managed. Although the unjo nyusatsu procedurehad succeeded in stimulating the opening of new mines and productivity in the shortterm, it did not provide resources for the necessary long-term investment and soNagayasu initiated the nmake ^ ^ (division of profits) system. The precise details ofthis altered over the years but its basic principle was that in jikiyama Ef-U (literally'directly controlled mountains' (i.e. mines)) the Bugyosho provided funds for majorworks such as tunnelling, improving drainage and introducing new technology. It alsopaid for materials and equipment. The ore extracted from the mine was divided with themine operator (j/amanushi i ^ i ) . The rate varied over the course of the Edo Period(1600-1868) starting at around forty per cent for the Bugyosho but as the Shogunate tookon more and more aspects of running the mines this increased to more than sixty percent. Other privately run mines {jibunyama U >UJ ), although under the ultimate controlof the Bugyosho, were left to the day-to-day control of entrepreneurs who did not receivesubsidies and who paid a straight levy on the ore they extracted.

The Archimedes screw pump (suijorin i^^M) was first introduced in 1618, in an effortto tackle the perennial problem of flooding, and this heralded Sado's most productiveperiod. During the 1620s it is estimated that an average of six to nine tonnes of gold andsilver were extracted annually. But the boom was short-lived and by the middle of theseventeenth century the industry was in decline for a variety of reasons. Following theclosing of the country to all but a handful of foreigners in 1639 overseas trade wasdrastically reduced and the value of gold and silver declined. The search for new oredeposits led to the digging of ever deeper tunnels. The expense of constructing them andkeeping them from flooding caused costs to climb steeply and the Shogunate's annualrevenue decreased, dropping from over 6,000 kan (22,500 kilogrammes)** of gold and

silver in the 1620s to less than 1,000 kan (3,750 kilogrammes) by the end of the 1660s,In 1651 the government ordered the closure of the less profitable mines. When a newBugyo Hagiwara Shigehide i iiriM^ was appointed in 1690 he made a concerted effort torevive operations and invested heavily, including the excavation of a new thousand-yard-long drainage tunnel. As a result of his efforts revenue rose to 2,000 kan (7,500kilogrammes) per annum in the first decade of the eighteenth century but thereafter thedecline continued with the Tokugawa Bakufu reluctant to risk further spending, and bythe 1730S its income from the mines had fallen to 300 kan (1,125 kilogrammes).

It was not until the beginning of the Meiji Period that matters improved. Followingthe end of its seclusion policy the Shogunate dispatched an Enghsh mining expert,Erasmus Gower (1830-1903), to Sado to make a thorough survey of the mines. Hearrived in January 1868, just as the Tokugawa regime was collapsing, and had to returnto Tokyo almost immediately. In 1869 the new government took over the mines on Sadoand sent Gower back to the island to resume his work. He remained until 1872 and withother foreign experts arranged for the provision of more modern equipment in the hopesof resuscitating the mining industry.

In 1886 the Meiji government decided to introduce non-convertible paper currency.The need to produce silver coinage to exchange for this brought about a revival in Sado'sfortunes and in that year its mines produced 36 kan of gold and 938 kan of silver. Tenyears later the island's mining operations, together with those at Ikuno in HyogoPrefecture and the Osaka Refinery were sold to the Mitsubishi Company for 1,730,000yen. Mining continued on a small scale until the last mine finally closed in July 1985. Ithas since been reopened as a museum.

SADO MINING SCROLLS IN GENERAL

The first of the mining scrolls is believed to be Shokasegikata emakf i l ^ : ^ ^ # ,commissioned by the Sado bugyo during the Kyoho Period (1716-1736). It underwentmajor revisions in 1759 and again in 1819 to refiect various changes in the technologyemployed or in the administration of the mines.

Kinzan emaki were produced in some numbers during the Edo Period and depictmany different mine sites around Japan.^ A survey of scrolls representing the Sado minescarried out by the TEM Research Institute as part of their preparations for constructinga scale model of the Aikawa mine^ found seventeen scrolls on Sado itself and twenty-three elsewhere in Japan. Ford and Brown^*' mention three scrolls in the UnitedKingdom, although, interestingly, not the British Library's, and examples are known inother European collections.^^ Although scrolls depicting other sites are found, themajority represent mines on Sado.

The Sado scrolls were painted by artists, known as ezushi ^[Uffi, who were employedby the Shogunate office in charge of the island's mining activities, the Bugyosho. The firstof these was Yamao Kakken \hMM%i , who was appointed by Hagiwara Yoshiharu

V^ Sado bugyo from 1732 to 1736. Their primary purpose was to provide an

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accurate representation of the complicated workings of the mines, both below and aboveground for the benefit of the hugyo and other officials appointed by Edo every few years.Since their function was to explain the current state of operations it was necessary to havea new scroll prepared when changes in working methods or adminstrative proceduresoccurred. Scrolls would also have been sent back to the government in Edo to keep itinformed of developments. The bugyo and other officials may have received copies of thescrolls as keepsakes when their term of appointment came to an end. What bettermemento of one's tour of duty as an official on Sado than to have a copy of one of thescrolls made.'

It is interesting that the number of scrolls seems to have proliferated in inverseproportion to the productivity of the mines. One explanation is that their role came tobe less didactic and more artistic. Quite apart from differences in content there is anenormous variety in the artistic merit of the extant scrolls. Some are simple pen and inkdrawings on paper, others, like the British Library's, are skilfully and elaborately paintedon silk. Clearly the latter must be seen as art objects rather than simple text books.Following the opening of the country to foreigners in the 1850s the authorities realizedthat a copy of one of these illustrated manuscripts would make an excellent gift for avisiting expert or notable, which is how many have passed into Western collections.Unfortunately there is no record of Siebold's ever having visited Sado so the likelihoodis that he acquired his from a bookdealer on the mainland.

THE B R I T I S H LIBRARY S SCROLLS

In a letter dated 20 June 1868 to Thomas Watts of the British Museum which describesthe contents of his father's collection, Alexander von Siebold mentions a number of worksin a category entitled 'Gold, silver and copper coins' which included the three Sadomining scrolls. These were added to the British Museum oriental manuscript collectionand assigned the numbers Or. 918, Or. 919 and Or. 920. In 1973 the Museum'sDepartment of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts was transferred to the newlyestablished British Library and the scrolls now form part of the Japanese collection ofthe Library's Oriental and India Office Collections. The three scrolls, in fact, constitutea single manuscript which shows in minute detail the processes involved in the extractionand processing of the ore as well as the administrative and commercial activitiesassociated with the mines.

The British Library manuscript does not have one overall title; instead each of thethree scrolls has a gold paper slip glued to its outer cover bearing an individual title whichis taken from the caption accompanying the first scene on each scroll. Thus Or. 918 isKobandokoro ntte sujigane tamabuki no zu 'b'¥\rfi—"r^^'^\^X~^^ (Illustrations showing thesmelting of gold balls in the mint). Or. 919 is Dotokoya^''^ no zu ^0f.M^^ (Illustra-tions of the copper smeltery) and Or. 920 is Kinginzan shikinaioka kasegikata no zu:^0Uj|feF^[^^:^5:iE](Illustrations of working methods inside the gold and silver mines).Comparison with other known scrolls of this type reveals that Or. 920 is actually the first

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part of the manuscript. Or. 919 the second and Or. 918 the third. Clearly the memberot the British Museum staff who assigned the manuscript numbers well over a centuryago was not aware of this nor, it would seem, was von Siebold since two of the scrollsstill bear labels with the numbers they had in his collection. Or. 919 is 398 and Or. 920is 397. Or. 918 has lost its label at some point so there is no way of knowing whether itwas 396 or 399. Given that the sequence of the scrolls as indicated by their shelfmarksis incorrect, it seems reasonable to apply the title Kinginzan shikinaioka kasegikata no zu,the title of Or. 920, to the whole manuscript.

Each scroll is made up of a number of silk panels, backed with Japanese mica-embossed paper and glued together. A white silk edging has been added to the top andbottom of each panel. A brown brocade cover with gold floral designs is attached at thebeginning of the scroll while the end of each is fixed to a wooden roller. The width ofthe scrolls is consistently 23.5 centimetres for the painted portion with a further icentimetre edge top and bottom making a total width of 25.5 centimetres. However, itis clear that the scrolls have been trimmed since in some places the captions to theillustrations are cut off at the edge. The length of the individual panels variesconsiderably, averaging around 120 centimetres. Or. 920 has seven panels while Or. 919and Or. 918 each have six. The overall lengths are 822 centimetres for Or. 920, 714centimetres for Or. 919 and 752 centimetres for Or. 918, giving a grand total of 2,288centimetres.

The precise dating of Kinzan emaki is extremely difficult. Only a very few examplesbear any date or indication of the artist. Attempts at identification have to be made onthe basis of the internal evidence provided by the scenes depicted, taking into accountdevelopments in mining technology, buildings, changes in the management andadministration of the mines and even the costumes and hairstyles of the people shown.

For example, the Yoseseriba ^ ) ^ ^ , where the grading of the ore took place, wasconstructed in 1759. Since this building is depicted in the second of the British Library'sscrolls, Dotokoya no zu, the manuscript must have been drawn after this date. This issupported by the type of lighting shown in the mines: the distinctive iron oil lamps,know'n as tsuritomoshi (^It), replaced the earlier wooden torches during the 1750s.Another useful aid to dating is the type of bellows being used to heat the furnaces in thesmithies and smelting workshops. Originally each furnace had its own set of bellowsifuigo W ) alongside it operated by a man called a fuigosashi | i ^ . This arrangement wascalled kataftiigo W^% ('one-side-bellows'). From the Kansei Era (1789-1801) the declinein productivity and a resultant need to reduce the work force led to the introduction ofa system called ryobuchifuigo \^WM ('both-sides-bellows') where one set of bellows wasplaced between two furnaces, thus halving the number of operatives required. Theillustrations in the Library's scrolls show only katafuigo and it is therefore reasonable toassume that the scroll depicts activities before 1789. It can thus be concluded withreasonable confidence that the manuscript represents the appearance of the minesbetween 1759 and 1789. It does not, however, necessarily follow that that is when thescrolls were painted. Although the main variants of the genre can be roughly dated from

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their content as noted above, copies of each of them went on being produced forconsiderable periods.

One of the few examples o^ Sado kinzan emaki for which an artist can be identified isin the possession of Aikawa Local Museum (Aikawa Kyodo Hakubutsukan lJfon Sado. Entitled Kinginzan emaki it is known to be the work of Ishii Natsumi(1782-1848). Its overall length is almost exactly the same as the British Librarymanuscript although it is divided into two rather than three scrolls. Its content is almostidentical and it is very similar in artistic style. Although no external corroborating proofexists that our manuscript is also by Ishii Natsumi, it is certainly a tantalizing possibility.Even if one rejects this hypothesis it is still highly likely that the two manuscripts werepainted at roughly the same period: around 1810 to 1820.

CONTENT OF THE SCROLLS

The first portion of the manuscript, scroll Or. 920 Kinginzan shiktnaioka kasegikata nozu, shows the activities underground in the mine itself, from the entrance, known as thekama no kuchi ^ p or J mouth of the cauldron', over which hangs an invocatory plaqueto the mountain deity Oyamatsumi;^Uj^lt, on one side of the mountain to the exit on theother. The first figures encountered are mine workers called niage horiko ^ ^ ^ T - ,1^whose job it was to bring the mined ore up to the surface. Clad in cotton jackets andleggings (kyahan mm), with straw sandals (maraji ^^ ) and a cloth turban, they canbe seen ascending and descending by means of ladders made from logs into which stepshave been cut (marukibashigo ^ ^ ^ ^ ) or, where the gradient was too steep for this, bymeans of short wooden steps inserted into the rock on either side of the passage (uchikaet^m ) . They carry small lamps (tsuri ^ or tsuritomoshi mm) made of an iron dish tohold the oil attached to a long iron handle. The lamps could also be wedged into crevicesin the rock to provide a fixed light for the miners. On their backs the mage horiko carrystraw sacks (kamasu "A) which, when full of ore, would weigh 20 kilogrammes and werechecked by an inspector who sat near the exit to keep a tally of production.

Further along the miners themselves, the kanahori daiku ^ ^ ^ x , are to be seen,seated cross-legged and bare-chested on small straw mats. They use long-handledtongs called uedabashi ±03"^ to hold the iron wedges or 'gads' (tagane m ) which werehammered into the rock to split it open. The miners worked in pairs in eight-hour shiftsand while one laboured at the rock face his partner would take his meal and rest breaks.The conditions must have been grim indeed. The average dimensions of the tunnels were2.4 metres in height and 1.8 metres in width and it has been calculated that a minerwould be able to advance between 9 and 19 centimetres per day depending on thehardness of the rock. The number of miners varied considerably depending on theproductivity of the mines: during the boom of the early 1600s there were up to 450 butthis had dropped to ninety by the middle of the next century.

At the same time, elsewhere in the mine, the search for new seams is going on. A group

of officials including xheyamanushi, the mine operator, the surveyor called xhtfuriganeshill teSifi (literally the 'master of wielding the ruler') and the mining inspectors arediscussing the best location for a new tunnel while the contractor, the kengiri ukenushifHi J.=fli , who will actually do the work sits and waits. In a small concession to healthand safety at work they wear protective pads (lehen JM^Jl), made from twisted paperstring, tied over their cloth turbans.

Flooding posed a perpetual threat and control of water in the mines was a primeconcern. Various methods of drainage were devised over the years. The most basic wasremoving the water by a hand-operated system of buckets and pulleys, a process calledteguri mizukae ^W^^ , which transferred the water into the long drainage channelsthrough which it flowed out of the mine. The Archimedes screw was also widely usedon Sado from the mid seventeenth century but does not appear in use inside the mineon the British Library scroll. Another problem was ventilation. In an attempt to removethe foul air, filled with smoke from the lamps and fires, dust, and the smell of humanwaste, mechanical fans of a type known as a 'blow George' were introduced to the mines.Called kazamawashi toumi IEl[Hl/tK ('wind-turning Chinese fans') they were based onwinnowing fans introduced from China at the end of the seventeenth century. Theyconsisted of wooden drums with a handle which, when turned, moved blades inside thedrum to draw air through a series of wooden ducts from the outside into the depths of

the mine (Plate Va).Another important category of workers shown on the scroll are the carpenters or

yamadome daiku LJJ^^X responsible for constructing the wooden supports (yamadome),platforms, steps and ladders used in the mines. They were assisted by the tetsudai horiko^•fE#^ who carried the pit props down to the tunnels where they were required andassembled them, and the choba horiko T ^ ^ ^ who removed the waste rubble.

Approximately half the first scroll is taken up with the activities underground but thenthe focus shifts to surface operations. Outside the mine the first building encountered isa small hut called the Yokohikiba 1 1*i where the bags of ore (kusari m )^^ brought upby the mage horiko were weighed while nearby the carpenters are busy fashioning pitprops. A little further on is one of the kajigoya m'i^'hM. , the workshops for theblacksmiths (kajtgata m^:^) who made the metal tools, wedges, nails and so on used inthe mines. Making the gads or tagane was a major part of their work since each one wouldlast only two or three shifts before it broke or became too blunt. Teams of smiths workedday and night to keep up with demand. Mention has already been made of the bellowsused to keep the furnaces in the smithy at the right temperature. Although the BritishLibrary scroll shows them simply as square shapes behind each furnace, other sourcesshow that they were rectangular airtight boxes made of thin wooden boards. Inside wasa piston with a long handle and pushing this backwards and forwards created thedraught. The pistons were covered in badger skin and the demand was such that badgerswere driven to extinction on Sado. Depending on the size of the bellows they requiredone or two operators (fuigosashi or fuigosasht horiko) and it is interesting to note that thescroll shows them being worked by young boys. This was just one of the jobs that

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children performed around the mines until from the age of fourteen or fifteen the boyswere allowed to work inside the mine itself.

Women also figure frequently in the scenes. One of their main tasks was to remove thewaste material from the ore to leave behind the portion containing the gold and silver,a process known as ishieri ;&gt. This was done in a building called the tateba mm whichcontained a large water-filled tank. The women, known as ishierime ^ ^ : ^ , placed the orein sieves and washed it in the water, then chipped away the unwanted lode with hammersunder the watchful eye of supervisors (Plate Vb).

The next section of the scroll shows the bustling interior of the Yottsudome banshoEl 'y§#^ , the administrative centre for the mine. In one part of the building arestorerooms: the sumi nay a ^ g where supplies of charcoal for the blacksmiths' furnaceswere kept and the tomegi naya ^i^'^m. for the pit props and other wood used in themines. In another is the abura bansho^^W\ or 'oil office' responsible for providing theoil for the miners' lamps and other items such as the metal gads. There is the accountsoffice where the book-keeper is shown with his abacus, carefully recording all thetransactions, hours worked, wages to be paid and so forth, while in the next room thereis a meeting of the managers and senior administrators of the mine.

The Yottsudome bansho was also the place where the ore was graded for sale to thesmelters. At one end of the building one of the ishierime is delivering a consignment ofore which is examined by officials, placed into sacks and labelled according to itsquality. In an annexe at the other end of the building the smelting contractors or kaishi«;& are examining samples of the ore which they will then bid for at auction. Thisprocess was known as niuri ^^ and took place every ten days.

To ensure that no potentially valuable minerals were overlooked, the materialdiscarded by the ishierime was checked over in the dobegoya,^^ small sheds consisting ofa pit dug into the ground with a sloping thatched roof constructed over them. Here mencalled dobehon sieved the waste ore they had collected and sold any small quantities ofgold or silver that they found to the smelters or direct to the Bugyosho.

The final stage in the administrative process shown in the scroll is the division of theproceeds between the mine operator, the contractors and the Bugyosho, the mwakereferred to above. Once this was completed the ore was sewn into sacks and carried outthrough the mine gate called the Ai noyamaguchi TPILUP where it was loaded onto oxento be carried off to the smelting works. The first scroll ends with a scene of life in thenearby town of Aikawa where the mine workers lived. There are off-duty minersdrinking sake in the wineshop, shops selling torches, baskets and other equipment, a fish-seller and children playing in the street - perhaps it was their day off or perhaps theywere still too young to be employed at the mine. From its origins as a small fishing villageof around fifty to sixty houses with a population of two to three hundred at the beginningof the seventeenth century Aikawa grew rapidly as the mines developed. Estimates of thetotal population vary widely but it is believed that by 1629 when the boom was at itsheight there were 3,790 houses with a total of more than 200,000 inhabitants.^'^

The second scroll, Or. 919 Dotokoya no zu, opens with the processing of copper in the

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copper smeltery or Dotokoya m^Mm . The order of the elements in the extant scrollsvaries and in many the Dotokoya comes at the end of the manuscript after the scenes ofgold and silver smelting with which it shared many common features. A description ofthese processes is given below in the section dealing with the Yoseseriba}''

From the copper works we move to the coast of Sado where we see the extraction ofalluvial gold and silver from the sand on the beaches (hamanagashi Wik ) by means ofa technique called ' sluicing' or nekonagashi t^ ij L. Sand was collected, placed in sievesor on w oven mats and sluiced in a stream or water-channel to wash away the lighter sand,leaving behind any traces of gold or silver. Where no running water was available a pitwas dug on the beach and filled with water. An Archimedes screw is shown drawing thewater up out of the pit to form a flow that could be used for sluicing. The material wasfurther processed in a building called the Hamanagashi no seriba using technologydiscussed below.

After this brief excursion outdoors the action moves back to the buildings near themine and into the Yoseseriba ^ ^ ^ . This was an extremely busy place echoing with thesounds of hammers and grindstones and forming the centre for the concentration of theore won from the mines. As was noted above there were other seriba where other materialwas dealt with - for example, the copper and the alluvial gold and silver - but thecomplex series of processes was fundamentally the same in each. At the entrance and exitof the Yoseseriba was a checkpoint where the passes of workers and officials wereinspected. On the way out people were subjected to extremely thorough body searchesto ensure that they had no scraps of ore or refined gold or silver concealed in theirclothing or about their persons!

The various stages by which the precious metals were won from the ore were knowncollectively as konashi fuf& and the first of these, pulverization or ishihataki fD , tookplace in an area called the Kanaba ^ ^ . On the British Library scroll this contains fourkanabaishi ^i i-^ - large blocks of black stone, either andesite or basalt, each with a ^hollow dug into the top of it. Into this ore was placed and then pounded with an ironhammer weighing four to five kilogrammes. On average a worker would pulverize thirtyto thirty-five kilogrammes of ore per day.

The pulverized ore was then sieved using an uma no ofurui M(OW^U (literally 'horsetailsieve'); by means of a series of sieves of different fineness it was possible to separate theore into various constituents: ore containing principally gold (mizusuji TKISE ) and thatcontaining principally silver (ymrunono ik^ ) . The rest of the material which could notbe separated easily in this way was sent for further processing.

This was achieved by grinding or usuhiki M^. The grindstones (ishiusu ^ ^ )consisted of two parts: a lower stone which stood in a shallow trough of water and anupper stone to which a long wooden handle was attached. The ore was placed into a holein the top of the upper stone, water was added and the stone was rotated by two or threeworkers pushing and pulling on the handle. This process reduced the ore to theconsistency of mud which was then scooped out of the trough and placed into water-filled tubs called lateoke <LX\^ (Plate Via).

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PLATE V

(a) View inside the mine showing in the centre the *blow George' fan. At the bottom leftworkers armed with buckets are busy removing water. Or. 920 (detail)

g ^ ^

(b) Above: the blacksmiths' workshop; below: the ishierime washing the ore and removing theunwanted lode. Or. 920 (detail)

PLATE VI

(a) Grinding and sieving the ore. To the left can be seen the wooden troughs for nekonagashi withthe nekobaba's empty platform. Or. 919 (detail)

(b) The cementation process, showing (bottom) the large wooden shioawasebune where powderedgold was mixed with salt and (top) the nagakamado where cones of the resulting mixture werebaked. Or. 918 (detail)

By stirring the sludge the gravimetric principle was used to separate the differentminerals, the heavier ones sinking to the bottom, the lighter ones remaining suspendedin the water. Next a slightly concave wooden jig (yuri-ita ^ tS) was used to agitate theprecipitate in a vat of water so that the heavier particles, notably the gold and silver,stayed on the edge of the pan while the lighter ones were washed away.

The water containing the finer particles was put into a large wooden tank called anuwabune .t^. To extract the very small particles this water was subjected to the processoi' nekonagashi already referred to. This involved a series of wooden troughs 3.5 metreslong and 24 centimetres wide which were constructed on a gradient of i in 12 and intoeach of which a length of cotton cloth was laid. Water from the uwabune flowed over themand the gold and silver were precipitated onto the cloth which was then rinsed in a tuband sieved once more. Much of this work was done by women and many scrolls, althoughsadly not the British Library's, show a female supervisor sitting on a platform over theheadtank. This was the nekobaba and she is thought to be the origin of the Japaneseexpression nekobaba 0 kimeru which means to 'embezzle', which does not say much forher reputation for honesty! ^

Even the richest ore contained only small amounts of silver and gold, along with alarge proportion of copper, and so it was necessary to concentrate the metal. The varioussteps in this process were carried out in a building called the Yosedokoya ^M whosemost striking feature was the tall towers of the blast-furnaces or otoko ±1^ . These werewooden constructions with a hearth (ro '^) and set of box-bellows at the bottom anda chimney (kemuridashiMl^ L ) at the top. Each furnace was worked by a smelter called^fukidaiku P^:;'VXassisted by a man or boy to operate the bellows. Firstly, the auriferouscopper was smelted with lead which attracted the silver to itself. Next, thegold/silver/lead alloy was taken to an area called the Haifukidoko mX^^ where it wassubjected to roasting or 'air scorification' in an ash-lined iron dish or 'cupel' so that thelead oxidized, leaving behind the molten silver and any gold it might contain. Thisprinciple of cupellation or haifuktho mXii: was introduced from Korea during the earlypart of the sixteenth century and is first recorded in use in Japan at mines in Iwami in1533. The gold and silver could then be separated by melting them repeatedly withsulphur which combined with the silver to form silver sulphide and then removing thelatter to leave behind the gold, termed sujigane %^}^

The second of the British Library scrolls ends at this point and the third. Or. 918Kobandokoro nite sujigane tamabuki no zu, is concerned with the production of coinageusing the precious metal obtained by the operations shown in the first two.

The Kobandokoro^^ was the mint in which small coins called koban /J ij ^ wereproduced. The koban, which had a face value of one ryo m , was introduced by TokugawaIeyasu at the beginning of the seventeenth century and remained in general circulationthroughout the Edo Period. It consisted of a thin piece of gold cut in an oval measuring3.5 X 7.5 centimetres and weighing 4.76 momme (17.85 grammes).^^ Initially a koban was84.29 per cent gold so that a ryo was equal to 15 grammes of gold. However, over thenext two and a half centuries the koban were recalled and reissued nine times with their

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gold content being progressively reduced until by the i86os they weighed just 3.3grammes and were only 56 per cent gold.

Before 1622 gold from Sado's mines was taken to Edo for minting but in that yearGoto Shozaburo Mitsutsugu 'ikMf^^^Mit'lk (1571-1625) was ordered to set up a mint onthe island. The Goto family had long enjoyed a reputation as master metalworkers andin 1594 Tokugawa Ieyasu had asked Mitsutsugu to begin minting coins. Once Ieyasubecame Shogun he established a number of gold and silver mints, called kinza ^J^ andginza ^^ respectively^^ as part of his strategy to control the nation's economic andcommercial life. Successive generations of the Goto family held the office of gokinginaratameyaku M<^M'^'^ (Inspector of Gold and Silver Mints) or X^ltr gokin aratameyakui efe K (Inspector of Gold Mints) until 1869 when the office was abolished.

At the beginning of the third scroll the sujigane is being cut up, washed, melted overa charcoal fire and dried. It is then weighed and wrapped in batches of 500 momme (1,875grammes) by Kobandokoro officials under the scrutiny of Shogunate inspectors {metsukeg-fTJ-). The purity of the gold is then assessed and recorded. The gold obtained by theconcentration described above was generally only 60-70 per cent pure at this stage andfurther refining was needed to render it suitable for the manufacture of coins.

This was achieved using a cementation process called shioyaki S' 3 (lit. 'roasting withsalt') which involved the chloridization of the silver still contained in the sujtgane. Thesujtgane was melted and then scooped onto an iron plate, allowed to cool and ground toa powder. The scroll shows suspended above the SaikindokoW^^ , as the area in whichthis took place was called, a criss-cross construction of wooden planks called a senryodanajSjffl or 'thousand ryo lattice'. This was designed to trap any gold dust mixed with the

smoke from the smelting so that it could be recycled. The powdered gold was mixed withsalt in a large wooden box called a shtoawasebune i^^^^ SLiid the mixture of salt and goldpowder was shaped into cones using a tubular wooden mould. Each cone was placed onan earthenware dish and a small earthenware lid was laid on top before they were putin rows in a long shallow pit called a nagakamado W^ or 'long oven' (Plate Vlb).^^ Thepit was filled with wood and when this was burnt slowly over a period of seven or eighthours, the heat caused the silver particles mixed with the gold to react with the salt toform silver chloride. The cones were carefully removed from the pit with long-handledtongs by workers wearing tall wooden pattens (takageta i^T-li), since the earth was stillvery hot, and tipped into wooden tubs. Next the tubs were stood in a water-filled troughand workers trod the mixture until the silver chloride dispersed.

The gold retrieved in this manner was now called yakigane or yakikin *^^ (literally'roast gold'). It was taken to an area called the MomiganedokoM^^^ or 'Gold-rubbingworkshop' which was also equipped with large water tanks. Into the tanks were placedsmall buckets and on top of them baskets containing the yakigane. By rubbing theyakigane under warm water any remaining salt or waste material was removed. The waterfrom the tanks was sieved to ensure that any small particles of useful minerals wererecovered for recycling.

In the final stage of the refining process the yakigane, now termed momigane ^ ^ or

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^. /. Scenes in the Kobandokoro where the gold is hammered into strips and polished with saltunder the watchful eye of an inspector seated on the platform in the centre. Or. 918 (detail)

'rubbed gold', was melted once more to form balls of gold called yosegane ^ ^ or'gathered gold'. This was the basic material needed for minting the koban (fig. i). Sincepure gold was too soft for the manufacture of coinage a proportion of silver was added toproduce an alloy. As was explained above, the exact ratio varied over the course of theEdo Period but initially 0.75 momme (2.8 grammes) of silver was added to 4 momme (15grammes) of gold. The alloy was melted and poured into shallow, oblong bamboomoulds called takenagashidai ^'(kl--^. Once the metal had cooled it was removed fromthe mould as a metal strip called a nobegane or nobekin 5£^ ('elongated gold') 90centimetres in length and 6 centimetres in width. This was hammered to the requiredthickness of 1.6 millimetres, polished with salt and given a final wash before being sentto the office run by the Goto family, the Goto Yakusho '^B'<^f^ or Gotoza 'ikMf^.. Hereeach strip was stamped with a mark called a gokuin ^^\\ and cut into two. One half wasassessed for quality while the other was tested to see whether it contained copper. Thiswas done by making two small indentations in the middle of the half-strip and touchingthese with a stick of burning hinoki (Japanese cypress) wood, the colour of the resultingsmoke indicating the presence or absence of copper. If it met the prescribed standard itwas certified with another stamp. Next the strips were sent back to the Kobandokorowhere they were each cut into 120 small sections measuring 3 x 1.5 centimetres. Eachof these was then worked into the distinctive elliptical shape of the koban by repeatedheating and hammering. The necessary stamps were applied by the Gotoza inspectorsand finally the coins were dipped in a gold-coloured dye to disguise the whiteish shadecaused by the silver in the alloy. Once polished they were sent to the Bugyosho to bestored in the strongroom or Gokinzo 'i^-^M ready for shipment to Edo. At the height of

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Sado's productivity two or three consignments of coins and refined gold, silver andcopper were dispatched to Edo each year but from 1754 this was reduced to one. Thecargo was taken by ship from Aikawa to Izumosaki where it was loaded onto horses forthe overland journey to the Shogunate accounting office, the Kanjo Bugyosho iti^^tTfiff.

As has been discussed elsewhere in this article the quantity of precious metalsproduced by the mines of Sado fluctuated considerably. The story was fundamentallyone of a decline from the boom period of the early decades of the seventeenth century,interspersed with episodes of increased production following the introduction of newtechnology or the discovery of new seams. The total value of gold and silver mined wasas high as 152,629 ryo in 1623 but had fallen to just 9,084 ryo by 1866. ^

The final scene of this third scroll is a rather naively painted panoramic view of thegold mines and sites for gold-panning to be found in the mountains of Nishimikawa inthe south of the island.

The British Library's three Sado kinzan emaki give a detailed insight into the highlycomplex world of mining in pre-modern Japan. They show in an attractive and livelymanner what went on both below and above ground and provide a wealth of informationfor metallurgists and scientists interested in the techniques, processes and accoutrementsof traditional mining, whilst at the same time giving the more general student fascinatingimages of the daily life and activities of the people of Sado in their attempts to exploittheir island's riches.

The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance ofDr Paul Craddock, Head of the Metals Section,Department of Scientific Research, British Museum,in clarifying some of the more technical aspects oftraditional metallurgical and mining techniques.

1 Von Siebold (1796-1866) had spent the years1823-9 as doctor for the Dutch East IndiaCompany at Deshima. However, almost all theSiebold items now in the British Library werecollected during his second sojourn in Japanbetween 1859 and 1862. For an overview of theSiebold collection, see Yu-Ying Brown, 'TheVon Siebold collection in The British Library',British Library Journal, i (1975)^ PP- 163-70, andii (1976), pp. 38-55. A revised version inJapanese appeared in Shiiboruto no mita Nikonv—^Vu h(/:)EfcP^ (Tokyo: NHK Books,1998).

2 The word kinzan (also sometimes read askanayama) literally means 'gold mountain(s)'.

3 Among those who were exiled to the island werethe Emperor Juntoku (i 197-1242), the Buddhistpriest Nichiren (1222-82) and the dramatistZeami (1363-1443).

4 The story is to be found in vol. 26, no. 15 ofKonjaku monogatari.

1 0

I I

12

13

This system is similar to that wideiy used inEurope at the time and may have been influencedby contacts with the Portuguese and Spanish.One kan = 3.75 kg.Nihon Gakushiin g ^ ^ ± P ^ , Meiji~zen Nihonkog}'d gijutsu hattatsushi a^^pfii P ^ S E ^ ^ i i ^(Tokyo, 1958), p. 212.Nihon no kozan bunka: ezu ga kataru kurashi togijutsu \ii^(Dm.\h%{t:^mtm^M^h\. t&M ,a catalogue of an exhibition held at the NationalScience Museum in Tokyo in 1996, providesillustrations of scrolls depicting more thantwenty different mines.TEM Research Institute (ed.), Zusetsu Sadokinzan [ Ifeteffi UJ (Tokyo, 1985).Trevor D. Ford and Ivor J. Brown, 'Early GoldMining in Japan: the Sado Scrolls', Bulletin ofthe Peak District Mines Historical Society, xii, no.6 (Winter 1995).For a description of Sado scrolls in Germancollections see H. Winkelmann, 'Das Sado-Goldbergwerk auf Japanischen Rollbildern', DerAnschnitt, ix, no. 4 (i957)-These characters may also be read as Doshoya.The word horiko, derived from the verb hornmeaning 'to dig', was a generic term for all the

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workers involved in the mining process, notsimply those who mined the ore. They weredivided into various categories which will beintroduced below.

14 In the scrolls this word is employed rather thanthe more usual koseki ^X.^ .

15 Dobe is a dialect word for 'mud'.16 Hasegawa Riheiji :l©jll*ij^i^ , Sado kingin-

zanshi no kenkyu fe^^lSlil^cofiJf^ (Tokyo,1991), pp. 123-30.

17 For a very detailed explanation of the traditionalJapanese techniques for smelting copper, seeCyril Stanley Smith (ed.), Kodo zuroku: illus-trated book on copper smelting (Norwalk, 1983).

18 A less attractive etymology for the expressionrefers to a cat's habit of burying its faeces.

19 In modern Japanese this expression, which maybe literally translated 'rod-shaped gold', is usedto mean 'metal reinforcement' or to imply that aperson has ' backbone'. In Japanese worksdealing with traditional metallurgical techniques,however, it is normally equated with shizenkin or'natural gold'.

20 This word may also read be as Kobansho orKobanjo but a phonetic transcription {furigana)

on the title slip of the British Library's scrollclearly shows that it was intended to bepronounced as Kobandokoro.

21 The other gold coin widely used during the EdoPeriod was the oban ::*cf-iJ which was similar inshape to the koban but much larger, measuringup to 10 X 15 cm. and weighing 165 g., with a facevalue of 10 ryo.

22 One momme — 3.75 g.23 The fashionable Tokyo district of Ginza owes its

name to the silver mint that existed in the areafrom 1612 to 1800.

24 The evidence of the scrolls supports WilliamGowland's widely accepted account of thecementation process traditionally used in Japanin which he states that the salt and gold weremixed together and simply placed on the furnacefloor for cementation. This is significant since inother parts of the world traditional methods ofcementation involved the use of closed vessels.See W. Gowland, ' Silver in Roman and EarlierTimes', Archaeologia, lxix (1917/18), pp. 121—60.

25 For detailed figures of gold and silver productionon Sado, see Hasegawa, op. cit. in n. 16.