The Antikythera-like Kyushu Bronze Mirror Debate

Record summary

Japanese imperial tradition associates the sacred mirror Yata no Kagami with Amaterasu and the regalia of the imperial house. Archaeologists have sometimes compared that tradition with triangular-rimmed Chinese mirrors, or sankakubuchi shinjukyo, found in Kofun-period tombs. No securely demonstrated chain connects a surviving excavated mirror to the legendary regalia, and the textual tradition was recorded much later than the proposed artefacts. This lead supports comparison of sacred objects, political legitimation, and retrospective historiography, but it is a tradition-to-artefact problem rather than an identified discovery.