チラシ チラシ
Feature Exhibition:

It’s a “Smol” World
Archaeology at Its Cutest

Exhibition period:

19 April – 24 July 2022

Venue:

Cultural Exchange Exhibition Hall, Room 3

Introduction:

Have you ever walked through the archaeology section of a history museum and thought, “Man, who cares about all these dusty jars from old graves?” and shuffled over to more interesting exhibits? Well, saddle up your haniwa horses and make your way through the cutest exhibition this museum has ever seen! This exhibition showcases a few of the most adorable artifacts in our museum’s collection, selected by members of the Kyuhaku Women’s Archaeology Club, and hopes to introduce a new way for our visitors to approach archaeology.


Exhibition Highlights
馬形埴輪

Haniwa terracotta horse

Kofun period, 6th century
Kyushu National Museum

How is this cute? Just look at how it’s playing innocent with its blank expression... Some may even say it looks ugly but adorable! Nonetheless, it reigns king of the haniwa animal kingdom, adored second to none by the wealthy and powerful. Even the detailed ornaments it wears are cute.

馬形埴輪

Bead resembling a person’s face

Roman period, 2,200–1,600 years ago
Kyushu National Museum (donated by Shibata Emiko)

No matter where we come from, we can all agree: there is something so cute about small things! People in the past, too, made a lot of these colorful beads. It’s like they wanted to make bracelets or necklaces out of these, but also refused to have the exact same one as the next person. Some things truly don’t change, do they?

子持勾玉

Compound comma-shaped beads

Kofun period, 6th century
Kyushu National Museum

Cute + cute = cuter, right? That’s probably why the ancient people stuck multiple comma-shaped beads onto a bigger one, resulting in these small, lovable animal-shaped beads. Just imagine, they wore such heavy beads for the sake of accessorizing... Hilarious!