eLibrary: Okinoshima

Okinoshima is a remote island shrine where ancient mariners between Japan and China once sought divine protection. This exhibition explores its sacred legacy through ritual offerings, taboos, and archaeological finds—tracing centuries of maritime exchange, secrecy, and devotion. Long hidden from view, Okinoshima remains a powerful symbol of cultural and spiritual connection.

This is the latest version of an electronic library of resources supporting the exhibition. It offers free and immediate access to online resources for anyone wanting to explore further the context of the museum’s artifacts.  As the museum develops, more resources, in more languages, will be added.

NOTE: Some of these links come from Academia.edu and Researchgate.net. These require a free one-time registration. To research further yourselves, you may consider registering with Jstore.org which gives limited but free monthly access to its collections

Articles

Abe, Y., Shikaku, R., Murakushi, M., Fukushima, M. and Nakai, I., 2021. Did ancient glassware travel the Silk Road? X-ray fluorescence analysis of a Sasanian glass vessel from Okinoshima Island, Japan. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 40, p.103195.

Abe, Yoshinari, Ryuji Shikaku, Masakazu Yamamoto, Naoto Yagi, and Izumi Nakai. “Ancient glassware travelled the Silk Road: Nondestructive X-ray fluorescence analysis of a fragment of a facet-cut glass vessel collected at Kamigamo Shrine in Kyoto, Japan.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 20 (2018): 362-368.

DeWitt, L., 2018. Island of many names, island of no name: taboo and the mysteries of Okinoshima. In The sea and the sacred in Japan: aspects of maritime religion (pp. 39-50). Bloomsbury.

DeWitt, L., 2018. Report on the 2017 inscription of ‘Sacred island of Okinoshima and associated sites in the Munakata region’as a UNESCO world heritage site. Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University, 3(1), pp.135-140.

Lee, C., 2018. A study on Issues and Implications of World Heritage Listing through the Case of'Sacred Island of Okinoshima and Munakata Region'in Japan. MUNHWAJAE Korean Journal of Cultural Heritage Studies, 51(3), pp.54-71.

N/N Okinoshima Pamphlet

N/N, 2016, The Sacred Island of OKINOSHIMA and Associated Sites in the Munakata Region Nomination Dossier, 272pp

N/N 2024 Special Research Project Report on the Sacred Island of Okinoshima and Associated Sites in the Munakata Region 130pp

Ono, W. and Okadera, M., 2017  Interpretation of the Sacred Island Of Okinoshima

Ono, W. and Okadera, M., 2018. Interpretation of a Forbidden Sacred Island, Okinoshima.

Yoshioka, M., Hasegawa, T., Hirabayashi, O., Kaneta, T., Kawakami, K., Kimura, N., Maruyama, T., Nishikawa, K., Oshimo, T., Rubbia, A. and Taguchi, S., 2011, July. Okinoshima site study. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 308, No. 1, p. 012028). IOP Publishing.

Videos

Why were 80,000 National Treasures discovered on the tiny island of Okinoshima? (okinoshima heritage) 11.37mins