Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/27

 potter named Ama-no-Hibako arrived in Japan and settled there for the purpose of practising his art; that he established a kiln in the province of Ōmi, and that during several years he manufactured pottery known as Shiragi-yaki, "Shiragi" being the Japanese method of pronouncing the name of the region in Korea whence this keramist had emigrated. No authenticated specimens of the ware survive, nor can implicit reliance be placed in the story, which, for the rest, has little importance, since Korea was not in a position to impart any technical knowledge to the Japanese in the dolmen-building era.

The next event connected with the development of the industry is an alleged invasion of Korea in the third century of the Christian era by a Japanese Empress, Jingō. Modern research by Occidental students has thrown much doubt upon this incident, but Japanese antiquarians have been accustomed to believe it. They further assert that one result of the expedition was the regular yearly despatch of eighty ship-loads of Korean produce to Japan, by way of tribute, and that among articles thus sent there were specimens of pottery which Japanese keramists took as models. Of all this there is no practical proof. Its historical value is probably limited to the indication it gives of intercourse between Korea and Japan at an early epoch, but its importance as bearing on keramic development is insignificant.

After the days of the warlike Empress, neither tradition nor history supplies any information bearing upon keramics until the middle of the fifth century, when the Emperor Yūriaku ascended the throne (457 ). In the seventh year of his reign he