Miniature Loom
This gilt-bronze miniature loom has been made with accurate details, as shown by the partially woven fabric on display. Weaving techniques were brought to Japan from the Korean Peninsula by the third century. In the centuries that followed, textile production, especially using silk, which had only recently been introduced from China, became heavily patronized by the court. A similar miniature loom is one of the so-called Divine Treasures at Ise Jingu, the main shrine dedicated to the sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami. This demonstrates how rituals on Okinoshima set a precedent for those that later took place under the reformed centralized government of the eighth century, known as the ritsuryo state.