Magistrate’s Office (Daikansho)
In the Edo period (1603–1867), Iwami Ginzan was under the direct administration of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate, the central government. The shogunate’s representative, or magistrate, supervised the silver mine and the surrounding area from his fortified office, around which the town of Omori developed. The magistrate was responsible for tax collection, law and order, and the management of the mine. To carry out these tasks, the magistrate’s office hired a number of local officials, many of whom were experts in specific fields such as tax calculation or silver mining.
Today, the site of the Iwami Ginzan magistrate’s office is composed of a gate structure built in 1815 and a main building erected in 1902. The main building now houses a museum that focuses on the history of mining at Iwami Ginzan from medieval times to the closing of the mine in 1923. The exhibits include a wide range of mining equipment from over the years and feature descriptions of how miners and their families lived, how local officials went about their business, and even how new magistrates and other functionaries assigned to Iwami Ginzan from elsewhere in Japan would use manual-like picture scrolls to study before taking up their duties.