Japan’s Pompeii: The Medieval City Behind Modern Traditions 'I SLICE HISTORY | FULL DOCUMENTARY

To the west of Tokyo is a unique archaeological site. It allows us to travel back in time to the origins of an important Japanese tradition. Ishijodani is a medieval city that some scientists have called Japan's Pompeii. The tea ceremony, landscape gardening, architecture, these traditions come from medieval Japan. But how did they develop? How did they become rooted in society and arrive in contemporary Japan? Until now, we knew mostly through more or less fragmentary texts and documents. But since the excavations in Ishijodani, we now know a little more. In Ishijodani, archaeologists are currently uncovering and restoring the fief of Lord Asukura, a city of 10,000 inhabitants at the end of Japan's medieval period in the 16th century. This is an extremely rare example because at the time, throughout the country, they built with wood, a material that's very vulnerable to the assaults of time. With its archaeological gardens, it's an incomparable site in Japan where archaeologists had to put up a fight. In the 1970s, the valley of Ishijodani is covered by rice paddies. Large agricultural projects are planned for here. But ancient vestiges are apparent and archaeologists understand that a great archaeological site lies beneath their feet. They mobilize to cancel the projects and classify the area. And so began this excavation site of unparalleled magnitude in Japan. Thank you. It's a beautiful ceramic specimen, a little archaic with a strongly marked departure lip. Have you identified many others in this trench? Ono Masatoshi is among those who saved Ishijodani. He's certainly the most famous archaeologist in Japan. Here, they call him Ono-san. Hello. How are you? Some have called Ishijodani Japan's Pompeii. Is this metaphor pertinent to you? Yes, I think the comparison is not bad. Pompeii was destroyed. It was trapped under volcanic ash after an eruption. Here, even if it doesn't date from the same period, the city was completely burned down in 1573. And then it was abandoned and covered by rice paddies and fields. For 400 years, the city remained hidden underground. Considering that Pompeii is a kind of time capsule, in its own way, Ishijodani is also a time capsule of 16th century Japan. The first edifice Ono-san unearthed was the Palace of the Asakura Lords. Today, Peter, I will take you to visit the palace as if you were the shogun, the greatest Japanese general in person. Come, follow me. This is the official entrance to the palace. This palace is a source of great pride for Ono-san. Because it's the first time in Japan that the intact foundations of a lord's palace have been found. At the end of the 16th century, Japan experiences a period of great unrest. The country is divided by clashing lords. The great warrior Asakura, who reigns in Ishijodani, loses a battle. He was sentenced to ritual suicide, called seppuku. His city will be completely burned, causing the destruction of his palace. The remains here are really leveled. Do you have any ideas about the structure's original appearance? Look, all the stones you see lined up on the ground supported wooden poles. Thanks to the excavation and studying the arrangement of these stones, we were able to reconstruct the plan of the buildings, their dimensions, the division of space and the function of each room. Thanks to the archaeological data, Ono-san was able to create a model of Lord Asakura's palace. Ono-san compared the archaeological data with a valuable iconographic document. This 16th century screen is an extremely rare piece. It represents the capital Kyoto at the time of the lords. Comparing the representation of this palace and the stones he uncovered on the ground, he has created this restitution. Before this study, archaeologists thought the provincial lords lived apart, entrenched in bastions of rustic comfort. In Ichijo-dani, he discovered they actually resided in large palaces, composed of ten large buildings with wooden architecture, and located in the heart of the city. During the search of this residence, Ono-san discovered the remains of a ritual of allegiance between the lord and his vassals. One that still has echoes in today's Japan. It concerns these thousands of ceramic fragments found in a ditch. It's a mundane ceramic fired without great care. What interest does it have for you? This ceramic that we call Kawaraki is a pottery without glaze. It's so simple. It was the least expensive pottery in medieval times. We estimate that there's over a ton of pottery shards in the palace's ditches. Do we have an idea of the kind of ritual that could have produced a ton of shards from the same pottery? Yes, this pottery was used during the ritual in which the bonds of loyalty and submission were forged between a lord and his vassal in medieval Japan. Look. This is how the lord and vassal exchange a cup of sake. Be my guest. Thank you. There. With this important rite, you are now my vassal. But my lord, how is it that such a banal ceramic is used by such important people? That's a good question. To signify the purity of the relationship, the dish could serve only once. So they used a lesser quality, disposable ceramic. Today in Japan, many people drink sake. But has the ritual dimension of Kawaraki remained through the ages? Yes, indeed. This practice, which developed in that period's warrior society, continues to exist today. The best example is during the wedding ceremony. When my wife and I were married, in front of the deities, we shared a cup of sake to signify our bond as husband and wife. Except, unlike our earlier ritual, when I became your master and you my vassal, in my home, I honestly do not know who has which role. Other, more valuable ceramics were discovered in the palace. Saladons, characterized by their blue-green glaze, imported from China. Archaeologists also identified this piece of Venetian glass, the remains of a service which they were able to reconstruct. This document from the Sakura Museum became essential for their investigation. It describes the interiors of dignitaries' homes in the 16th century. Thanks to these different elements, archaeologists now understand that the Asakura lived in homes with refined decoration, worthy of the greatest aristocrats of Kyoto, the capital. At one extremity of the palace, facing a garden, archaeologists also found the footsteps left from a founding ritual, one still practiced today, the tea ceremony. It took place in a building, represented today by a platform. Thank you. So we're here now in the tea pavilion. How did you become sure of this? In my opinion, it's one of the most important discoveries we made in this palace. What allows us to say this was a tea pavilion? First, the discovery of dishes used in the tea ceremony at the bottom of the well close by. Moreover, this building looks out onto a garden, which is typical for tea pavilions. From there, it was easy to identify this spot. The texts explain that the tea ceremony first appeared in the Middle Ages. Contemplation of a garden created for this purpose accompanied the drinking of the tea. What is the role and the importance of the tea ceremony in a space like this? The tea ceremony was an important social ritual in the Middle Ages. In this room, there were eight tatamis. A fire for boiling water was housed in the floor. On the walls hung paintings or texts that one could admire. There were also flowers arranged according to the principles of ikebana, the art of bouquet creation. In this setting, in front of the garden, designed to be contemplated, one drank the tea and talked with one's guest. Until the discoveries at Ishijodani, archaeologists thought the tea ceremony was reserved for the aristocracy. Digs in the city's neighborhoods permitted Ono-san to demonstrate that this ritual, practiced today by all classes of society, was already popularized at its invention in the Middle Ages. Welcome to the residence of the warrior Hirai. We reconstructed this house based on the archaeological remains found here. This was the central building. And here a place to store timber. And here a building for the servants. But the most interesting building is the one I'll show you now. It's a small tea pavilion. During excavations, when we found this house, we were stunned. Because the discovery of this second tea pavilion in the town, in the residence of a simple soldier, not an aristocrat, was very unexpected. Then we searched more modest homes that belonged to people who did not have the means to have a separate pavilion. And there, too, we found the same items used in the tea ceremony. This means that even when one couldn't afford a tea pavilion, they still practiced the tea ceremony, and in all social classes, contrary to what was thought before. The tea utensils unearthed in these common citizens' homes are the oldest ever found in Japan. They were miraculously preserved in a layer of clay. Look at these two bamboo objects in front of you. Here's the whip used to beat the tea powder in the water. The other is the spoon used to pour the tea powder from its container into the bowl. Notice that the whip is the same as those we still use today, and of very fine workmanship. The tea ceremony still exists in Japan today. Can we speak of a continuity? Yes. And what we can say with confidence and thanks to this excavation is that the utensils and dishes, as well as dedicated areas discovered at Ishujodani, are at the origin of a very long history, which, through transformations, continues to this day. Close to the pavilions, archaeologists unearth the remains of the famous tea gardens, an unprecedented discovery. Thanks to an in-depth ground study, they were able to find the shape of these typical Japanese gardens. By studying iconography and texts of the time, they were able to determine and replant the original flora. They then waited for the vegetation to grow. Ten years later, the result of this restoration is stunning. Gorgeous. It looks like a painting. Fujita Wakana is a historian. She works with the site's archaeologists. Despite the naturalistic appearances, this is man-made, designed by the gardeners of the time. It's true that at first sight you think this is all natural. Yet every stone was placed here by the hand of man. Look at this huge rock. You must imagine that at the time there were no heavy lifting machines. So placing megaliths like this demonstrates the high technical level of this garden's architect. The fact that they used these large blocks is a sign of power for the warlords. It is in this context that these gardens were conceived. Are Japanese gardens made the same way today? Thanks to this garden, revealed by the archaeological dig, we can understand the techniques and sensibilities of the time. And indeed, these are very similar to those we have today. We still have tea gardens, and we now have proof that they've been passed down since the 16th century. With our modern eyes, we find these medieval gardens magnificent. So it seems that we closely share an aesthetic sense with our ancestors. In the city, another medieval heritage unfolds, one which gave birth to the Japanese urban model. To understand and restore that of Ishijodani, Ono-san and his team relied on another excavation, conducted not far away, at Heizen-ji, another medieval city. We're walking in one of the streets of this city that was destroyed in 1574. You can see it's a cobbled street, lined with the monks' residences of this religious complex, and encircled with their stone wall. Here was the entrance of a residence. And here, we come to a crossroad. You can see how the two most important streets of the city intersect perpendicularly. These remains are impressive. How has this helped you to understand what was discovered at Ishijodani? We established very real similarities. For example, this street's designed the same way as those of Ishijodani. We traced the traffic routes according to established dimensions, then dug a drainage ditch on one side. Finally, the walls are made in the same way as Ishijodani. So we understood that the lord Asakura copied this urban model to create his own city. And we even think that the craftsmen working here were used to build Ishijodani. The researchers found that by adopting this model, Ishijodani was deployed inside the entire valley, with very structured streets and neighborhoods, and above all, perfectly gridded streets. Scientists call this the City Under the Castle, a model which seems to have marked the country for the long term. The French archaeologist Laurent Nespoulous studied this phenomenon. What strikes me here is the regularity, the long straight avenues, the crossings, facilities and housing lots. It's all planned? It's the seigneurial planning. The axes are perfectly perpendicular with each other, streets organized on modules of 8 meters, 6 meters and 3 meters wide, all distributed throughout the Ishijodani valley. So here we have the origin of a Japanese form or tradition in urbanization. The City Under the Castle, which Ishijodani is an example, marks the start of a form of urbanization that will spread throughout the archipelago, giving birth to today's Japanese cities. The most famous castle towns are Edo, that becomes Tokyo as we know it now. There is Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya. There are others, of course, but those are the biggest. Some became big cities. Thanks to the excavation, architectural elements were also found. They've allowed archaeologists to restore a habitat model, emblematic of a Japan that, until now, only appeared in documents. A good example at the site of Ishijodani is that we were very lucky to discover burned wood. And they were door sliders, from these doors covered with rice paper. It's a discovery that had an effect because the wood is a very perishable element. Yet these elements are the oldest we discovered, to help us document these types of components from the interior of Japanese buildings. And these elements will continue through time. It starts in the Middle Ages. The tatami is a medieval invention. These sliding doors spread throughout the Middle Ages. This marks the beginning of new interior spaces, beginning at that time and continuing through the ages, all the while adapting to new constraints related to the development of these cities. And even in a commonplace house today, such as a manufactured home, you often see a small space like this with three tatami mats, a table in the middle and sliding doors to divide the interior space. I understand better now the importance of this time capsule for the Japanese. With the destruction of Ishijodani and the other cities of the lords, medieval Japan came to an end. But echoes of this rich period still resonate. And even more so thanks to the patient work of Ono-san. Ono-san, when these excavations began and you opened this time capsule, it had to be an extraordinary moment. That's right. When I was a student, I mainly excavated prehistoric sites of the Paleolithic era. Ishijodani was my first medieval archaeology experience. When you're used to excavating remains that are tens of thousands of years old, and then you pass to the Middle Ages, believe me, you're struck by the mass of ruins that allow you to discover the daily life of these men and women. There's a real jubilation in the possibility of touching elements that connect us with the people of that time. Could we go even further and say that Japan today is rooted, at least in part, in the Middle Ages? Yes. So far I've used the term Middle Ages a little generally. But in this long Middle Ages, the period of Ishijodani, the 16th century, is a time of great changes in terms of lifestyle, culture, and the modes of organizing power. The Ishijodani period was a pivotal moment since it established elements that are part of what we, the Japanese, are today. This is what I feel deeply.