Late Yayoi pot (弥生土器) from the Tsuzuraozaki lakebed site (葛籠尾崎湖底遺跡) in Shiga prefecture. This pot dates back to the Late Yayoi period, approximately 2000 years ago.
The Tsuzuraozaki site is located from 10-700m off the shorline of the north side of Lake Biwa with lake bottom depths ranging from 10 to 70m. Since the 1920’s fisherman have been recovering earthenware vessels dating back to the Initial Jomon period (apx 7000 years ago), many of which have been largely intact. Due to the weak underwater currents in the area many of these pots remained in the same position for thousands of years. A combination of the relatively fixed positioning of the pots & the iron-rich sediments on the lake bottom have resulted in significant iron deposits on some of the older pots. Much of the pottery from the Tsuzuraozaki site, including those scanned for this collection, are housed at the Tsuzuraozaki Lakebed Historical Materials Museum (葛籠尾崎湖底遺跡資料館) in Nagahama city, Shiga prefecture.
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