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Jomon Dogu Figurine (type example, c. 1000–300 BCE)

Dogū (土偶) are clay figurines produced throughout the Japanese Jomon period (c. 14,000–300 BCE). The most elaborate examples, such as the goggle-eyed type (shakoki dogu) dated c. 1000–300 BCE, are the earliest figurative sculpture tradition of the Japanese archipelago. The Tokyo National Museum's Jomon Goddess (National Treasure) is the canonical example.

Scholarly Significance

Anchor Japanese prehistoric art with a Jomon dogu figurine type-example — the earliest monumental sculptural tradition of the Japanese archipelago.

Notes

  • ·Dogū were produced across 14 millennia of Jomon culture (c. 14,000–300 BCE) — the world's longest continuous ceramic tradition.
  • ·The goggle-eyed (shakoki) type dates to the Final Jomon period (c. 1000–300 BCE) and is concentrated in northeastern Honshu (Tohoku region).
  • ·Proposed functions include ritual substitutes in curing ceremonies, fertility objects, and clan identity markers — function remains contested.
  • ·The Tokyo National Museum 'Jomon Goddess' from the Ebisuda site (Miyagi Prefecture) is a National Treasure (Kokuho) and the most widely reproduced dogu.
  • ·Taro Okamoto championed Jomon ceramics as evidence of Japan's primordial aesthetic vitality in a 1952 essay that shaped postwar Japanese cultural identity.