The UNESCO World Heritage Committee on Sunday inscribed Japan’s Asuka-Fujiwara archaeological sites on the World Heritage List, recognizing a collection of sixth- to eighth-century ruins that trace the birth of a centralized Japanese state.
The decision, made at the committee’s 48th session in Busan, South Korea, adds Japan’s 22nd cultural World Heritage site to the roster. Including natural heritage properties, Japan now has 27 World Heritage sites.
The Asuka-Fujiwara property consists of 19 individual archaeological sites scattered across the village of Asuka and the cities of Kashihara and Sakurai in Nara Prefecture. They span the Asuka period (roughly 538 to 710 AD) and the early Nara period, when the imperial capitals were located at Asuka and later at Fujiwara before the court moved to Heijo-kyo in what is now Nara city.
The sites include the ruins of the Asuka palace, where the Yamato court governed before constructing Japan’s first planned capital at Fujiwara; the foundations of the Fujiwara palace itself, which served as the imperial center from 694 to 710 AD; and the Takamatsuzuka tomb, famous for its vividly colored wall murals depicting celestial figures and the four directional animals of East Asian cosmology. The murals are designated a national treasure.
UNESCO’s committee said the property “demonstrates exchanges with the Chinese mainland and the Korean Peninsula, as well as the introduction of Buddhism, which had a profound cultural impact on later generations.” It described the sites as “important tangible evidence of the process through which ancient capitals were formed in East Asia.”
Japan first placed the sites on UNESCO’s tentative list in 2007, but it took nearly two decades to demonstrate the “outstanding universal value” required for inscription. The International Council on Monuments and Sites, UNESCO’s advisory body, recommended inscription in June after an on-site evaluation last September. ICOMOS urged Japan to continue research into the preservation and possible restoration of mural paintings removed from the Takamatsuzuka and Kitora tombs, a condition incorporated into the committee’s final decision.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya welcomed the inscription, saying in a statement that the property “demonstrates, through the transition of ancient capitals across two successive periods, the process by which a centralized state system was born and established during the formative era of ancient states in East Asia.” For the people of Nara Prefecture, who packed Kashihara city hall to watch the decision streamed live from Busan, the designation was a long-awaited recognition of a cultural legacy that had been in UNESCO’s queue for nearly two decades.