Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of History, History museum near Fukuyama Castle, Japan.
The Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of History is a history museum in Fukuyama dedicated to the Setouchi region of western Japan. It presents archaeological finds from the medieval port town of Kusado Sengen, buried beneath the Ashida River, alongside old maps and documents from across several centuries.
The museum opened in 1989 and was built to bring together research and artifacts from the Setouchi region that had been collected over many decades. The excavation of Kusado Sengen, a medieval port town discovered buried under a riverbed, was one of the main reasons the museum was created.
The museum holds documents and personal writings connected to Kan Chazan, a Confucian scholar from the Setouchi region whose work shaped local intellectual life. Visitors can see how his ideas were written and shared, giving a sense of how knowledge traveled in that period.
The museum sits close to central Fukuyama and can be reached without much difficulty by public transport or on foot from the station. Allowing a good half day gives enough time to follow the exhibits at a comfortable pace without feeling rushed.
Kusado Sengen was only revealed when floods eroded the riverbed and brought everyday medieval objects to the surface, rather than through planned excavation. The objects found there, such as wooden tools, coins and pottery, show the daily life of ordinary people in a way that planned archaeological digs rarely do.
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