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Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and its Cultural Landscape

Japan
Date of Inscription: 2007
Criteria: (ii)(iii)(v)
Core zone: 442 ha
Buffer zone: 3221 ha
Shimane Prefecture, Ohda City District
N35 6 46 E132 26 6
Ref: 1246

Brief Description

The Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine in the south-west of Honshu Island is a cluster of mountains, rising to 600 m and interspersed by deep river valleys featuring the archaeological remains of large-scale mines, smelting and refining sites and mining settlements worked between the 16th and 20th centuries. The site also features routes used to transport silver ore to the coast, and port towns from where it was shipped to Korea and China. The mines contributed substantially to the overall economic development of Japan and south-east Asia in the 16th and 17th centuries, prompting the mass production of silver and gold in Japan. The mining area is now heavily wooded. Included in the site are fortresses, shrines, parts of Kaidô transport routes to the coast, and three port towns, Tomogaura, Okidomari and Yunotsu, from where the ore was shipped.

Outstanding Universal Value

Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine pioneered the development of silver mines in pre-Modern Asia. It had contributed to exchange of values between East and West by achieving the large-scale production of high quality silver through the development of the Asian cupellation techniques transferred from China through Korea and the Japanese unique assemblage of numerous labor-intensive small businesses based upon manual techniques in the 16th century. The exceptional ensemble, consisting of mining archaeological sites, settlements, fortresses, transportation routes, and shipping ports represents distinctive land use related to silver mining activities. As the resource of silver ore was exhausted, its production came to an end, leaving behind, in the characteristically rich nature, a cultural landscape that had been developed in relation to the silver mine.

Criterion (ii): During the Age of Discovery, in the 16th and early 17th centuries, the large production of silver by the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine resulted in significant commercial and cultural exchanges between Japan and the trading countries of East Asia and Europe.

Criterion (iii): Technological developments in metal mining and production in Japan resulted in the evolution of a successful system based on small-scale, labor-intensive units covering the entire range of skills from digging to refining. The political and economic isolation of Japan during the Edo Period (1603 to 1868) impeded the introduction of technologies developed in Europe during the Industrial Revolution and this, coupled with the exhaustion of commercially viable silver-ore deposits, resulted in the cessation of mining activities by traditional technologies in the area in the second half of the 19th century, leaving the site with well-preserved archaeological traces of those activities.

Criterion (v): The abundant traces of silver production, such as mines, smelting and refining sites, transportation routes, and port facilities, that have survived virtually intact in the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine Site, are now concealed to a large extent by the mountain forests that have reclaimed the landscape. The resulting relict landscape, which includes the surviving settlements of the people related to the silver production, bears dramatic witness to historic land-uses of outstanding universal value.

The elements of the property showing the original mining land-use system remain intact; the organic relationships among the individual elements exhibit the full expression of the mechanism of the original land-use system. They are a living part of the contemporary lives and livelihoods of the local society in unity with the abundant mountain forests and hence the integrity as a cultural landscape is maintained. The elements of the property that show the whole process ranging from silver production to shipment, in a good state of preservation and retain a high level of authenticity. In the mining settlements, there remains a group of traditional wooden buildings of 17th-20th century with careful maintenance, treatment, and repairs, retaining authenticity in terms of design, materials, techniques, functions, setting and environment.

The property and its buffer zone are adequately protected under the domestic laws and a municipal ordinance. A comprehensive management system for the whole property has been implemented under the strategic preservation and management plan. Monitoring measures are carried out annually.

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