The day I saw the Gold Seal for the first time, a must item for textbooks.

Strange coincidence between the Rosetta Stone and the Gold Seal.

Shikanoshima, the site of discovery, was a plain isle.

It was during a program on NHK a few years ago when I saw for the first time the Gold Seal with 漢委奴国王 engraved, which was discovered in Shikanoshima. 　I learned about it in the social science class in junior high school. Since then I wanted to see it myself at least once. My family was not rich enough to allow me to go all the way to Fukuoka . So we just talked about it at suppertime. 　The security on that day at NHK was really something. The Gold Seal was transported from the airport in a car like an armored car with a police escort. The Gold Seal was brought into the studio by two staff members from the Fukuoka Municipal Museum surrounded by guards. 　The staff members with white gloves on took it out of a wooden box. It was like watching a suspense movie. 　In the spacious studio with everyone holding one's breath, the glittering Gold Seal, 2.3cm square, 0.9cm thick, 2.2cm high, and 109 grams, was taken out. Everyone applauded. The MC shrilled, "The real thing is really something." Everyone on the stage looked in. I, by habit in my work in archeology, unwittingly extended my hands but the MC's tense voice, "Don't touch it!" stopped my motion.

The story of the Gold Seal overlaps in my mind with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. Both were found in unexpected places. The Gold Seal was found by the shore of the isle of 　Shikanoshima offshore in Hakata Bay. The Rosetta Stone was found by the bank near the mouth of the Nile in a port town on the Mediterranean Sea. 　Two farmers Hideji and Kihei of Shikanoshima dug out the Gold Seal. A soldier dug out the Rosetta Stone while the French were constructing a fort in defense against the English attack to occupy French controlled Egypt. 　The Gold Seal was turned over to the landowner Jimbei, who in turn took it to an art dealer where his elder brother once worked and had Nammei Kamei, a Confucian scholar, appraise it. The seal turned out to be very valuable. 　In the meantime, some suggested melting down the Gold Seal to make ornaments for armors. Nammei Kamei wanted the seal in exchange of a great sum of money. The two discoverers of the seal could have thrown it away without thinking much of it. The fact that the seal still remains today is a miracle. 　The soldier who found the Rosetta Stone could have broken it with a hammer without knowing its value. When a tablet was found, the farmer who found it broke it with a hoe, thinking it was just a hardened hunk of dirt. So it was lucky that the Rosetta Stone was not broken. 　Fortunately, the soldier turned the Rosetta Stone over to an engineering officer of culture, who in turn passed it on to a well educated and cultured general. Moreover, the Gold Seal was discovered in 1784 and the Rosetta Stone in1799. Both events took place at the end of the 18th century. There are a number of coincidences, indeed.

I wanted to visit the site of the discovery although I had already seen the Gold Seal itself. When you visit the actual site where something was found like the Venus of Milo or the Rosetta Stone, you wonder if the discovery was really made there, a very inconspicuous place. I dared to visit. 　A　28 minute ride on a ferry from Hakata pier with three stops on the way took me to Shikanoshima. Then I went to the Gold Seal Park by taxi. The conclusion was, "Well, just as I thought." 　The reference material on hand said, 'While re-making the ditch, a large stone appeared. When it was dug out with an iron lever, something glittering was found.' (refer to "Shikanoshima and the Gold Seal", Home Page of Yamamoto Office, Fukuoka Junior College of Technology) 　At present, you see no rice paddies or vegetable patches at the Gold Seal Park. A guide-board stands at the mid-point on the hill and no rice paddies or vegetable patches are found anywhere. Directly below the park is a road and beyond it the sea. I'm veryimpressed how a small article, 2-3cm in size, could be found at a site like this , of all the place 　About two years ago, we found a ring, about 2cm in size, in Egypt. We anticipated from the beginning that there would be some relics in the ground. So we sifted the sand and soil and found the ring. The ring had the engraving of the name of the wife of Tutankhamen. This made the ring a very important discovery. You might say, however, it is only natural because the discovery was made by professionals in archeology after all. 　Anyway, why was such a valuable article found on Shikanoshima? Some think there was the palace. Others think there was the grave. Geographically, these views are doubtful. The most convincing view is said to be that Japan was in turmoil then and a royal subordinate took the seal out of the palace and hid it somewhere. The seal then in the process of changes in the natural environment reached the point where it was found. Some people hope that some records to this effect will be found in the near future. 　After I returned to the port of Momochi on a high-speed boat, Mr. Mikio TSUNTMATSU, an academic staff, showed me the Gold Seal on exhibit at the Fukuoka Municipal Museum. The museum appears to be the most suitable place for the Gold Seal to be in.