National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

This is a female haniwa (clay figure) wearing a jacket with tight sleeves, a mo (skirt-like garment) and ornaments all over its body. On the jacket and mo, a scale-like pattern and stripes are applied via line engraving. She wears her hair in the shimada style, which is represented as a large hollow chignon in the shape of a weight. She also wears a comb and a head band to secure the chignon on her forehead. Other ornaments include necklaces, earrings, ear beads, hand beads and a dagger-like hanging object on the left waist. While there are half-length and full-length figures among human haniwa, there are very few full-length figures and female full-length figures are even rarer. Since a dressed-up figure like this one is rare, it can be said that this haniwa depicts a woman in a special or high position.