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

This drum is made by lathing elm wood. The bowl-shaped parts are glued to both ends of the cylinder-shaped `waist' at the center. There are double-nodes around the rims and the center of the bowls and a triple-node around the center of the waist part. The double lotus-petal pattern on the waist and the Chinese floral arabesque on the other parts of the body are painted with the ungen zaishiki technique (painting with distinct color-bands instead of blending colors). Although most of the paint has come off now, we can still see a trace of those bright images. Metal fittings with a ring – the four-leaf-shaped base with a ring for hanging attached – is nailed on the divided sections around both of the rims (one of the bases has been lost). On the inner side of the bowls (umi), an inscription that reads "the eastern temple of Ikaruga. The third." is handwritten in ink.
There are four kinds of saiyōko (lit. narrow-waist drum, hourglass-shaped) according to size, called the first, second, third and fourth classes of drum. The words in ink "the eastern temple of Ikaruga. The third." appears to mean that this piece belongs to the third class (san no tsuzumi). The black-lacquered drum (N-109) also has an inscription in ink that reads "Hōryūji Shōryōe (mass commemorating Prince Regent Shōtoku). This is a drum of the third class and so on." As that drum and this one are about the same size, we can see that because of the sizes both of them are classified in the third class. Shōsōin has saiyōkō called jikodō, but no saiyōko made of colored wood. This piece is an indispensable example of saiyōko for researching the musical instruments used in the imperial court of the Nara period.