Exploring the Hōjō Era at the Kamakura Museum of History and Culture

The Kamakura Museum of History and Culture viewed from the rear garden. (© Mochida Jōji)

Museum head curator Aoki Yutaka giving an evening lecture. (Courtesy of the Kamakura Museum of History and Culture)

Curator Ōsawa Izumi (center) giving a talk at the gallery in pre-COVID days. (Courtesy of the Kamakura Museum of History and Culture)

A celadon sake jar excavated from the ruins of a samurai mansion (left) and a four-handle porcelain jar uncovered from the ruins of Shinzenkōji. (Courtesy of the Kamakura Board of Education)

Part of a 2019 exhibition highlighting the cuisine of medieval Kamakura. (Courtesy of the Kamakura Museum of History and Culture)

The Genpei War began when Sasaki Tsunetaka, of the Minamoto clan, attacked Taira vassal Yamaki Kanetaka with an incendiary arrow in the Izu area. Azuma kagami (above), the medieval chronicle of events of the Kamakura Shogunate, describes the incident, which took place on August 17, 1180, as “the first arrow in Minamoto’s subjugation of the Taira.” (Courtesy the National Archives of Japan)