Note 4 — Chapter XVII · Culture Mixing in Japan

As we have seen (Chapter III), the most archaic ships in the Kamschatka area in the north, and in the Malayan area in the south, were of Egyptian type, having apparently been introduced by the early prospectors who searched for pearls and precious stones and metals. In the oldest Japanese writings, the records of ancient oral traditions, gold and silver are referred to as “yellow” and “white” metals existing in Korea, while bronze, when first mentioned, is called the “Chinese metal” and the “Korean metal”.4 “The bronze and iron objects found in the ancient graves have simply,” says Laufer, “been imported from the mainland, and plainly are, in the majority of cases, of Chinese manufacture. Many of these, like metal mirrors, certain helmets, and others, have been recognized as such; but through comparison with corresponding Chinese material, the same can be proved for the rest.”5 At the beginning of our era, the Japanese, as the annals of the Later Han Dynasty of China record, purchased iron in Korea. The Chinese and Koreans derived the knowledge of how to work iron from the interior of Siberia, the Turkish Yakut there being the older and better iron-workers.6