Fusion of Literature-based History and Archeology

　　I told you in the last entry that the height of the main hall of Izumo Taisha shrine, a part of the roof of which you can see behind the entrance hall in the first picture, was 24 meters. There had been an interesting tradition about the magnitude of the shrine since over 1000 years ago and I'll write about it in this entry.
　　"雲太和二京三" is it! It means that the biggest structure in Japan is Isumo Taisha shrine, the second is the Colossal Hall of the Great Buddha in Nara City and the third is the Former Imperial Palace in Kyoto. For your information, the Imperial Palace used to be located in Kyoto before the Meiji Restoration and it was moved to Tokyo after the Restoration. "雲太和二京三" had been passed down as an oral tradition.
　　The hall of the Great Buddha is 49.1 meters high, which was built in the 8th century and this phrase had been saying that Izumo Taisha is bigger than the hall of the Great Buddha. Is it possible? There had been no evidence to prove the correctness of the oral tradition until 2000. "雲太和二京三" was thought to be false for a long time. Though the draft of the ancient shrine was found, it was not accepted as a real one.
　　The above is the literature-based historical deliberation on the magnitude of Izumo Taisha.

　　In the meantime, a massive excavation was conducted in the grounds of Izumo Taisha shrine in the year 2000 and 2001. The third picture, which is cited from the official website of Izumo Taisha shrine, shows the basal part of the post found at the excavation site, which was thought to have supported the main hall in ancient times. Finally, three posts were found in the ruins in the grounds. Each post consisted of three big Japanese cedar trees and the diameter of each tree was about 3 meters. They were marvelously preserved by abundant groundwater. They are now preserved in the museum of the shrine and I took a picture of it. A group of architects and historians finally made the big historical issue clear and they put together the model of the ancient Izumo Taisha shrine, which you can see in the 5th picture. Imagine its scale compared with a man on the slope. The archeology attested to the credibility of the oral tradition.
　　In the ancient days, without any heavy machinery, how did our ancestors construct such a magnificent structure? I'm proud of them.

　　Remains dug up from Japan's soil were absolutely made by our Japanese ancestors. A particular people has lived in a specific area since recorded history. I wondered what countries have such a history. The Greeks who hold the lighting ceremony of the Olympic flame have nothing to do with the ancient Greeks who started the original form of the Olympics. I don't know exactly, but Portugal and Denmark might be such countries in Europe.

(Vocabulary)
Literature-based History 文献史学
Archeology 考古学
tradition (宗教的・文化的な) 伝承, 伝承を受け継ぐ人たち
a belief, custom, or way of doing something that has existed for a long time, or these beliefs, customs etc in general
colossal (程度・数量などが) 膨大な, ばく大な, 途方もない, けたはずれの