Steatite Ornaments in Korea and Japan 250-700CE

Steatite (soapstone) is a soft stone that was often used in Japan and Korea for stone ornaments and ritual effigies and deposits. It was the primary material for ritual deposits in the Kofun period/Three Kingdoms Period. Notably, there was a trend from 450-550CE of depositing thousands of roughly carved steatite ornaments in sacred spaces in Japan and in the far south of the Korean Peninsula. This paper looked at stone drilling of these ornaments through scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis of silicone impressions of the inside of steatite stone ornaments across several different regions in Japan and South Korea from 250-700CE. Scanning electron microscopy was used to determine drill type, manufacturing style and wear. All of the steatite ornaments showed heavy use wear, with some of them not being deposited until they were broken or worn through. When manufacturing indicators had not been worn away, they were drilled with metal drills and abrasive. The large amount of steatite ornaments produced at Soga workshop, in the vicinity of one of the palaces, suggests that the Kofun elites were controlling the production and distribution of steatite while the heavy use wear indicates that these ornaments were valued by regional elites who only discarded them when absolutely necessary.