A group of books and pamphlets on Japanese burial mounds, temples and sculptures, including works by William Gowland

UK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Lot Closed

November 4, 02:05 PM GMT

Estimate

1,500 - 2,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Japan Society Library, London

A group of books and pamphlets on the subjects of Japanese burial mounds temples and sculptures, including works by William Gowland

comprising:

Department of the Interior, Imperial Japanese Government, Japanese temples and their treasures, folio 1, 2, 3 (Tokyo: Shimbi Shoin, 1910)

Edward S. Morse, Ancient & Modern Methods of Arrow Release (n.p., 1885), donated by Edward C. Morse

Edward S. Morse, On the so-called Bow-Pullers of Antiquity (n.p., 1894)

Edward S. Morse, Was middle America peopled from Asia? [reprinted from Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly] (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1898)

Edward S. Morse, Traces of an early race in Japan (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1879), donated by Edward C. Morse

Edward S. Morse, On the Older Forms of Terracotta Roofing Tiles (Essex: Essex Institute, 1892)

Edward S. Morse, Shell mounds of Omori (Tokyo: The University of Tokyo, 1879)

Hiroshi Ikeuchi, Tsung-Kou-ancient site of Kao-Kou-Li in Chi’an district, T’unghua Province, Manchoukuo (Tokyo and Hsin-ching: Nichiman Bunka Kyokai, 1938), donated by the Nichiman Bunka Kyokai

Karl With, Buddhistische Plastik in Japan [in German] (Wien: Anton Schroll & Co., 1920)

Neil Gordon Munro, Prehistoric Japan (Yokohama: 1911)

T.H. Asso (ed. Arnold Edwin), Pictures of Ancient Japanese History [in Japanese], parts 1-2 (Tokyo: Z.P. Maruya & Co., 1890)

Thomas A.Joyce, Note of prehistory pottery from Japan and New Guinea [reprint from the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, volume XLII] (London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1912), donated by Thomas A.Joyce

William Gowland, The Dolmens and burial mounds in Japan (London: Society of Antiquaries, 1897)

Yoshito Harada, Lo-Lang: a report on the excavation of Wang Hsü’s tomb in the “Lo-Lang” province an ancient Chinese colony in Korea (Tokyo: Toko-Shoin, 1930)

[Anon.], Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Zenga-malerei des Zen-Buddhismus in Japan (Wein: Verlag des Österr Museums für Angewandte Kunst, 1959)

William Gowland (1842 - 1922), remembered as the “Father of Japanese Archeology”, was an English mining engineer and chemist best known for having carried out pioneering excavations at Stonehenge and in mounded tombs in Japan and Korea at the start of the 20th century.

Born in Sunderland, he enrolled at the Royal College of Chemistry in 1868, and the following year was made an Associate at the Royal School of Mining and Metallurgy. In 1872 Gowland was recruited as a technical advisor to the Japanese Ministry of Finance at the Imperial Japanese Mint in Osaka. His unparalleled expertise promoted him to Chief of Foreign Staff in Japan and bestowed in 1884 the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun for contributing to the establishment of the Osaka Imperial Arsenal.

Between 1872 and 1888, working at the Osaka Mint, Gowland established his archaeological credentials through a series of surveys and investigations of over 400 mounded tombs from the Kofun period in Japan. His meticulous excavation of the now long-destroyed Shibayama mounded tomb was of particular significance. He published his findings in Archaeologia, the then-journal of the Society of Antiquaries.

Gowland returned to England in 1889, taking up the position of Chief Metallurgist at his old employer, the Broughton Copper Works. Between 1902 to 1909 and again from 1913 to 1914, Gowland was a Professor of Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines in South Kensington. He variously served as a member of the council of the Japan Society, President of the Royal Anthropological Institute and Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries of London.