By Kohei Nozaka
Japanese castles are built on stone walls, called Ishigaki, namely, walls made of stone. Although a lot of Japanese wooden castles are destroyed, the stone walls are still standing proudly on mountain tops overlooking downtown areas in many cities in Japan after being constructed during 10th century.
The magnificent ancient stone walls give modern people a glimpse of craftmanship: passion, expertise, and creativity. In order to build stone walls, a tremendous number of heavy stones must be carried from various parts of Japan. Unlike today powered by modern machinery, they needed to procure materials by sea.
Only passionate lords and dedicated servants were able to accomplish such a difficult task. Another amazing thing about the stone wall is how stone wall builders figured out the combination of variously shaped stones into a perfect wall.
The stones had various shapes and sizes, and some were good for the top and others were good for the bottom part of a wall. The builders were able to find out how to balance the pieces like solving a difficult puzzle.
In addition, the ancient builders developed a creative solution for water to flow through the gaps between stones. That is why the ancient stone walls remain unchanged even today. Thus, the stone walls of Japanese castles are filled with the wisdom of old architects.
Photo by “Matsue Castle” by Clay Gilliland is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
