Japan is Rebuilding its Ancient Capital

For the majority of the 8th century, Nara was home to Japan’s first permanent capital. Known as Heijō-kyō it was a massive planned city with somewhere between 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. But it was suddenly abandoned when the court moved to what would become Kyoto. Buried under farmlands for over 1,000 years, many remains of this lost city have now been excavated, and some of its most important buildings are being reconstructed. This video showcases several of these projects.

→ SOURCES

Brown, Delmer M., ed. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 1, Ancient Japan. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Stavros, Matthew. Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan's Premodern Capital. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014.

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