430-year-old ninja weapons identified
Artefacts found in Japan may be ninja weapons, including several that look like forerunners to the throwing star. Archaeologists excavated the artefacts between 1960 and 2010 at several sites in Japan, including two castles, Iwatsuki and Hachioji. The possible ninja artefacts date to the Siege of Odawara of 1590. During this siege, the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans defeated the
Hojo clan, which had controlled a sizable portion of Japan, and captured both castles.
The siege took place during the Sengoku period, from 1467 to
1615, a time when Japan was divided between several warlords who battled for power. The artefacts include flat throwing stones that may have been predecessors of the shuriken throwing star and clay caltrops that may be an early form of the makibishi, a spiky weapon that could injure the feet of soldiers and horses. These artefacts were likely weapons of a “battle group which can move into action as ninjas,” said Iwata Akihiro, an archaeologist and curator at the Saitama Prefectural Museum of History and Folklore.
These weapons were likely hastily constructed, but would have been effective. The flat throwing stones “were used to stop the movement of the enemy, who was going to attack at any moment, and while the enemy froze the soldier escaped,” said Ahikiro. Meanwhile, the clay caltrops could “stop the movement of the enemy who invaded.”
Owen Jarus