Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine
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How it came to be
Large-scale mining at Iwami Ginzan began in the 1520s under the merchant Kamiya Jutei. In 1533 Jutei brought two men, Sōtan and Keiju, from Hakata to refine the silver by cupellation. The method had come from China by way of Korea, and it greatly raised the mine's output.
The mine was fought over by the Ōuchi, Amago and Mōri clans, and passed to the Mōri after a settlement in 1562. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent Ōkubo Nagayasu and others that November to take it over as shogunate land. At its peak in the early 1600s the mine produced about 38 tonnes of silver a year, at a time when Japan supplied roughly a third of the world's silver.
Traditional mining ended in the late 19th century as the ore ran out; the mine was suspended in 1923 and closed for good after a flood in 1943. The property takes in mine shafts, smelting sites, mining settlements, fortresses, the roads that carried silver to the coast, and the three port towns of Tomogaura, Okidomari and Yunotsu. ICOMOS advised deferral in May 2007, but Japan answered with further documentation and the site was inscribed later that year.
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