Edo Tokyo Museum was founded in 1993 as a place where people could come to learn more about Tokyo’s history and culture so sit back an enjoy a whistle-stop tour of Japanese history, culture and religion.
Tokyo, formerly called Edo, was the centre of the military government under the shoguns. It was renamed Tokyo in 1868 when it replaced Kyoto as the imperial capital.
Shoguns – who were they? Hereditary commanders-in-chief in feudal Japan. Because of the military power concentrated in their hands and the consequent weakness of the nominal head of state – the Mikado or emperor – the shogun was generally the real ruler of the country until feudalism was abolished in 1867.
The last shogunate in Japan (1603-1867) founded Tokugawa Leyasu (1543-1616). The shogunate was followed by the restoration of imperial power under Meiji Tenno (1852-1912) Emperor of Japan 1868-1912 and who encouraged Japan’s modernisation and political reform.
Are you keeping up? OK well I will let you into a secret. Courtesy of one of my more esoteric, nay eccentric, sociology lectures in my first year at University, I have been under the impression that Tokugawa was a form of religion. The light bulb has just gone on this morning since of course Tokugawa was a form of feudal social society that for many years kept Japan living in the middle ages, effectively preventing modernisation. I’m not sue if it was a failure of my intellectual ability or his rather random and totally laid back lecturing style that has led to this schism in my understanding but lets say it was the former but Oh Boyo did I struggle to understand those lectures!!
Having got that admission out of the way let me show you a few photos od the displays in the museum that take the form of some exquisite models of how Edo (Tokyo) looked in the last shogunate period.
The first photo is of the ‘Townspeople’s residential district in the Kan-ei Era’ and no I “Kan-ei” (Can’t) tell you more but if you want to know more have a look at the following website:
http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp
The next two photos are of the entrance gate and garden compound of a high ranking ‘buke’ (Official) and the last is what the Museum describes as the ‘amusement quarter of Edo’.
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