Ise Site

The Ise Site (伊勢遺跡) is an archaeological site containing the traces of a large Yayoi period settlement and ritual area, located across the Ise and Amura neighborhoods of Moriyama and the Nojiri neighborhood of the city of Rittō, Shiga in the Kansai region of Japan.

[1] The Ise Site is located in the highlands of the Yasu River in southeastern Shiga Prefecture.

[2] Of especial interest was the foundations of a group of large buildings dating from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (latter half of the Yayoi period), which were found to be lined up neatly in an "L" arrangement in an enclosure surrounded by a fortification consisting of two sets of moats and an earthen ramparts with wooden palisades.

The enclosure also had the foundations for a watchtower in the east, believed to be similar to what was discovered at the Yoshinogari site in Kyushu.

A total of 13 large buildings have been detected in the excavations so far, and it is assumed that it was the center of politics and rituals in a kingdom which once existed in southern part of Ōmi.

Yayoi pottery from the Ise Site