Genbudo Museum

The Genbudo Museum in Toyooka, Hyogo, is a museum of rocks, minerals and fossils. It stands directly opposite Genbudo Park, and also covers Toyooka kiryu craft (豊岡杞柳細工), the willow basketry of the area, which is a national Traditional Craft.

Genbudo Park, a national Natural Monument, is known for its columns of basalt with a hexagonal cross-section, formed as lava cooled. Genbudo gave its name to genbugan (玄武岩), the Japanese word for basalt. The geophysicist Matuyama Motonori (松山基範) found that basalt here was magnetised pointing south, which showed that the Earth's magnetic field has reversed in the past.

History

The museum grew from the collection of its director, Tanaka Eiichi (田中榮一), who was born in Akaishi, the village where Genbudo stands. Self-taught in geology, he began with basalt from Japan and abroad, moved on to the minerals that form in hollows inside basalt, such as amethyst, and later added fossils. A smaller forerunner of the museum opened in 1976. The Maruyama River in front of the museum often floods, and when the road was raised above flood level, the museum was rebuilt. The present building, five hexagonal halls in a row that echo the basalt columns and the five caves of Genbudo, opened in 2018.

The exhibitions

The rock zone on the ground floor covers the history of Genbudo, Matuyama's discovery, basalt in its many forms and the rocks of the San'in coast. The caves in the park cannot be entered, but here the hexagonal columns can be seen up close. At the center stands a Stegodon, an extinct relative of the elephant, 7.6 m long. It was chosen because many elephant footprints have been found along the San'in coast, and fossil teeth and footprints from the coast are shown nearby. A gallery of unusual stones includes chrysanthemum stone (kikka-seki, 菊花石) from Neodani in Gifu, with patterns that look like flowers.

Upstairs, the mineral zone holds gems and minerals from around the world. The museum describes its large cluster of amazonite as the finest in the world; its discovery caused a stir in the United States. The rhodochrosite, known in Japan as Inca rose, includes a piece from the Sweet Home Mine in the United States that was the centerpiece of the Denver Show. In the glowing stones corner, black light makes each kind of stone shine in its own color. Hands-on displays include kankan-ishi (カンカン石), stones that ring when struck, and konnyaku-ishi (こんにゃく石), a stone that bends.

The fossil zone traces the evolution of life, with a Tyrannosaurus, a Triceratops, pterosaurs and large fossils along the walls. The Tyrannosaurus, known as Tinker, is a young one found in the United States. A Dimetrodon looks like a dinosaur but is thought to have been closer to mammals, using the sail on its back to control its body heat. One fossil fish keeps its fins raised, while most fossils are found pressed flat.

Toyooka kiryu craft

Toyooka kiryu craft is basketry woven from koriyanagi (コリヤナギ), a willow that grew wild on the banks of the Maruyama River. Its history is said to go back to the year 27. Floods made rice harvests uncertain, so people turned to weaving baskets. In the Edo period, with the support of the Kyogoku lords of Toyooka, the town's yanagi-gori (柳行李), willow trunks, became known across Japan, and the trade later grew into the bag industry Toyooka is known for. The craft was designated a Traditional Craft in 1992.

The kiryu zone shows how the craft changed over time, how it is made and willow work from other countries. Among the exhibits are a lampshade from the early Showa era, made with a technique no one practices today, and machines built in the same period to make trunks in large numbers, such as a bark-peeling machine and a sewing machine for trunk rims.

Workshops, restaurant and shop

In the workshops, visitors dig three gemstones or fossils out with a hammer and take them home, make a keychain with a birthstone, or weave a coaster or a small basket from rattan and Toyooka willow. A quiz rally around the displays changes with the seasons.

The restaurant and cafe looks out over the Maruyama River and serves dishes made with Tajima beef and other local produce. The shop sells Toyooka bags, willow baskets and Genbudo castella from the museum's own confectionery kitchen. The museum also runs boats on the river: a ferry from JR Genbudo Station on the far bank, and a sightseeing cruise of about 10 minutes, from which Oriental white storks can sometimes be seen.