The Osaka History Museum is located in a tall very modern building that has views of the Osaka Castle, the walls and the moat too. The Museum is on the floors 10-7, starting at 10 showing the earliest times and working down to more modern times on floor 7. It opened with large scale reproductions of the first big royal palace, the Naniwa Palace from the 7th century CE. The scale was impressive, 20 foot tall ceilings and the entire complex covered 100 square block or more of the modern city. As we worked our way down we saw models of villages, temples, theaters and such. They also had entertaining large scale dioramas depicting live at sea, life in the city and life on the docks. Finally on the last floor we saw artifacts from the 20's and an entire street recreated with a veggie stand, a fish stand and the neon signs of a restaurant. A fine way to spend a rainy day.
heading into the museum
The very modern entry portal to the past
Greeting us as we leave the elevator
The Maidens
The sleeves and dresses seem to be too long to stay clean in the 7th century
This recreation is of the main entry hall of the palace
The tiny people at the base illustrate the size of this construction
Unaccompanied minor grabbing onto the displays
We are a bit taller than the folks of old
The reconstructed entry way is just the rectangle on the bottom of the picture. Imaging how grans the rest of the buildings would have been
The yellow parts are the palace grounds superimposed on the map of the current city
This big ceramic piece is a replica of the top of the temple roof
This shows the location of the big ceramic piece
Original ceramic roof tiles
This wooden mallet was used to imprint patterns on ceramics
Banging in the designs
More roof tiles
Small but delightful bowls from 1600 years ago
Each floor had viewing areas of the current castle
A memorial building
Pre industrial villages had been recreated in minature
A big temple cut away
Lots of meticulous work went into building these displays
The original paint is still attached
One big fish!
The dioramas are 3-D and depict different scenes of daily life
Rowing a small boat
Off loading the larger boat
A big lunch for a Crow
No need to wear too much clothing when working hard on the river boats
The passengers don't look too happy, perhaps they saw too much from under the towels
Time for a cool bath
This was a display for kids, they could look into the round portals and see a puppet broadcast on screens behind the screen
A diagram showing the silting up of the Bay of Osaka over the centuries
A very energetic deity
What is in his hands?
A model of a theater, a mini puppet show is going on at the entrance to the theater
The entrance and then it is cut away on the side
Here the audience is shown
With an actor coming down the asile
Dragon in the mist
Puppets!
It takes three puppeteers to operate the puppets
Not a friendly face
This shows the inner workings of the puppets
The final product
Different faces
An elaborate creature
This illustrates a oxen powered water wheel
Strong men showing off
One big whale
Copper smelting was a large industry with ingots above
More modern times
Old cars
A neon sign from pre-war days
An entire street was mocked up
The fish market
Veggies
A vary elaborate storefront
Where do we get in line for the food
Very unsure what this could possible be
Is she a wet nurse?
Possibly a hilt to a samurai sword
A most elaborate dish
A Japanese flag from 1930's
An old, 1964, Olympic torch
Great wooden panels
An ash tray!
Great wooden panels
A fancy umbrella locker, brilliant!
