Iwami Ginzan's silver mine, woods and cultural landscape (Photo-essay)

In what can seem like another lifetime, I was a tourism planner whose job involved meeting with government officials and telling them what getting the area where I worked on the UNESCO World Heritage list would mean.  I remember being shocked and horrified by one senior government official ignorantly asking if getting on the list really would have much impact -- and recalled our discussion as I made my way to Iwami Ginzan (by train and then bus from Matsue, as had been the case the previous day for the Adachi Museum of Art).      

For the fact of the matter is that I wouldn't have known of the existence of this historically important silver mine and its distinctive cultural landscape -- which includes a small town with roots back into the Edo period (Omori) where, unusually, samurai, merchants and craftsmen (and their families) would live on the same street rather than in separate neighborhoods -- if not for it having been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2007; this despite this one mining area being said to have supplied one third of the world's silver in the 16th century.

Beginning from 1526, silver was extracted at Iwami Ginzan for close to 400 years.  Despite all this mining taking place and such as mountain fortresses to protect the silver as well as mining towns being built in the area, today it is largely wooded -- thanks to forestry management that, in the past, ensured a steady supply of the vast amount of timber used for fuel when refining the silver and such. 

While no visit to this site could possibly be considered complete without going down a mine shaft, it's also very much part of the experience to make the hike through the woods to one of the two mine shafts that are open to the public -- and also to check out the other human-created sections of what feels these days like a most bucolic area...    

On my woodland trek, I expected to have my third 

Japanese snake spotting (after ones in Ogimachi and Bitchu-Takahashi) 

-- especially after seeing signs like that pictured above! :O

The Shimizudani Refinery Ruins got me thinking

of the Roman ruins I saw in Trier last year ;b

Inside the Ryugenji Mabu Mine Shaft which dates back to 1715

Dedicated to Kanayamahiko-no-mikoto, the god of metal refining,

Sahimeyama-jinja is one of Japan's largest mountain shrines

-- and completely (and eerily) deserted when I visited!

 The town of Omori's so picturesque it can look like

it's part of a historical theme park rather than a place

where people still live and work!

 Eisen-ji's one of a number of Buddhist temples and

Shinto shrines to be found in Omori (and yes, there also 

are many places where flowers grow within the town)

 It's hardly the largest or most historic building in Omori but I like 

how this house looks, with its pretty lace curtains and unpainted wood

Puppet Ponyo by one of the wooden bridges to be found 

in this town that comes across as an attractive place 

to live in, bar for its distance from other human settlements! ;b