あかがね, 銅, and ... bronze?

[Mikhail Skovoronskikh]

Dear colleagues,

Recently I've encountered several instances of あかがね used in medieval and early modern vernacular texts (most of them drawing on famous gunkimono such Heike and Taiheiki) where the metal is presented as something durable and tough.

Now, technically あかがね and 銅 are, of course, copper. But pure copper is a soft, malleable metal, unless my high school chemistry memories are failing me. I am strongly tempted to interpret あかがね and 銅 as referring to bronze, and there are instances of such usage in other languages. Yet I can't seem to find any evidence for this hypothesis: no dictionaries that I have handy at the moment gloss あかがね (or, for that matter, 銅 itself) as 青銅, or bronze.

At the moment I don't have access to the vast array of resources available through JapanKnowledge, so I may have overlooked something. In any event, I would very much appreciate any comments clarifying what exactly あかがね and 銅 refer to in premodern vernacular texts.

Since gunkimono and their material culture are not something I have any specialized knowledge of, I hope you will forgive me for asking a rather amateurish question.

Best regards,

Mikhail Skovoronskikh

[Thomas D. Conlan]

Dear Mikhail:

This is an interesting question. I think that akagane refers to copper, which after all, has a reddish hue. 

But pure copper is very rare-anything smelted would of course have traces of other elements. I do think, however, that akagane is predominantly copper with various impurities.  

I did a quick search of Taiheiki and Heike  and found references to akagane being used for decorations, which is what one would expect.  

Of course, if you have an examples from these texts where copper seems very implausible please let us know!

As far as I can tell, people in Japan were pretty precise with their language regarding metals and alloys.

One can find 赤銅, shakudō, an alloy of 3-4% gold, or shibuichi (四分一), one part silver and four parts copper, or brass (ōdō 黄銅) which is a copper zinc alloy  but zinc is an element  is not so commonly found in Japan. There is also kuromidō 黒味銅.  which is a copper and 1% arsenic alloy. 

And of course copper and tin--bronze (青銅). People did have trouble distinguishing tin from lead or antimony, so not all 青銅 is actually bronze. But I am not aware of any such confusion regarding copper, or any confusion between copper (akagane) and bronze.  

Best wishes,

Thomas  Conlan
Professor in East Asian Studies and Professor of History
Princeton University
207 Jones Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544-1008
Tel: (609) 258-4773
Fax: (609) 258-6984
tco...@princeton.edu

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[Mikhail Skovoronskikh]

Dear Professor Conalan and colleagues,

Allow me to give you a few examples and also add some information on the way 銅 is treated within Sinitic texts, which must have informed the perceptions of 銅 in Japan as well.

To begin with, the text I am referring to is a ko-jōruri play entitled Kan'yōkyū 感陽宮 (Xianyang Palace, also note the "wrong" first character). It is profoundly indebted to the gunkimono corpus. There is a scene in the play where a wicked, wild elephant is set on the protagonists. Here is how it is described:

てつとうをまろめあかがねにてかためたるぞう也

Copper doesn't seem to be a good choice to "harden" a battle elephant's armor.

Then there is another scene where a protective net is stretched to shield the antagonist from severed demonic heads (yes, severed demonic heads):

御前あかがねあみをはり・・・あみにせかれてかなはねば

In the story, the net holds up against a fierce assault by these flying heads, which connotes a degree of toughness not necessarily associated with copper. But then it is a net, suggesting some malleability as well.

Now, as for the Sinitic comparison, Prof. Kroll's Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese reads:

銅 1. Copper. 2. Bronze, latten (copper with tin additive), describing cast objects ... .

It is clear that Prof. Kroll sees 銅 as referring not only to copper itself, but to its alloys, with bronze being the most important one.

Morohashi does not define 銅 specifically as bronze, but suggests that the reader consult 日知録, a Qing-dynasty 考証随筆 considered to be exemplary in the breadth of its coverage and precision. Morohashi's suggestion is apt because 日知録 can be seen as a summa miscellanea reflecting the tradition's emic view on, among other things, 銅.

As we read the relevant passages, it becomes quite clear that, in its Sinitic iteration, 銅 is as much "copper" as it is "bronze." To quote several excerpts (the kundoku is mine and provisional):

江淹 (a Six Dynasties literatus) 謂ふ、古劍に銅を用ゐる。昆吾、歐冶 (legendary swords) の類の如きは、皆銅なり。楚子、鄭伯に金を賜ひ、盟に曰く、「以て兵を鑄する無し。故に以て三鐘を鑄す」と。

Here we see references to bronze weapons (swords) and also bells, which are clearly not cast from copper.

To continue: 

戰國より秦に至るまで、攻爭紛亂、銅 用ゐるに充（た）らず。故に鐵を以て之を足す。銅を鑄すること旣に難く、鐵を求むること甚だ易し。是の故に銅兵は轉（うた）た少なく、鐵兵は轉た多し。

Here we see how 銅 is described as becoming more rare amid the unending warfare of the Zhanguo Period and being replaced with iron. This must refer to 銅 alloys, most likely bronze again. 

And then there is the famous Shiji episode where the assassin Jing Ke throws his dagger at the First Emperor. Jing Ke misses, and the weapon hits a 銅 pillar: 

乃ち其の匕首を引きて以て秦王に擿（なげう）つ。中らず。銅柱に中る。

The commentary gives us more graphic details:

荊軻 (Jing Ke) 匕首を拔きて秦王に擲（なげう）つ。耳を決（き）り銅柱に入る。火出づ。

Here it seems as though the dagger penetrated the metal somehow, which suggests copper rather than bronze. But then the original uses the neutral 中 ("be on target") rather then 入, and I am having a hard time imagining copper pillars supporting anything of substance.

To conclude this cursory discussion of the Sinitic referent of 銅, it appears that it is used to refer to "copper and all its alloys." Among these, bronze is the most well-known, and the famed Zhou bronze vessels, ancient swords, and mirrors are all great examples of what 銅 could denote.

Now, since copper smelting itself was a technology that entered Japan from the continent and since Japanese practical literacy must have been largely dependent on continental semantics, I suspect that あかがね as the native gloss for 銅 may not have always been limited to copper proper. I would appreciate further comments very much.

Best regards,

Mikhail 

 

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[Ross Bender]

This is all very fascinating. I'm not exactly sure it is relevant to this discussion, but beginning in Monmu's time the Shoku Nihongi begins to record the rapid appearance of tin, copper, and other materials. Of course the presentation of 'soft copper' from Musashi Province in 708 famously led to the changing of the nengō  to Wadō.      和銅

Obviously developments in metallurgy were coming thick and fast:

《文武二年（六九八）七月乙亥（十七）》○乙亥。下野・備前国献赤烏。伊予国献白鑞。

Monmu 2.7.17 [August 28, 698]

Shimotsuke and Bizen provinces presented red crows. Iyo Province presented tin.

《文武二年（六九八）七月乙酉（廿七）》○乙酉。伊予国献鑞鉱。

Monmu 2.7.27 [September 7, 698]

Iyo Province presented tin ore.

《文武二年（六九八）三月乙丑（辛酉朔五）》○三月乙丑。因幡国献銅鉱。

Monmu 2.3.5 [April 20, 698]

Inaba Province presented copper ore.

《文武二年（六九八）九月壬午（廿五）》○壬午。周芳国献銅鉱。

Monmu 2.9.25 [November 3, 698]

Suō Province presented copper ore.

《文武二年（六九八）九月乙酉（廿八）》○乙酉。令近江国献金青。伊勢国朱沙・雄黄。常陸国。備前。伊予。日向四国朱沙。安芸・長門二国金青・緑青。豊後国真朱。

Monmu 2.9.28 [November 6, 698]

It was ordered that Ōmi Province present golden blue pigments; Ise Province red sand and yellow pigments; Hitachi, Bizen, Iyo and Hyūga Provinces red sand; Aki and Nagato Provinces golden blue and greenish blue pigments; Bungo Province pure vermilion pigments.[1]

《文武二年（六九八）十一月辛酉（五）》○辛酉。伊勢国献白鑞。

Monmu 2.11.5 [December 12, 698]

Ise Province presented tin.

《文武四年（七〇〇）二月戊子（八）》○戊子。令丹波国献錫。

Monmu 4.2.8 [March 3, 700]

Tanba Province was ordered to present tin.

《和銅六年（七一三）五月癸酉（十一）》○癸酉。相摸。常陸。上野。武蔵。下野。五国輸調。元来是布也。自今以後。絁・布並進。又令大倭参河並献雲母。伊勢水銀。相摸石硫黄。白樊石。黄樊石。近江慈石。美濃青樊石。飛騨。若狭並樊石。信濃石硫黄。上野金青。陸奥白石英。雲母。石硫黄。出雲黄樊石。讃岐白樊石。

Wadō 6.5.11 (June 8, 713)

Originally the tax in kind from the five provinces of Sagami, Hitachi, Kozuke, Musashi, and Shimotsuke has been in hemp cloth. From now on this tax should be both in plain weave silk and hemp cloth. Yamato and Mikawa are to send mica. Ise is to send mercury. Sagami is to send crystalline sulfur, white alum and yellow alum. Ōmi is to send alum. Mino is to send blue alum. Hida and Wakasa are to send alum. Shinano is to send crystalline sulfur. Kōzuke is to send blue metal. Michinooku is to send quartz and mica. Izumo is to send yellow alum. Sanuki is to send white alum.[1]

There are also references to "white copper":

《和銅五年（七一二）五月癸酉（五）》○癸酉。禁六位已下以白銅及銀飾革帯。

Wadō 5.5.5 (June 13, 712)

Officials of the sixth rank and down were prohibited from ornamenting their leather belts with white copper or silver.

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[1] I follow Snellen’s translations of these various minerals.

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[1] The colors given here are speculative approximations.

Ross Bender

Amazon.com: SHOKU NIHONGI 697-791: A Translation of Maki 1-40 eBook : Bender, Ross, Bender, Ross Lynn: Kindle Store

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[Thomas D. Conlan]

Dear Mikael

Thank you for this. Yes it may very well be that there was some confusion in Chinese texts but I have not seen it in gunkimono texts written in Japan.

If you can find some good Heike or Taiheiki examples revealing similar confusion, please let me know

Best wishes 

Tom Conlan 

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 10, 2025, at 4:13 PM, Mikhail Skovoronskikh <ms3...@georgetown.edu> wrote:



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