Gusuku
often refers to castles or fortresses in the Ryukyu Islands that feature stone walls. However, the origin and essence of remain controversial. In the archaeology of Ryukyu Islands, the Gusuku period refers to an archaeological epoch of the Okinawa Islands that follows the shell-mound period and precedes the Sanzan period, when most are thought to have been built. Many and related cultural remains on Okinawa Island have been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites under the title Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu.
Philological analysis
The Yarazamori Gusuku Inscription contains phrases, "pile " and "pile up and..." ; apparently, in these phrases refers to stone walls. In the , the term is written as "くすく," or "ぐすく" in hiragana. Occasionally, the Chinese character "城" is assigned to it. In later and , the reading shiro is also used for the same Chinese character, in addition to also using 城内. The references to in the are mostly about castles and fortresses, but sacred places and places of worship are called as well. In some cases, simply refers to Shuri Castle. The Liuqiu-guan yiyu, a Okinawan dictionary written in Chinese, maps Chinese "皇城" to the transcription "姑速姑". Similarly, the Yiyu yinshi assigns "窟宿孤" to "皇城."Etymology
There is no consensus about the etymology of. Chamberlain analyzed the word as the combination of gu and shuku. Kanazawa Shōzaburō also segmented into and but considered that the latter half was cognate with Old Japanese shiki, in which ki was a loan from Old Korean. Iha Fuyū proposed that suku was cognate with soko. Hirata Tsugumasa considered that was cognate with Japanese soko. Similarly, Higashionna Kanjun raised doubts over the analysis of gu since older records always used honorific u instead of gu. Nakahara Zenchū identified gu as go.Common features
Walls
The most prominent feature of most gusuku is their wall. Gusuku walls are primarily made with Ryukyuan limestone and, sometimes, coral. There are three types of gusuku walls: aikata-zumi, nozura-zumi, and nuno-zumi. Examples of each are Nakagusuku Castle, Nakijin Castle, Zakimi Castle, and parts of Shuri Castle. The shape of walls usually follows the contours of the land. They are usually thick, and sometimes have low parapets atop them. Some gusuku walls, like those of Nakagusuku Castle, were designed to resist cannon fire.Bailey
Gusuku have one or more baileys. The baileys of typical gusuku usually contained a residence, a well, an, and storage buildings. Larger, like Nakijin Castle, could have more than five baileys, while smaller, like Iha Castle, had a single bailey.Gates
have one or more entrances, often guarded by a heavy gate or gatehouse. Gates were the strongpoints of gusuku. Many, like Nakijin Castle, were adapted to have gun ports next to their gates.Main Hall
At the heart of most was the Great Hall. The Main Hall was typically the residence of a feudal lord. The palace at Shuri Castle is the most prominent Main Hall, being the only one remaining, but the site of the Main Hall is very obvious at other, such as Katsuren Castle.Utaki
Almost all contain or are near an , shrines and sites of religious importance in the Ryukyuan religion. The relationship between and has led some experts to question the origin and essence of.Research
Okinawa Islands
Although it is widely recognized within the Okinawa Islands that are castles/fortresses, there is ample reason to question this perception. The origin and essence of were actively discussed in the 1960s and 70s and remain controversial.Cultural geographer Nakamatsu Yashū claimed that the essence of was a sacred place. His theory was backed by decades of field work that was not limited to the Okinawa Islands but that extended to Amami, Miyako and Yaeyama. He revealed that an overwhelming majority of what were called by local communities did not look like castles or fortresses at all. In fact, they were too isolated from local communities, too small to live in and lacked water supply. Among hundreds of, only a dozen were fortifications. Each community usually had a. were typically located on hills, but some were on sand dunes, on cliff edges, and in caves. In some communities, what were called were actually stone tombs. Nakamatsu explained the great diversity of by one feature in common: sacredness. According to Nakamatsu, a was in origin a place of "aerial burial." The reason that a dozen of were transformed into fortress/castle-like structures is unclear, but he conjectured that some rulers had expanded substantially by building their family residences around them. Shuri Castle, for example, encompasses sacred places such as and, which suggests the original nature of the castle.
Archaeologists from Okinawa Prefecture have labeled some archaeological findings as. Takemoto Masahide claimed that gusuku were defensive communities. He classified what he considered into three types:
- A: residence of political leaders, a fortress/castle with stone walls,
- B: defensive community, and
- C: place of ancestor worship or burial place.
Archaeologist Tōma Shiichi hypothesized that a was the residence of an and his family. Since most in the Okinawa Islands are accompanied with stone walls, he considered that the Gusuku Period was characterized by the formation of class society. Among archaeologists, however, Kokubu Naoichi supported Nakamatsu's theory considering poor living conditions of. Asato Susumu expressed concern about the association of with class society because the emergence of political rulers was not well attested by archaeological findings but mostly based on literature that was written centuries later.
Folklorist Kojima Yoshiyuki was also a supporter of the sacredness theory. However, he opposed to Nakamatsu's theory about the origin of as a burial place. He argued that the word originally meant stonework. Separately of this, local communities handed down mountain cult, which shared roots with that of Yakushima and by extension Japan. Some sacred mountains were later fortified with stone walls, and as a result, came to mean castles/fortresses.
In any case, a flood of archaeological discoveries in the 1970s led Okinawan archaeologists to establish archaeological periods of the Okinawa Islands that were distinct from those of Japan. In their framework, the Gusuku period is an archaeological epoch of the Okinawa Islands, which they consider was characterized by the widespread appearance of, the widespread use of iron, and farming. It follows the Shell Mound period and precedes the Sanzan period. It is parallel with the late Heian to Muromachi periods of Japan. Also, the beginning of the Gusuku period corresponds to that of the Old Ryukyu period of Okinawan historiography, both beginning in 1187 with the semi-legendary ascension of King .
Takanashi Osamu, an Amami-based archaeologist, criticized the trend of Okinawan archaeology. The Gusuku period lacked clear markers of dating from an archaeological perspective. Pottery seriation, in particular, remained poorly understood. The contemporaneousness of stone walls and excavated potteries was not established. He also noted a bias of Okinawan archaeologists, who he thought were preoccupied with questions of how the Okinawa-centered kingdom of Ryukyu was formed.
While typical castle/fortress-type in the Okinawa Islands were featured by stone walls, it was discovered in the 1980s and 90s that some fortifications in northern Okinawa Island lacked stone walls but instead were characterized by earthworks, kuruwa and dry moats. This style of fortifications is in fact rather common in Amami Ōshima and representative of medieval mountain fortifications of Japan. Naka Shōhachirō and Chinen Isamu, a historian and an archaeologist from Okinawa dated them to the late 12th to early 13th centuries and claimed that they were predecessors of with stone walls. This view was actively criticized by Takanashi Osamu in the late 1990s and 2000s.
Sakishima Islands
Archaeological studies in the Sakishima Islands in southern Ryukyu not so active as those in the main Okinawa Islands. Some Okinawa-led archaeological reports labeled some sites in Miyako and Yaeyama as "-like." Archaeologist Ono Masatoshi raised concern about the naïve application of the Okinawan -as-fortifications framework and urged that scholars should not turn a blind eye to the diversified nature of archaeological sites with stone walls in these islands. Few sites can be attributed to the fact that the Sakishima Islands were over a hundred years behind Okinawa socially and technologically. In 1500, Ryukyu invaded and annexed the islands, which would have limited further local development. The primary site in Yaeyama is Furusutobaru Castle, residence of Oyake Akahachi, which was attacked by Nakasone Toyomiya of Miyako shortly before the invasion by Ryukyu.Linguist Nakamoto Masachie noted that in some dialects of Yaeyama, gusuku/''gushiku means stone walls themselves and conjectured that this might be the original meaning of. According to Ono Masatoshi, has various meanings, depending on dialects of Yaeyama, including a partition of a mansion and stone walls surrounding an agricultural field. Nakamatsu Yashū claimed that suku-like word forms were more prominent in Miyako and Yaeyama than.
Regardless of whether it is appropriate to call them, the Yaeyama Islands have archaeological remains with stone walls, such as Mashuku Village of Hateruma Island, Hanasuku and Gumaara Villages and Shinzato Villages of Taketomi Island. These villages were abandoned around the time of the conquest by the Ryukyu Kingdom. What are common to these villages are that they were located on top of cliffs, divided by inhomogeneous cell blocks and lacked roads. The whole village and each cell block were surrounded by stone walls. This type of abandoned settlement can also be found on Miyako Island but they are rather exceptional. The local people call these remains busu nu yashiki, or , in Ishigaki, bushin yaa in Hatoma, nishi nu bushi nu yaa in Aragusuku.
In the archaeology of Yaeyama, human settlements prior to the conquest by Ryukyu are called "Suku Villages" because the names of these ruins have the suffix -suku''. By extension, the archaeological epoch of the Suku Culture is sometimes used by archaeologists.