Gusuku brickwork photographs. Trust me, you should learn this stuff! If you can recognize these three styles you can pretty much date the century of any gusuku you visit. Nozurazumi is the earliest style. Untreated bricks piled up with no use of mortar. Gaps between rocks is the big giveaway. Lots of Shimajiri gusuku are predominantly in this style, and Nakijin to the north. Think 13th-14th century. Nonuzumi is the next phase in gusuku brickwork technological progress. Prepared rocks in square or rectangular shapes. No mortar. Beautiful. From 14th century onwards. A very effective brickwork style so you see this at earlier period gusuku as they evolve (see my earlier post on Itokazu Gusuku) and at later period gusuku (all of them!). I was surprised to see such a lot of nunozumi at Shuri, given that this was the last of the gusuku to be built, and not properly begun until 15th century. You always see a lot of nunozumi around gate areas at gusuku (again, see my earlier Itokazu Gusuku post). The last style is aikatazumi. Instead of preparing rocks in squares or rectangles the natural shape of the rock was honored. I think its quite amazing how these rocks fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Again, no mortar. Aikatazumi is a 14th into 15th century style. Now when you go to Nakagusuku Gusuku you will look at the nozurazumi sections as the earliest parts of the gusuku and the nunozumi and aikatazumi as later sections. Use the last image to test yourself?
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 08:34:05 +0000
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