It is a pleasure to introduce myself and my research in this month’s edition of the Sainsbury Institute e-bulletin. I arrived in Norwich only a few days ago, and I am very honoured to be here as one of the current Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellows, 2026-27.
I was born in Padova, a beautiful city not far from Venice, and have lived in the wonderful city of Matera, in the deep south of Italy, since high school. So yes, I am Italian; and one of the very first questions people ask me is, ‘why Japanese archaeology, if you’re Italian? How about the Roman Empire!’ Simple things have never really appealed to me. One of the aspects of archaeology I love most is that borders are a modern, constructed concept, and I like to think of my life as borderless. My research topic brings together everything I love: Japan, ancient cultures, art, mystery, and adventure.
I am an archaeologist specialising in Japanese archaeology, and more specifically in the Kofun period — in particular its Late-to-Final phase — and the so-called sōshoku kofun, or decorated tombs. These developed mainly between the mid-fourth and seventh centuries, starting on the island of Kyūshū before spreading to other specific areas of Japan, such as Tottori and Ibaraki. They include tombs with sarcophagi decorated on the lid and walls, tombs decorated on stone slabs known as sekishō, tombs with paintings or engravings on their internal architectural elements, and even rock-cut tombs decorated on their external walls.
My path to this research began with a degree in East Asian Studies (Japanese Language and Culture) from the University of Rome La Sapienza, followed by an MA in Archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. It was there that Prof. Ilona R. Bausch, who taught East Asian archaeology and specialises in Japanese archaeology, helped me enormously in finding my path. Indeed, it is thanks to her that decorated tombs entered my life. It took just one book, a catalogue of sōshoku kofun, to open the door to what has since become my life’s work. After Leiden, I decided to strengthen my Japanese language skills and completed a further MA in Languages and Civilisations of Asia and Mediterranean Africa at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice where I also obtained my PhD last July. I am also the Scientific Director of the IRIAE (International Research Institute for Archaeology and Ethnology) archaeological project Sōshoku Kofun Tale, officially recognised by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI). The then Italian Ambassador to Tokyo, Gianluigi Benedetti, welcomed me at the embassy to discuss and learn more about the project; a moving moment as I realised that, for the first time, Japan’s decorated tombs were gaining the international visibility they deserve.
During my PhD at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, I had the privilege and honour of working with Professor Silvia Vesco, my PhD supervisor, and with Professors Mark Hudson and Ilona R. Bausch, my co-supervisors, who helped me approach my topic from different perspectives. As we are dealing with a period without written language, it is difficult to fully understand the complex background of these depictions. A single approach therefore proved insufficient, and for that reason I decided to employ theories and methods from cognitive archaeology, archaeology of death, prehistoric art, phenomenology, and anthropology.
I know that saying ‘I work on the archaeology of death, on tombs, on funerary culture and funerary art’ can sound a little unsettling. In truth, for me it is a deeply personal and spiritual line of research: understanding how ancient people approached an aspect of life that can never change — death. Cognitive and phenomenological archaeology allows us to give voice to people, situations and aspects that can otherwise feel distant and lost to the centuries. Archaeology, after all, is not just excavation: it is a combination of different disciplines all working towards the same goal: understanding, reconstructing and telling the story of the past. Through my research, I try to show how the depictions inside Japanese tombs cannot be considered passive decoration, but active agents shaping the rituals and the funerary experience of those who entered them. It is no coincidence that particular iconographies — or visual strategies — appear on particular architectural elements: when entering a tomb, one encounters these elements, and the imagery reproduced on them, both visually and physically. Take, for example, a low, narrow passageway leading to the burial chamber, one of the most intimate and delicate parts of the tomb. Having to stoop to pass through such a structure forces a particular movement and, in turn, limits how many people can pass through it at once. If we then add the presence of specific iconographies along this passage, producing a kind of ‘surprise’ or ‘familiar’ effect, it becomes clear that these tombs were true visual journeys, shaping the experience of everyone who entered them.
My doctoral thesis, Living Images, Embodied Spaces: Agency and Perception of the Burial Environment in the Painted Decorated Tombs of Late Kofun Kyūshū, explored these points, and the monograph I will develop during my year at the Sainsbury Institute aims to redefine the concept of the decorated tomb, positioning it as an active agent within funerary practice, and its iconographies not as ‘mere’ decoration but as possessing an agency that shapes how the funerary space is perceived.
In a recent article in Antiquity — ‘The Anonymous Protagonist? Agency and Abstraction in Kyushu Decorated Tombs of the Japanese Late Kofun Period’ — I explore how even those iconographies that, from a ‘Western’ perspective, might appear closer to an aesthetic, representational depiction of the deceased (such as the anthropomorphic imagery discussed in the article) are, in fact, anonymous and lacking distinguishing features. Instead, these elements play a secondary role to abstract, geometric iconography. This was a surprising result, as it suggests that decorated tombs in Japan were not conceived as ‘individual’ but rather as ‘collective’ representations of a funerary system.
I have had the good fortune of being the first, and so far only, Western researcher to carry out official archaeological investigations inside these tombs, thanks to my Japanese colleagues Kawano Kazutaka (Tokyo National Museum), Sakaguchi Keitarō (Kumamoto Prefectural Decorated Kofun Museum) and Yoshida Tōmei (Kyushu Historical Museum). Having entered these tombs in person — in some cases literally sealed inside them — has allowed me to understand them as living places: spaces experienced, loved and resented by real people who felt genuine emotion towards them. I find it fascinating to be able to give voice to what, behind an apparently simple circle, may once have meant something far greater to the people of that time.
I am extremely grateful and honoured for the opportunity that the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellowship gives me to bring this monograph to life, in the hope of reaching not only specialists but a wider readership interested in this fascinating and little-known subject, and giving voice to this ancient culture.
All photographs shown in this piece were taken by and are the property of Claudia Zancan.
Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, 2026-27