A new volume, Okinoshima: the outstanding value of Japan’s sacred heritage – a World Heritage nomination by Simon Kaner, Natasha Hutcheson, Andrew Hutcheson and Nishitani Tadashi will be published by Springer Briefs in 2021.
The tiny island of Okinoshima is considered to enshrine the Munakata deities, three sisters who control the Genkai Sea between Kyushu and the Korean peninsula, an essential crossing between Japan and the continent in ancient times. Simon Kaner was on the International Expert Panel for the bid to have the sacred island of Okinoshima and associated sites of the Munkata region inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage. Okinoshima was inscribed in the summer of 2017. In no small part this was due to all the in depth preparation that went into the bid, many detailed research papers were commissioned by the Fukuoka Prefecture World Heritage Promotion Committee (all available online in both English and Japanese).