is an artificial island, the oldest in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, now in ruins. The name means "Waka Bay Island" from Waka, Zaimokuza's old name (see the text of the commemorative stele, below). Its remains are located at the east end of

Zaimokuza is an area within the Kamakura, Kanagawa Pref., in Japan that runs along the sea from Cape Iijima near Kotsubo harbor to the estuary of the Namerigawa. The relation between the beach's name and that of its neighboring areas is complex. Although Yu ...

Beach near

Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...

and are still visible at low tide. It was built in 1232 and, in spite of its state of disrepair, it has been declared a national

Historic Site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...

because it is the sole surviving example of an artificial harbor from the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

. Although its component stones have sunk in the sand, its general contour is still clearly visible when the

tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravity, gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide t ...

is low as a mound about 200m long. On its northern side there used to be several stone pillars used to

moor Moor or Moors may refer to: Nature and ecology * Moorland, a habitat characterized by low-growing vegetation and acidic soils. Ethnic and religious groups * Moors, Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during ...

ships in port call to avoid strong southern winds, but they are now all lost. On the beach, a large rock surmounted by a black stele marks the position of the former port. The stele, erected by the ''Kamakuramachi Seinendan'' (Kamakura Youth Club) in 1924, explains in Japanese the history of the site and its importance.

History

During the

Kamakura shogunate The was the feudal military government of Japan during the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Kamakura-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 459. The Kamakura shogunate was established by Minamoto no Y ...

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while the ...

was busy with trading ships, but the shallowness of the bay made the use of

barges Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by Pusher (boat) ...

indispensable. Accidents between ships were common and it was therefore decided to build a port. A priest named applied for permission from the Shogunate to build an artificial port in the area. Permission was granted in 1232. In its first form, the harbor functioned as both a breakwater and a wharf and was built with large stones laid as a foundation, with smaller stones on top. It was later extended gradually and repaired several times until the end of the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, when it was abandoned.

Text on the stele

The original inscription is in old-fashioned Japanese. Here follows a translation of the text based on the transcription in modern Japanese provided by the Kamakura Citizen Ne

"Waka" is the former name of today's Zaimokuza. This place used to be a harbor where timber was collected and shipped and, for this reason, the town's name changed soon to the present one.
Wakae Island was an embankment built to avoid the destruction by the waves of Waka's harbor. 768 years ago, a priest named Oamidabutsu asked permission for its building and, with the support of Moritsuna, work was started on July 15th and ended on August 9th.
Erected in March 1924 – The Kamakura Youth Club

References

* :ja:和賀江島, "Wakaejima" from the Japanese version of Wikipedia accessed on April 4, 2008
Kamakura: History & Historic Sites
by the Kamakura Citizen Net accessed on April 4, 2008

External links

Photos of Wakae Island's full profile in occasion of an exceptionally low tide (site in Japanese) accessed on April 4, 2008

Original text and its transcription with photo of Wakae Island's commemorative stele (site in Japanese) accessed on April 4, 2008 {{coord, 35, 18, 2.52, N, 139, 33, 2.02, E, region:JP_type:isle_scale:1000, display=title Kamakura, Kanagawa Artificial islands of Japan Islands of Kanagawa Prefecture