Japan · 2 PLACES TO EXPLORE

A little more
of Izumo.

Find places to visit in Izumo. See what catches your eye, then save a few favorites for your trip.

Izumo · JP

Shōkokan Treasure Hall

The Shōkokan (彰古館, "Hall of Honoring Antiquity") is a stately two-story wooden building set in the northwest corner of the sacred precincts of Izumo Taisha, one of Japan's oldest and most revered Shinto shrines. Built in 1914 as a public treasure museum, the Shōkokan was the first purpose-built facility in which the shrine's accumulated sacred objects could be displayed for everyday visitors. The building is now permanently closed to the public, but its architecture — registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2015 — remains visible and admired within the shrine grounds. The nearby Treasure Hall inside the Shinkōden building carries on the museum function, displaying the shrine's national treasures and important cultural properties.

Shinto shrine

Izumo · JP

Ketsu Shrine

Deep in the rural Sadacho area of Izumo, Ketsu Shrine (毛津神社, read Kezu-jinja) is a quiet, village-rooted place of worship to Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the storm god and great hero of Izumo myth, and to Inadahime-no-Mikoto, the weave-princess he rescued. It is a working shrine of local families rather than a grand tourist site, and its real treasure is a single extraordinary rite performed at its autumn festival. What makes Ketsu special is the way it keeps the serpent-slaying story alive in straw and chant. At its 2 November grand festival, three rotating households craft a roughly three-metre snake body from the year's fresh rice-straw and hang it in the hall of worship, which the priest then ritually 'cuts' with a sword—an enactment of Susanoo's defeat of the great serpent, and the very act the place-name is said to record. Founded at a date now lost, the shrine was long known as Otoshi, the 'Great Year' deity of the harvest, so it remains a place to pray for bountiful crops and safe homes. For a traveler already exploring the Izumo shrine-and-myth landscape, Ketsu offers an intimate, living glimpse of how an old story is still re-enacted in a farming village.

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Japan · 2 PLACES TO EXPLORE

A little more
of Izumo.

Find places to visit in Izumo. See what catches your eye, then save a few favorites for your trip.

Heritage museum

Izumo · JP

Shōkokan Treasure Hall

The Shōkokan (彰古館, "Hall of Honoring Antiquity") is a stately two-story wooden building set in the northwest corner of the sacred precincts of Izumo Taisha, one of Japan's oldest and most revered Shinto shrines. Built in 1914 as a public treasure museum, the Shōkokan was the first purpose-built facility in which the shrine's accumulated sacred objects could be displayed for everyday visitors. The building is now permanently closed to the public, but its architecture — registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2015 — remains visible and admired within the shrine grounds. The nearby Treasure Hall inside the Shinkōden building carries on the museum function, displaying the shrine's national treasures and important cultural properties.

Shinto shrine

Izumo · JP

Ketsu Shrine

Deep in the rural Sadacho area of Izumo, Ketsu Shrine (毛津神社, read Kezu-jinja) is a quiet, village-rooted place of worship to Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the storm god and great hero of Izumo myth, and to Inadahime-no-Mikoto, the weave-princess he rescued. It is a working shrine of local families rather than a grand tourist site, and its real treasure is a single extraordinary rite performed at its autumn festival. What makes Ketsu special is the way it keeps the serpent-slaying story alive in straw and chant. At its 2 November grand festival, three rotating households craft a roughly three-metre snake body from the year's fresh rice-straw and hang it in the hall of worship, which the priest then ritually 'cuts' with a sword—an enactment of Susanoo's defeat of the great serpent, and the very act the place-name is said to record. Founded at a date now lost, the shrine was long known as Otoshi, the 'Great Year' deity of the harvest, so it remains a place to pray for bountiful crops and safe homes. For a traveler already exploring the Izumo shrine-and-myth landscape, Ketsu offers an intimate, living glimpse of how an old story is still re-enacted in a farming village.