Clay Mushrooms and Cones

Oyu Stone Circles Museum
Kazuno, Japan

These small clay mushrooms and decorated cones must have had a purpose, but for now we have to fall back on the all-too-broad label of "ritual" to describe it. Mushrooms were a useful food source to foragers, and they might also be a symbol of rebirth, springing up from the earth after a rain. Or they might have meant both things; either interpretation would have made them suitable for small funeral deposits as well as, say, agricultural rituals; multiple meanings are always a possibility, especially in the ancient world. The cones, however, decorated with small punched marks and contour lines, are even more of a mystery.