Model of Ancient Yayoi Dog Attracting Visitors to Museum in Shiga Pref.; Social Media Posts Show Dog ‘Walking’ in and Out of Facility

By Kayo Hayashi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

1:00 JST, April 26, 2025

OMI-HACHIMAN, Shiga — A model of an ancient dog at a museum in Omi-Hachiman, Shiga Prefecture, is gaining popularity thanks to social media posts showing the dog model “walking” in and out of the museum.

Visitors come to the Azuchi Castle Archaeological Museum run by Shiga Prefecture to see the elaborate model of a female Yayoi dog, which is believed to have lived in Japan during the ancient Yayoi period. The model dog has left an exhibition room where it had been displayed for more than 30 years due to the renovation of the room.

Since the museum’s opening in 1992, the dog model had been displayed in Permanent Display Room No.1, along with models of humans carrying farming tools and making earthenware, which was designed to introduce the agricultural lifestyle of the Yayoi period.

The museum decided to move the dog model in order to set up a new theater in the display room that currently shows a video of Azuchi Castle reproduced with high-definition computer graphics.

Last June, the museum posted a video on its official Instagram page titled “troubling doggy,” which showed its staff struggling to move the model Yayoi dog, which was attached to a shelf. Since then, the model dog has been actively promoted as the museum’s “mascot dog,” wearing its trademark Magatama beads around its neck.

The mascot dog sometimes greets visitors at the entrance or at the reception desk. The model even made an outing to a museum in Gifu Prefecture and was one of the first to sneak into the new theater room before its opening.

The model’s front legs are outstretched and its face looks up at people kindly, making its appearance very lifelike. As the museum continued to post pictures on social media, an increasing number of people began visiting the museum to see the dog, saying, “I came to see her” or “Where is she today?”

“The Yayoi dog has been watching over the museum since its opening. We hope it will help people become interested in the museum,” said a museum curator.

Little known about Yayoi dog

The model Yayoi dog has been exhibited at the museum as an animal with close ties to humans. But the museum said it had no materials or detailed information about the dog.

In 1980, nearly complete skeletons of a male and a female Yayoi dog were excavated at the Kamei Remains in Yao, Osaka Prefecture.

In 1996, the staff of the Osaka Prefectural Museum of Yayoi Culture in Izumi City, Osaka Prefecture, who participated in the excavation, produced a model of the dog for the first time in Japan. Based on the findings of zooarchaeology and anatomy, the model was made with reference to the skeleton of the excavated male dog and a Shikoku dog, which has similar characteristics.

The dog model at the Osaka museum is displayed with a human family from the Yayoi period in a section on pit dwellings. The museum’s website introduces the dog with cartoons with the dog character saying things such as, “I was a hunting companion” and “They made a grave for me.” While the Yayoi dogs are believed to be partners of humans in ancient times, their bones with amputation marks have been unearthed in various locations, suggesting that they were also eaten.

A Yayoi period bronze bell, which is said to have been found in Kagawa Prefecture and housed in the Tokyo National Museum, depicts humans and dogs hunting a wild boar.