Kyonan: Cultural Properties and the Lake in the Motona Quarry

If you’re looking for a hotel in Kyonan, Motona offers two distinct themes to consider when planning your trip: religious art and a landscape featuring a lake formed in a former quarry. The cultural theme encompasses a range of forms, from a Buddha carved into the rock to a bell, statue, votive painting, and carvings. These distinctions can help you decide what to focus on during your trip based on your interests, rather than referring to culture and landscape only in general terms.

Artworks in Different Forms

The Great Buddha at Nihonji in Motona is a 31-meter-tall figure carved into the rock. Its height gives a sense of the scale of the work, while the description of it as rock-carved also offers a concrete idea of how it was made. These details answer different questions: How tall is the Buddha, and what defines its form? For travelers who choose a destination based on distinctive cultural features, this combination of scale and material offers a precise point of reference.

The bell at Nihonji in Motona 184 is an Important Cultural Property in the craft category. The half-kneeling stone Jizō statue at Motona 812 is a tangible cultural property in the sculpture category. The large votive painting “Depiction of Minamoto no Yoshitsune Practicing Archery” at Tsurugasaki Shrine in Motona 921 is a tangible cultural property in the painting category. The carvings on the Buddhist altar at Sonrinji in Motona 1183 are also tangible cultural properties in the sculpture category. The objects thus differ in form and artistic category: a bell, statue, painted votive image, and carved work represent different kinds of cultural heritage.

Sculpture is especially easy to compare: it is the category assigned both to the stone Jizō statue and to the carvings on the Buddhist altar. The votive painting, by contrast, belongs to painting, while the bell belongs to the craft category. This comparison helps distinguish the works by material and artistic form, rather than treating them as merely a collection of names.

The Lake in the Motona Quarry

The Motona Quarry covers 28 hectares. At its center is the lake known as “丁場湖,” which formed when water collected in a former quarry. The area figure describes the site, while the lake’s history explains how it formed. This gives the landscape its own focus alongside the individual cultural works: its distinctive form is connected to the site’s earlier use.

The figures of 31 meters and 28 hectares describe different scales: the first refers to the height of the Great Buddha, while the second refers to the area of the quarry. They cannot be read as a direct comparison of size. Taken together, however, they show the range of features in Motona: from a single work to a landscape area with a lake at its center. When planning your trip, these different perspectives can help you weigh your interests in culture and landscape.

For the broader travel overview: Awa District.