Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Archaeology

The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Archaeology is a prefectural archaeology museum in Harima Town, Kako District, Hyogo Prefecture, opened in 2007. It stands in one corner of the “Harima Oonaka Ancient Village” area (Oonaka Archaeological Site Park and the Deai-no-michi path), which includes the nationally famous Oonaka Site, known as a major late Yayoi to early Kofun period settlement. Access is about a 15-minute walk from Tsuchiyama Station on the JR Kobe Line. The museum is well known not as a conventional object-centered museum that simply asks visitors to “look,” but as a hands-on, participatory museum where visitors can engage through experience—“touch, feel, try, and think.” On weekends, it draws not only archaeology enthusiasts but also many families. There are abundant interactive programs such as simulated excavation experiences, a corner where you can transform into an ancient person, and workshops like magatama bead making and fire-starting. The life-size diorama depicting Paleolithic people hunting a Naumann’s elephant and scenes of exchange with China by ship is also impressive, creating a vivid sense of time travel into the ancient world. It’s a spot well worth visiting together with the Oonaka Site.