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Paper short abstract

Numerous royal treasures of the kingdom of Lūchū (Ryūkyū) were looted or destroyed in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. In this presentation, I discuss four ugui royal portraits recovered in 2024, several of the treasures still missing, and the circumstances of their disappearance in 1945.

Paper long abstract

Numerous historical documents, paintings, lacquerware and porcelain items, textiles, musical instruments, ritual objects, and other priceless cultural artifacts went missing from Nakagusuku udun, the mansion of the former royal family of the Kingdom of Luchu (Ryukyu), in the aftermath of the Battle of Okinawa, a battle which saw the devastation of Okinawa Island and the deaths of perhaps as much as one-third of the island’s civilian population. While some were tragically destroyed in the battle, many of the missing royal treasures are believed to have survived only to be looted afterwards.

Among those lost were roughly twenty posthumous official portraits of the kings of Luchu, known as ugui. For decades, not a single ugui was known to survive; textual descriptions and black & white prewar photographs were all that was known to survive of them. In 2024, however, four of the missing ugui were recovered and returned to Okinawa. In this presentation, I discuss the recovered portraits, a number of treasures still yet to be recovered, and the circumstances of their disappearance in 1945.

The recovery of these paintings, along with sixteen other treasures from Nakagusuku udun, provides an invaluable opportunity for scholars to gain new insights into historical Luchu Kingdom court culture and court painting. It is also a profound symbolic and emotional event for many in the Okinawan community, the recovery of pieces of a past, a cultural heritage, that has been fragmented, of which so much has been lost. Alongside rebuilt and restored structures such as Sui gusuku (Shuri castle) and revived arts traditions, these original historical objects, made centuries ago, lost for decades, and now recovered, are powerful resources for Okinawan efforts to recover knowledge and pride in their history and cultural heritage, and to present that history and culture to the world.