Rashomon Gate
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Image:RashomonMarker.jpg The Rashōmon (羅生門 or 羅城門 Rajōmon; "the castle gate") was formerly the grandest of the two city gates of the Japanese city of Kyoto during the Heian period. Built in 789, it was 106 feet wide by 26 feet high, with a 75-foot stone wall and topped by a ridge-pole. The gate was located at the southern end of Suzaku Avenue. By the 12th century it had fallen into disrepair and became an unsavoury place, with a reputation as a hideout for thieves and other disreputable characters. People would abandon corpses and unwanted babies at the gate.
The ruined gate is the central setting — and provides the title — for Akira Kurosawa's famous 1950 film, Rashōmon, which is based on a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa's use of the gate was deliberately symbolic, with the gate's ruined state representing the moral and physical decay of Japanese civilization and culture in the Heian period.
See also
- Rashomon for other meanings
- Suzakumon Gate, the northern gate
External links
Categories: Gates | Kyoto