A History of Timelessness

Every twenty years for over a millennium, the Ise shrines have been rebuilt from the ground up, and hundreds of shrine treasures replaced. At Ise, the aspiration to timelessness that is the essence of all monuments has been pursued through endless repetition rather than construction in durable materials. Spanning from Ise’s prehistoric beginnings to the present, A History of Timelessness explores the manifold circulation of goods this massive enterprise has engendered, as well as the political and ideological purposes the ritual rebuilding has served. In the late nineteenth century, the state took control of the shrines and recast them as an embodiment of modern imperial power. Yet, rather than resolving their status, nationalization awakened new anxieties around Ise’s permanence and ephemerality and new contests over shrine buildings and materials. Through an exploration of Ise’s tumultuous history, Jordan Sand rethinks the temporality of monuments and the materiality of the state.