After I visited the World Heritage Site of Okinoshima, to be exact I only visited the mainland part of Munakata Grand Shrine, the Hetsumiya, I really confused what should I be focused on this Japanese site. The original ICOMOS’s recommendation only suggested that only Okinoshima Island should be on the UNESCO list for its outstanding value of archaeology, but when the inscription expanded to include two more shrines, one on the mainland and one on Oshima Island, the raison d'etre of this site for me became obscuring.

When I parked my car on the large carpark area next to the grand modern shrine building of Hetsumiya, I saw a Shinto priest together with few shrine maidens walked around the two front rows of the carpark did a blessing ceremony to provide a divine protection on requested modern cars. I was impressed with this belief since the Goddesses of Munakata originally are the protector of sea travel, signify its role of ancient trade route, then developed to be the protector of every means of transportation especially for cars. Then I walked to the grand shrine, again I impressed with its classic early Shinto shrine layout with straight pathway, Torii gates, small creek, a bridge and ponds of front garden, a rectangular wall forming the inner shrine cloister complex, an early type of shrine layout which has many similarities with ancient temples in China and Korea, a result of cultural exchange via maritime trade route. The inner shine of Hetsumiya was again very classic located in the center of sacred cloister similar to other ancient Japanese grand shrine in Izumo and Ise, too bad apart of classic design and its old age I could not find any uniqueness in term of architectural element.

I walked into the sacred forest next to the main shrine complex and saw the identical Teinigu and Teisangu, two smaller shrines representing Okitsumiya and Nakatsumiya shrines on Oshima and Okinoshima Islands. These two shrines were recently reconstructed following Shinto tradition of every 20 years rebuilding using the recycling old sacred wood from Ise Grand Shrine. Since visiting the shrine on Okinoshima is impossible, visiting the Teisangu is the only option for worshippers. Then I visited the museum, the artifacts slightly illustrated the role of Munakata shrine in ancient sea trade route. For me, Teinigu and Teisangu were the highlight of my visit for its spiritual value, these two shrines are the key to connect people with those faraway shrines. After witnessed constant visitors, I started to understand why Japanese disagreed the possibility to separate other two shrines with the one on Okinoshima as suggested by ICOMOS.

However, I still not truly comprehended its outstanding universal value on this shrine complex. Despite some interesting early Shinto architecture, it is still too similar with other grand Shinto shrines. Surprisingly this is the second World Heritage Site for this the three goddesses of Munakata, since the listed Itsukushima Shrine is also dedicated for these cults. The practice of separate shrines is also common around Japan, so for Shinto belief, it is also hard to find the real outstanding value. I assumed that the evaluation report of ICOMOS maybe probably correct that only Okinoshima is deserved to be recognized even though I never set foot on such island, but again at the same time I could not cut the other sites for its strong cultural link.      

While Okinoshima’s archaeological value is visibly unknown and the value of mainland site is truly hard to find, the single outstanding value I can term with, both islands and inland, is its value on maritime trade route, in my opinion if Japanese wants to pursue the extension of already inscribed Silk Routes sites, it may not get full collaboration from China or Korea which both claimed the name of terminus point of the Silk Route, proposing Munakata alone is a better solution. Together with already UNESCO listed Nara’s Shosoin of Todaiji Temple, Munakata sites are perfectly representing such existence of Silk Route in Japan, unfortunately this means some lessor sites in Fukuoka and Dazaifu may not have a chance to be fully recognized by UNESCO.