Jasper, opal and various other polished stones unearthed in old ruins dating from the Yayoi and Kofun periods in Komatsu in present-day Ishikawa Prefecture indicate that the creation of gemstones became part of the culture of the area more than 2,300 years ago.At Natadera, an ancient temple of the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism in the city built during the Nara Period (710-794 AD), meanwhile, visitors can marvel at rocks shaped by nature over millennia to look like hermits playing or billowing flames. Near the temple is a quarry from which green tuff began to be extracted during the Edo…READ FULL ARTICLE
