A silver seal used by the 14th and 15th heads of the Tokugawa shogunate to sign treaties with foreign countries during the closing days of the Edo period (1603-1867) has recently been found.
The silver seal called "Keibun-Ibu" was stamped on the ratification instruments of treaties signed by 14th shogun Iemochi and his successor the last shogun, Yoshinobu, along with their signatures. The item can be regarded a seal of the highest rank in Japan at that time, and therefore an important object in the history of Japanese diplomacy.
The finding of the seal was announced by the Tokugawa Memorial Foundation in Tokyo, which preserves and studies the historical materials possessed by the Tokugawa shogunal household. The seal has a 9.2-centimeter-square surface, with a height of 7.8 centimeters and weight of 2.7 kilograms.
The seal was found in a nagamochi large oblong chest together with other seals when the family's storehouse was being sorted out.
The item has been confirmed to match the seals found on the documents from those days, including the ratification instrument of the 1859 Japan-U.S. Treaty of Amity and Commerce that is deposited at the U.S. National Archives, while records say the Tokugawa shogunate ordered the creation of a seal in 1857. These documents help verify the authenticity of the seal.
The seal also can be found on the ratification instruments of the treaties with Britain, France and Denmark that were signed by Iemochi and Yoshinobu, as well as a credential letter handed to a Japanese mission to Europe in the 1860s, among other documents.
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