Shizuoka Prefectural Archeological Center

The location of this museum is a 30 minute walk from Kambara Station in Shizuoka Prefecture. The building is a former school and is open Monday - Friday 9:30 - 4:30 and the third Saturday. When we arrived, my friend and I were given a scavenger hunt type paper where we could find the picture item and write the number of its location. (We each won a prize at the end for finding all of the artifacts.)

As we were looking at the exhibits, we were invited to join three other visitors for a tour of the whole facility. I felt very lucky to see what was behind the scenes.

We were first led to a large room containing documentation of everything in the most minute detail. I think this man is the museum director, or maybe the supervisor of the collections.

After that, we visited artifact workshop rooms.

I wasn’t good at keeping up with pictures of everything on our fast paced tour. There were rooms and rooms full of carefully packed items and specialized rooms for photography and documenting. Oversized items had special places, smaller items were packed in storage boxes.

Several gymnasiums were also used as storage areas. It is amazing how much there is, all labeled.

This place is amazing, and the behind the scenes tour was icing on the cake! And, it’s free.