Jomon figurines and fragments from Sannai Maruyama
Japan, Middle Jomon Period © Aomori Prefectural Board of Education

Small clay figures are one of the earliest ways that human beings represented the human form, and many of the oldest and most remarkable examples were made in the Japanese archipelago during the Jomon period, between 16,000 and 2500 years ago. They are a critical development in the prehistory of Japan, the history of art, and the formation of modern human identity. This summer, a special exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, presents a selection of these dogu. unearthed compares Jomon dogu with other examples of figurines from ancient southeastern Europe. In Albania, Macedonia and Romania around 6000 years ago, some of Europe's first farmers were also expressing themselves through making small clay figures. The exhibition develops an innovative way of encountering and interpreting these evocative and mysterious artworks, setting them alongside contemporary artworks, some specially commissioned for the show, inspired by figurines and the world of the miniature.

unearthed raises exciting new possibilities for understanding many of the questions that ancient clay figurines raise: What were they for? Were they gods? Or ancestors? Or toys? Or depictions of real people, or idealised pregnant women? Why did people in such disparate parts of the ancient world make and use figurines in seemingly similar ways?

Jomon dogu on display are being borrowed from the important historical collections at the Tokyo University Museum, Sannai Maruyama in Aomori Prefecture, Fujioka (Gumma Prefecture) and Nagaoka (Niigata Prefecture). The exhibition complements The Power of Dogu: ceramic figures from ancient Japan at the British Museum in 2009 which was subsequently shown at the Tokyo National Museum. If you enjoyed that, you will love unearthed. Visitors will receive their own hand-made clay figure (subject to availability) to carry around the exhibition, bringing them closer to the experience of our prehistoric forbears. They will also have the opportunity to break their figurine, as did Jomon and Balkan Neolithic people, leaving a fragment behind in the exhibition space itself. The exhibition is accompanied by a full public programme, including a Study Day on June 19, a special enhanced Gallery Guide and an exciting and thought-provoking new book about figurines.

unearthed opens on June 22nd and runs to August 29th. Developed by the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, unearthed and its associated programme is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Japan Foundation, the Henry Moore Foundation and the Duke of Omnium Fund.

Further details about the exhibition and programme are available at http: www.scva.ac.uk.