Life in Yayoi Japan is briefly outlined in the Chinese chronicle, the 'Weizhi', completed in the late 3rd century AD. One of the 100 Yayoi countries described receives special attention.
The country of Yamatai was ruled over by a queen called Himiko who was assisted by her younger brother and served by 1,000 female attendants. She lived in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades.
The Chinese documents describe the journey to Yamatai, but the times and distances are too vague to be able to locate it accurately. The identification of the location of Yamatai has been one of the major puzzles for Japanese archaeology. The moated chiefly settlement at Yoshinogari in Kyushu has been proposed as one possibility, but another likely candidate is in the Kinai region, in the Nara basin or the Osaka plain, centred at sites such as Makimuku or Ikegami.
