Sacred Sword Quenching Ceremony and Sacred Apparel Weaving Ceremony

For the next Ise-Jingu shrine removal (Sengu), they plan to not only reconstruct the shrine buildings, but also to renew the sacred apparel and treasures which will be carried to the new sanctuary building. One of those reassure is the sacred sword to be offered to the Sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami. It is already in the forging stage of hardening its blade, which is the most important process called quenching. The ceremony was conducted at swordsmith's workshop, Niigata on the 2nd of this November. The swordsmith is Akitsugu Amada who was born in1927. He studied sword making in Niigata and has won many prizes for his fine work. He has even made swords for the grand champion of Sumo, Kitanoumi, as well as the sacred sword used at the 1973 Sengu at Ise Jingu. He was designated as a living national treasure in the area of sword smithing in 1997.