Keywords
Architecture
Roofing Tiles
Lit. stirrup tile. An ancient name for *nokimarugawara 軒丸瓦. Also called *hanagawara 花瓦 and *tomoegawara 巴瓦. One of the several types of decorative pendant roof tiles found at the ends of eaves, along bargeboards, and at the ends of corner ridges. A decorative pendant disk, *gatō 瓦当, was made and attached at nearly right angles to an ordinary semi-cylindrical, convex eave-end tile. The term derives from the tile's shape, which resembles an inverted stirrup. The first appearance of this term is found in a record of 756, the Shōsōin monjo 正倉院文書. Today, the term is seldom used.