Spirits of Yokokurayama: shrine of the Japanese trilobites

‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep’. So sleep the trilobites of Yokokurayama, a sacred mountain hidden within the beautiful landscape of Japan’s Shikoku’s island. And though Prospero may have been speaking to his daughter and her fiancé (in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest), he might well have been contemplating the magnificent trilobite fossils of Yokokurayama. Japan may be better known for its sweeping volcanic landscapes, majestic castles, Shinto shrines and bullet trains, but it is also home to important collections of Silurian and Devonian trilobites.