the first doge, about 1,500 years before Kabosu
Topsoil. Here we find modern internet dogs. In 2010 a photo of Kabosu, a shiba inu, side-eyeing the camera became "Doge". Doge became a coin, and the coin became a whole genre.
Everyone calls her the first doge. But this crew kept asking one question. Who was the first dog that Japanese people made a picture of? We grabbed shovels.
We hit a seam of old dog books, all titled 日本犬 (Nihon-ken, "Japanese dog"). They have breed photos, coat-colour inheritance charts and even a table for converting dog age to human years.
Context: the Nihon Ken Hozonkai (Japanese dog preservation society) was founded in 1928. Japan named the Akita a natural monument in 1931 and the Shiba in 1936.
On the cover of one book sits a strange clay dog with stumpy legs, holes for eyes and a curly tail. We kept digging.
Edo period. This layer is full of dog paperwork, because the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (the "Dog Shogun") issued the Laws of Compassion for Living Things, which protected dogs among other animals.
An actual government that put dogs first. Notes: very bullish. Still not the first doge. Deeper.
Heian layer. In The Pillow Book, Sei Shōnagon tells the story of Okinamaro, a palace dog who was punished for chasing the emperor's cat. People have been dramatic about dogs online for about a thousand years.
The dirt is turning orange. The clay is showing. We're close.
✎ brush away the dirt (or keep scrolling)
Kofun period, Japan. Unglazed terracotta. Haniwa are clay figures that were set up on and around the burial mounds (kofun) of the elite, from about the late 3rd to the 6th century AD. Most early haniwa are plain cylinders. Figures of people and animals arrived later, and dog figures date from around the 5th to 6th centuries. They often stand with hunters and boar figures in hunting scenes. One dog haniwa in the Tokyo National Museum wears a collar with a bell.
Curator's note: stumpy legs, curly tail, hole eyes, mouth open as if mid-"bork". The first doge, about 1,500 years before the original.
Permanent collection. Click a case to look closer. Flash photography allowed, it's a website.
| Total supply | 1,000,000,000 $HANIWA |
| Launch | Fair launch on pump.fun |
| Ticker | $HANIWA |
| Age | ~1,500 years (the dog), brand new (the coin) |
Contract address revealed at launch