Simply a two hours drive northwest of Tokyo, you can find one of the worlds most amusing museums. Its called the Chinsekikan, Japanese for hall of curious rocks, and within, visitors can discover more than 1,700 rocks that look strange in more than one way, 900 of which look like faces. Amongst a few of the celebs housed at this Madame Tussauds for minerals are E.T., Elvis Presley, and, naturally, Jesus Christ.
Where nature is the only artist
Elvis
Besides the rocks that resemble real and fictional celebrities, among them Japanese experience Donkey Kong, Mickey Mouse, Nemo the clownfish, or the mercurial Boris Yeltsin, there are likewise more basic human face-resembling rocks such as the chorus rocks included below.
The Chinsekikan museum has been included on numerous popular Japanese TV shows. Every rock on screen from the collection is entirely unaltered keeping real to Shozo Hayamas legacy– that nature is the only artist.
The head manager Yoshiko Hayama.
Big “O-faced” rocks.
This distinctive museum was established by Shozo Hayama who has actually collected strange-shaped, unaltered rocks for fifty years. Given that Hayama died in 2010, the museum has been run by Yoshiko Hayama, the late creators spouse.
Wrestler and Japanese politician Antonio Inoki
Turtle shell
Mickey Mouse
Some of the celebrity-lookalike rocks are more convincing than others.
Cold Wind Monjiro from the Japanese book and television drama Kogarashi Monjiro
The authors own pareidolia. I dont understand what rock could ever be if this isnt Scumbag Steve.
Nemo
Geologically speaking, the anthropomorphic functions you see engraved on the rocks are due to weathering of certain minerals and flaws. Many of the rocks included in this short article, for circumstances, seem weathered by flowing water. Some minerals are more susceptible to shaping by natural phenomena than others. Quartz, for circumstances, is much less most likely to weather than micas.
As for what obliged the creator of the museum to collect such a collection, Shozo Hayama likely had some degree of pareidolia, which is the propensity to view human qualities where none really exist. Its what triggers some individuals to declare there are pyramids on Mars formed like human faces or to see Jesus in pieces of toast or sections of lumber.
A current research study suggests an anomalous interplay between the brains frontal cortex and posterior visual cortex is what leads some individuals to see faces in things more often than others. However it is totally regular to discover faces in rocks or other objects due to the fact that our brains are hard-wired to spot such patterns.
Amongst some of the stars housed at this Madame Tussauds for minerals are E.T., Elvis Presley, and, of course, Jesus Christ.
Geologically speaking, the anthropomorphic features you see engraved on the rocks are due to weathering of particular minerals and flaws. Weathering and breaking typically happen along an airplane of weakness or a sedimentary layer. Much of the rocks featured in this post, for instance, seem weathered by flowing water. Some minerals are more vulnerable to sculpting by natural phenomena than others. Quartz, for circumstances, is much less most likely to weather than micas.
There needed to be a Jesus too.
Chinsekika definitely looks enjoyable to go to and a welcomed breath of fresh air if you delight in visiting more standard geological museums.
Even Mikhail Gorbachev is on the list.
