Kesa Gozen was the loyal wife of the warrior Watanabe Wataru, who lived in the 1100s. When her cousin and admirer, Endo Morito, threatened to kill her husband and make her his wife, she dressed her hair like a man’s and impersonated her husband so that she would be murdered instead.
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum