Well pretty much everyone guessed half of the answer to this Japan photo mystery. It is something for hanging. It was a bit of a naughty question, because unless you know a little about the architecture of Japanese rooms you have very little chance of guessing.
Traditional Japanese rooms have a board around the room, part-way up the wall. It is a terrible dust collector, but it great for hanging things. Thankfully you cannot see the dust.
Thanks for having a guess!
Older Ausralian houses have somethng similar. It's called a picture rail. Picture rail hangers here are generally smaller and curved into an S shape, so I didn't pick the object in your photo.
ReplyDeletePicture rails were put on to hide a join in the horse hair plaster sheets, which could only be made in small sizes. Using the "that's not a kludge, that's a feature approach".