The oldest extant comprehensive history of Japan, a chronicle compiled in 712 AD under the Ritsuryo state. The effort to compile and edit legends and genealogies into a coherent account exemplifies the supremacy of the ruling Yamato house. Written in an old Japanese using the linguistically incompatible Chinese characters, the account begins with a creation myth and covers the events up to the early 7th century. Together with the Nihon Shoki, it provides protohistoric data for the Kofun period.