Soma-Nomaoi is a festival that recreates a battle scene from more than 1,000 years ago. It is annually held for 4 days from July 22 to 25 in Haramachi City, Fukushima Prefecture, in the eastern part of Japan. In this historical event, 600 mounted samurai in traditional Japanese armor, with long swords at their side and ancestral flagstaffs streaming from their backs, ride across open fields. Soma-Nomaoi has been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Photo: A young woman (C) clad in samurai costume leads other local poeple as she rides her horse during a parade at the annual Soma Nomaoi festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 28, 2012. The traditional full-scale festival kicked off for the first time after the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the massive earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)

The artwork of Giant Horse Aboriginal rock art galleries in the Quinkan Country is seen on June 19, 2011 in Laura, Australia. The ancient aboriginal rock art in this region is some of the largest and oldest in the world, dating back over 15,000 years. Paintings, stencil art and engravings cover thelands traditionally home to the Kuku, Yalanji, Guugu Yimithirr and Kuku Thaypan people. As a UNESCO-identified top 10 rock art site in the world, international travelers visit the area to learn and understand the aboriginal culture through the artwork. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Traditional trumpeters perform during the durbar festival on the second day of Eid-al-Fitr celebrations in Nigeria's northern city of Kano, July 7, 2016. The Durbar festival begins with prayers, followed by a parade of the Emir and his entourage on horses, accompanied by music players, and ending at the Emir's palace. The Durbar festival had been in hausaland for more than 500 years. It was introduced by sarki muhammadu rumfa of kano in the late 14th century, as a way of demonstrating military power and skills before going to war. The festival is also an opportunity for local leaders to pay homage to emir throughout the jahi cheering. (Photo by Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)

Horses compete during the 21st Dubai International Arabian Horse Championship with the participation of 205 horses from many countries in Dubai, UAE on March 24, 2024. (Photo by Waleed Zein/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Supporters of Ratko Mladic wave flags with his picture and reading in Serbian “Serbian hero” during a rally organized by the ultra nationalist Serbian Radical Party in front of the Parliament building on May 29, 2011 in Belgrade, Serbia. Some 7,000 supporters of the former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, who was arrested on Thursday in a village in Serbia after 16 years on the run, took to the streets of Belgrade, to hear speeches and protest Mladic's arrest. Mladic, who is facing extradition to the The Hague, is accused of war crimes, including the 1995 massacre of 7,500 Muslin men and boys in Srebrenica. (Photo by Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images)

A young boy rests by empty USAID vegetable oil tins in the Dagahaley refugee camp which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement on July 19, 2011 in Dadaab, Kenya. The refugee camp at Dadaab, located close to the Kenyan border with Somalia, was originally designed in the early 1990s to accommodate 90,000 people but the UN estimates over 4 times as many reside there. The ongoing civil war in Somalia and the worst drought to affect the Horn of Africa in six decades has resulted in an estimated 12 million people whose lives are threatened. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

In this handout from the Ministry of Defence, Royal Air Force VC10 and Tristar air-to-air refuelling aircraft support the first UK air combat mission in support of UN Resolution 1973 in flight on March 19, 2011. Col Muammar Gaddafi has vowed a “long war” against the “crusader aggression” after over 100 missiles were fired by the US and UK, during multi-national action aimed at enforcing a UN-mandated no-fly zone. (Photo by SAC Neil Chapman/MoD via Getty Images)

Japan Self-Defense Force members pay their respect to unidentified earthquake victims in vehicles during a mess funeral on April 8, 2011 in Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The 9.0 magnitude strong earthquake struck offshore on March 11 at 2:46pm local time, triggering a tsunami wave of up to ten metres which engulfed large parts of north-eastern Japan, and also damaging the Fukushima nuclear plant and threatening a nuclear catastrophe. The death toll continues to rise with numbers of dead and missing exceeding 20,000 in a tragedy not seen since World War II in Japan. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Getty Images)