Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Akabori Chausuyama Kofun
Datedc. 401 CE
Photo Saigen Jiro · CC0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Akabori Chausuyama Kofun (赤堀茶臼山古墳, Akabori Chausuyama kofun) is a burial mound in Akabori Imai-chō, Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. It has the scallop-shaped form of keyhole mound, with a short front part, and is a designated historic site of the city of Isesaki. It is estimated to date from the middle of the fifth century, or possibly the second half of it.
The mound is known for the many figure haniwa recovered from it, among them eight house-shaped haniwa.
Read on Wikipedia3 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Akabori Chausuyama Kofun
The mound was built on the top of a ridge on the east side of the Tadayama hills in eastern Gunma.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound was built on the top of a ridge on the east side of the Tadayama hills in eastern Gunma. It has a short, small front part, and its main axis runs at right angles to the ridge, with the front part facing west. It was built in two tiers. Rows of cylindrical haniwa, including morning-glory-shaped and jar-shaped types, and figure haniwa have been identified on the outer surface, together with a covering of split stones and river cobbles. A moat surrounds the mound on the north, west and south sides but was not found east of the rear circular part, possibly because the ground slopes there.
The mound is 62.4 m long. The rear circular part is 50.2 m in diameter and 6 m high, and the front part is 18 m long and 4 m high. The burial facilities are two charcoal-packed coffin enclosures on the summit of the rear circular part.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The Imperial Museum carried out an excavation in 1929, reported in 1933. Surveys to confirm the extent of the mound were carried out from 1995 to 1997 by the Akabori Town board of education. The mound was the first in Gunma Prefecture to undergo academic investigation.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Charcoal enclosure 1 contained a mirror with six deity figures, a sword, a dagger, a spear, an iron axe, a cuirass of triangular plates bound with leather, a helmet with a ram-like projection made of triangular plates bound with leather, iron arrowheads and stone imitation objects. Enclosure 2 contained a mirror with a pattern of inward-radiating flowers and a large sword.
The haniwa recovered by the Imperial Museum include eight house-shaped haniwa: three gabled houses (a main building with roof billets and two subsidiary buildings with a plaited roof), four storehouses (three gabled, one hipped) and one shed. The hipped-roof haniwa is regarded as a product of the same workshop as the Kamanokuchi site in Horishita-chō, Isesaki. Other figure types are an enclosure, a short armour, a skirt armour, a canopy, a stool, a pedestal vessel and a chicken. The later survey added shield-shaped haniwa and others. Its rooster haniwa is a male bird and seems to have been made as a pair with the hen held by the Tokyo National Museum; the wing section joins with fragments from the Kamanokuchi site.
Finds from the Imperial Museum survey are kept in the Tokyo National Museum, and finds from the survey by the former Akabori Town board of education are kept in the Akabori Local History Museum in Isesaki.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound was designated a historic site of the former Akabori Town on 10 August 2004, and is now a historic site of the city of Isesaki. It is regarded as important for what it shows about the residences of Kofun-period local magnates and about the arrangement of haniwa on a mound.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Japanese kofun tumuli
Kofun are the great burial mounds of ancient Japan, built mainly between the middle of the third century and the early seventh century CE. The period takes its name from them. The most distinctive form is the keyhole-shaped mound (zempō-kōen-fun), with one square end and one round end seen from above, but there are also plain round mounds, double-rectangle mounds and square mounds. Orientation is not fixed: in the Mozu group at Sakai, some round parts face north and others east.
The largest is Daisenryō kofun at Sakai in Osaka, the biggest kofun in Japan, thought to have been built over some twenty years in the middle of the fifth century. By common acceptance it is the tomb of Emperor Nintoku, and the Imperial Household Agency treats it as such, but this cannot be confirmed because the mound has not been excavated. It stands in the Mozu group, which once had more than a hundred tombs of which fewer than half remain; the group and the neighbouring Furuichi cluster were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019. The mounds were built on a plateau overlooking Osaka Bay, near the ancient coastline.
Dating rests on mound shape, pottery and grave goods. Haniwa, which means "clay circle", are terracotta cylinders and figures of houses, animals and people that were arranged in rings and rows around and on top of the mounds. Smaller kofun are very numerous and sit in groups in every region of Japan.
When visiting, look for the moat that surrounds the larger mounds, for the stepped outline of terraces, and for reconstructed haniwa in museums and parks beside the tombs.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Kofun, Wikipedia: Daisen Kofun, Wikipedia: Haniwa, Wikipedia: Mozu Tombs · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1995
1995-1997年度（平成7-9年度）、範囲確認調査（赤堀町教育委員会、1996・1997・1998年に概要報告）。
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
3 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 250–650 CEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megalithic mounds in Japan; this site has not been dated itself. Japanese kofun burial mounds were mainly constructed between the middle of the 3rd century and the early 7th century AD.Source for this date
Where it stands
Japan
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 36°23′13″ N, 139°12′27″ EFor a GPS or map app: 36.38700, 139.20753
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Maefutago Kofun4000–1200 BCEPhoto: photo: Qurren ( talk ) Taken with Canon IXY 10S (Digital IXUS 210) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Nakafutago Kofun500–509 CEPhoto: photo: Qurren ( talk ) Taken with Canon IXY 10S (Digital IXUS 210) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Ushirofutago KofunPhoto: photo: Qurren ( talk ) Taken with Canon IXY 10S (Digital IXUS 210) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Shofutago Kofun250–650 CEPhoto: photo: Qurren ( talk ) Taken with Canon IXY 10S (Digital IXUS 210) · CC BY-SA 3.0
Nakatsuka Kofun4000–1200 BCE
Horikoshi Kofun4000–1200 BCE
Ofujiyama-kofun250–650 CE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)山王金冠塚古墳250–650 CE
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q17191031wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Akabori Chausuyama Kofun, funkyu.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Akabori Chausuyama Kofun, funcho.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Akabori Chausuyama Kofun, zenpoubu.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "赤堀茶臼山古墳" (Japanese), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 赤堀茶臼山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q17191031CC0