Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Araku Kofun
Datedc. 700 CE
Photo VanishingDuck · CC BY 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Araku Kofun (荒久古墳) is a square burial mound in a corner of Aoba-no-Mori Park in Aoba-cho, Chuo Ward, Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It was built at the end of the Kofun period, in the seventh century. It was designated a historic site of Chiba City in 1960.
Because its stone chamber opens to the south, it is also known as 石の唐戸 (Ishi no Karato).
Read on Wikipedia2 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
Araku Kofun
At present each side measures 9 metres, but the ditch suggests that each side originally reached 20 metres.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 荒久古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 荒久古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound has been considerably altered but is a square one. At present each side measures 9 metres, but the ditch suggests that each side originally reached 20 metres. The chamber is built of cut blocks of tuffaceous sandstone and consists of a short passage and a main chamber. The main chamber is 2.07 metres long, 1.4 metres wide at the back wall and 1.2 metres wide at the entrance. The floor is laid with clay and has drains opened at both corners.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 荒久古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 荒久古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Finds from an excavation in 1891 have been scattered. When the site was excavated again in 1959, three jujube-shaped amber beads, fragments of horse gear and the bones of one person were found.
InterpretationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 荒久古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 荒久古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The outline of the mound and the structure of the chamber show strong influence of continental burial customs, and they can be said to represent the very last phase of the Kofun period. The catalogue record gives a broad typological date of 250 to 650 CE.
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
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
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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
- 35°35′44″ N, 140°08′16″ EFor a GPS or map app: 35.59569, 140.13781
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.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q65280521wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- 荒久古墳01.jpgVanishingDuckCC BY 3.0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "荒久古墳" (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): 荒久古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q65280521CC0