Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Asakozuka Kofun
DatedEst. 250–650 CE
Photo toru-iizuka · CC BY-SA 3.0Photo taken at this location (Wikimedia Commons)Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Asakozuka Kofun (朝子塚古墳, Chōshizuka Kofun) is a keyhole-shaped burial mound in Ōta, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, and a Gunma Prefectural Historic Site. It stands on a low plateau at an elevation of 34 metres.
It is 123.5 metres long and is estimated to have been built between the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th century.
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
Asakozuka Kofun
The flat top of the rear circle, about 16 metres across, carries a low square platform about 10 metres on a side.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 朝子塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 朝子塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The front part is bachi-shaped in plan and relatively low. The flat top of the rear circle, about 16 metres across, carries a low square platform about 10 metres on a side. The ditch has almost the same outline as the mound, and the whole, including the outer edge of the ditch, measures 180 metres in length and 120 metres in width. The mound has two tiers, and its fukiishi (cobbles) are small stones taken from the Watarase river system.
The rear circle is 62 metres in diameter and 11.8 metres high. The front part is 48 metres wide and 6.8 metres high.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 朝子塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 朝子塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Surveys were carried out in 1956, 1991 and 1999 by Gunma University and the Ōta City Board of Education. Finds include ordinary cylindrical haniwa, special pedestal-shaped cylindrical haniwa and asagao-shaped haniwa, together with figure haniwa in the form of jars, houses, shields and parasols, and jars with a hole in the base.
Cylindrical haniwa were set at the foot of the mound and on the terraces, and on the square platform of the rear circle they form two rectangular compartments, with jar-shaped haniwa standing on the cylinders at the outer corners. The shield and parasol haniwa and the perforated jars were set outside the square platform. Each rectangular compartment is thought to contain a pit-type burial, but this has not been investigated.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 朝子塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 朝子塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
A connection has been considered with the Ishidagawa site, about 1.5 kilometres to the west. A link has also been pointed out with the former Tanomoshi Kofun, which stood to the west of this mound and dates from the middle to the latter part of the 4th century.
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
- 36°15′39″ N, 139°21′41″ EFor a GPS or map app: 36.26081, 139.36128
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 Q17214570wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- 朝子塚古墳 - panoramio.jpgtoru-iizukaCC BY-SA 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 "朝子塚古墳" (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): 朝子塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q17214570CC0