Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Buddaji Kofun
Datedc. 700 CE
Photo Saigen Jiro · CC0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Buddaji Kofun is a burial mound at Yamada, Taishi, Minamikawachi District, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, and one of the tombs of the Shinaga valley group. It is a historic site designated by the prefecture and lies within the grounds of Buddaji temple.
It has not been excavated. Its burial place is a stone sarcophagus chamber hollowed from a single block of tuff, and the tomb is estimated to date from about the middle of the 7th century, at the end of the Kofun period.
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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
Buddaji Kofun
The tomb was built on the south slope of a ridge in the Shinaga valley, at the foot of Mount Nijō in the south-east of Osaka Prefecture.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 仏陀寺古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 仏陀寺古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The tomb was built on the south slope of a ridge in the Shinaga valley, at the foot of Mount Nijō in the south-east of Osaka Prefecture. The shape of the mound is unknown. A fill of earth survives, 9.28 m long, 6.4 m wide and 0.9 m high.
The burial place is a horizontal-opening stone sarcophagus chamber (yokoguchi-shiki sekkaku), with its axis running north to south and its opening to the south. It is 2.19 m long and 1.2 m wide, with an interior length of 1.92 m. It is a sarcophagus-type chamber in the form of a house-shaped coffin, hollowed from a huge block of tuff. An entrance 0.77 m wide is cut in the south end face and fitted with a door stone. During levelling in the Taishō era, Sue-ware-type bricks bearing concentric-circle tapping marks were found around it, and it is inferred that bricks were piled around the chamber. Grave goods are not known.
HistorySources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 仏陀寺古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 仏陀寺古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The occupant is unknown, but tradition holds that the tomb belongs to Soga no Kurayamada no Ishikawamaro, who died in 649. The site was designated a prefectural historic site of Osaka on 31 March 1972. The Matsuizuka Kofun lies nearby; its stone chamber was moved to the Taishi Nagomi no Hiroba.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 仏陀寺古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 仏陀寺古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Kofun are the great burial mounds of ancient Japan, built mainly between the middle of the third century and the early seventh century CE, and the period takes its name from them. Besides the keyhole-shaped form, there are plain round mounds, double-rectangle mounds and square mounds.
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
3 photographs, each with its author and licence
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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
- 34°30′53″ N, 135°39′00″ EFor a GPS or map app: 34.51471, 135.65011
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.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q113191804wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Buddaji Kofun, funkyu.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Buddaji Kofun, sekkaku.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- 仏陀寺古墳出土 塼.JPGSaigen JiroPublic domain
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "仏陀寺古墳" (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): 仏陀寺古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q113191804CC0