Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun
Datedc. 700 CE
Photo Saigen Jiro · CC0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun (茅原狐塚古墳, Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun) is a large square burial mound at Chihara, Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, Japan, on the western foot of Mount Miwa in the south-east of the Nara Basin. It has a stone chamber 17 metres long, containing three stone sarcophagi, and is dated to about the first half of the 7th century.
It is not a designated historic site. The nearby Bentensha Kofun, 100 metres to the north-east, has a similar chamber.
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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
Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound has been heavily levelled, and it appears that part was also removed when the JR Sakurai Line (Manyō Mahoroba Line) was laid to the west. It is square, about 40 metres on a side. The burial facility is a horizontal-entrance stone chamber with a passage on both sides of the chamber (ryōsode type), opening to the south.
The chamber stones are huge granite blocks, laid in two tiers in the chamber, with small stones filling the gaps above, and in one tier in the passage.
ConstructionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The chamber has a total length of 17.32 metres (about 14 metres in effective length), one of the largest of its kind. The burial chamber is 6.03 metres long, 2.56 metres wide at the rear wall and 1.92 metres high. The passage is 11.29 metres long (about 8 metres effective), 2.09 metres wide and 1.92 metres high. From 3.25 metres from the entrance of the passage the wall is made of small stones, different from the side walls of the passage, and this has been interpreted as the masonry of the approach to the tomb, which is why the effective lengths are given. The chamber stones are huge granite blocks, laid in two tiers in the chamber, with small stones filling the gaps above, and in one tier in the passage.
In the chamber, an assembled house-shaped sarcophagus of tuff was found near the rear wall, and two sets of sarcophagus fragments in the centre and near the entrance, so that three sarcophagi in all were used. All three lie at right angles to the main axis of the chamber. Iron nails found in the passage suggest additional burials in wooden coffins. The structure of the chamber is said to be almost identical in design to Mizudo-minami Kofun in Gose.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound was excavated in 1956. The chamber had been robbed, but iron objects (possibly fragments of a straight sword) and Sue ware were collected as grave goods. In particular, 20 complete Sue ware cups were reported from the bottom of the central sarcophagus. Fragments of cylindrical haniwa are also said to have been found, but the details are not known, and they may have been mixed in at a later date.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound is estimated to date from the first half of the 7th century, in the final Kofun period.
InterpretationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The western foot of Mount Miwa was a sacred area where rites of Mount Miwa were held. In the middle and late Kofun periods, besides this mound, Chihara Ōhaka Kofun, Umazuka Kofun and Bentensha Kofun were built there. The relationship between the persons buried in them and the Mount Miwa rites has attracted attention, and one theory identifies the person buried here as a member of the Miwa clan, in particular 三輪逆.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Bentensha Kofun (弁天社古墳) lies about 100 metres north-east of Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun. It now stands behind the shrine buildings of Fuji Shrine and Itsukushima Shrine (Benten-sha), auxiliary shrines of Ōmiwa Shrine, with Kamigozen Shrine, a subsidiary shrine of Ōmiwa Shrine, to the east. The mound has been lost and the stone chamber is exposed in a half-collapsed state. It has not been excavated.
The shape of the mound is not known. The burial facility is a ryōsode horizontal-entrance stone chamber opening to the south, built of huge stones. The chamber is about 4 metres long and 1.9 metres wide, and the passage is 1.4 metres wide. Sarcophagus fragments (possibly from the first burial) were found in the chamber, and a hollowed-out house-shaped sarcophagus of tuff (possibly a later burial) in the passage. Whereas most sarcophagi in kofun in the north of Sakurai are of the assembled type, this kofun used a hollowed-out one. The grave goods are not known. The date is unclear, but it is thought to be close to that of Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun.
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
6 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
- 34°32′01″ N, 135°50′46″ EFor a GPS or map app: 34.53356, 135.84606
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.
Chihara Ōbaka Kofun
Hokenoyama Kofun
Hashihaka Kofun280–300 CE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Izuka Kofun250–650 CE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Tamakiyama Kofun Cluster4000–1200 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Higaida Ōtsuka Kofun
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Makimuku Ishizuka Kofun
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Makimuku Kofun Cluster4000–1200 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q11617185wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun, funkyu-2.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun, 3D-B.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun, 3D-N.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun, 3D-P.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun and Mount Miwa.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
- Chihara Kitsunezuka Kofun, genshitsu-2.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "茅原狐塚古墳" (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): 茅原狐塚古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q11617185CC0