Funaiwa Kofun Group

The Funaiwa Kofun Group is an archaeological group of 22 ancient burial mounds in Okato, Kōrei, Nankoku City, Kochi Prefecture, Japan. The mounds were built on ridges and the northeastern slope of mountains extending northwest from Ōhirayama toward Funaiwayama, facing the central part of Kochi and the Kōnō Plain. They are not designated as historic sites. Mounds 1–12 were excavated in 1968, but many others were flattened before and after that work during the construction of mandarin orchards.

All the mounds are round and contain horizontal stone burial chambers. Most use the two-sleeved form, in which the stones project at the front of the chamber, while some use the one-sleeved form. The largest chamber belongs to Mound 8 and measures 8.9 metres in total length. Finds from the group include ornaments such as gold and silver rings, iron weapons, horse equipment, and Sue pottery, including decorated examples from Mounds 2 and 8. The objects recovered from the group are displayed at the Kochi Prefectural Museum of History and Folklore in Nankoku.

The group is dated by typological estimate to 250–650 CE, and its construction is more specifically placed around the later part of the Kofun period. It is the largest cluster of burial mounds in Kochi Prefecture and is understood as the cemetery of a powerful group in the Kōnō Plain. The nearby Kozon Kofun, one of the three great kofun of Tosa, has a large horizontal stone chamber, and some researchers have suggested that it may have belonged to the same group and may have been the tomb of its leader.

The burial chambers at Funaiwa have a narrow rectangular main room whose front wall forms part of the chamber, with no sleeve stones projecting toward the entrance passage. This is a modified form of the chamber type used in the Kinai region that became standard in southern Shikoku. Because of these features, it is recognized as the “Funaiwa type” stone chamber. These chamber remains are integral to the mounds, making the Funaiwa Kofun Group an example of the megalithic mound tradition in ancient Japan, which also included plain round mounds, square mounds, double-rectangle mounds, and the distinctive keyhole-shaped form.

Funaiwa Kofun Group is a megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones) in Nankoku, Japan. A typological estimate: 250 CE to 650 CE. No English Wikipedia article exists for it; the full text below is the Japanese article "舟岩古墳群", shown in the original language.