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Hebizuka Kofun — 蛇塚古墳 石室全景

Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)

Hebizuka Kofun

Japan

Datedc. 500–700 CE

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Photo Saigen Jiro · CC0Source file on Wikimedia Commons

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About this site

Overview

Hebizuka Kofun (蛇塚古墳) is a Kofun period keyhole-shaped burial mound in the Uzumasa Omokage-cho neighborhood of Ukyō-ku, in the city of Kyoto, in the Kansai region of Japan. It was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1977.

It is the largest late-Kofun period tumulus in Kyoto Prefecture and is known for its horizontal-entry stone burial chamber made of megaliths. Until around 1920 part of the mound remained, but owing to urban encroachment only the stone burial chamber now remains.

Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0

Age sources

How old this site is, and who says so.

Range across all claimsc. 500–700 CE

Measured

A physical measurement of this site: a radiocarbon date, a tree-ring count, a luminescence date, or a record that can itself be dated.

  • 500–599 CEHistorical recordThe source associates the mound with other kofun from the end of the 6th century to the beginning of the 7th century.MainstreamHistoricalSource: en.wikipedia.org
  • 501–700 CEWikipedia: Hebizuka Kofun (infobox)MainstreamWikipediaSource: en.wikipedia.org

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.

  1. Göbekli Tepe9600 BCE
  2. First farming9500 BCE
  3. Avebury2600 BCE
  4. Great Pyramid of Giza2560 BCE
  5. Stonehenge2500 BCE
  6. Bronze Age collapse1200 BCE
  7. Rome founded753 BCE
  8. Parthenon447 BCE
  9. Hadrian's Wall122 CE
  10. Machu Picchu built1450 CE
12,000 BCE8,000 BCE4,000 BCE1 CE1,500 CE
This site

500–599 CEHow this date was established: Historical sourcesMeasured

A physical measurement of this site: a radiocarbon date, a tree-ring count, a luminescence date, or a record that can itself be dated.
Source for this date

Article

Hebizuka Kofun

2 min read357 wordsRead on Wikipedia

The mound lies in the Sagano-Uzumasa region of the Yamashiro Basin, where many kofun from the 6th century onwards are concentrated.

Hebizuka Kofun

Setting

Sources for this section

The mound lies in the Sagano-Uzumasa region of the Yamashiro Basin, where many kofun from the 6th century onwards are concentrated. These include four large keyhole-shaped tumuli: Hebizuka Kofun, Amatsuka Kofun, Taruyama Kofun (under Imperial Household Agency protection) and the Shimizuyama Kofun (now destroyed). Along with the other kofun in the Sagano-Uzumasa region, from around the end of the 6th century to the beginning of the 7th century, it is thought to be connected to the Hata clan, a clan of toraijin immigrants whose stronghold was in this area.

Description

Sources for this section

The outlines of the tumulus can still be discerned from the spatial arrangement of the residential houses surrounding the burial chamber, and it is estimated to have had a total length of about 75 meters. The burial chamber opens to the southeast. The total length of the chamber including the passage is 17.8 meters, and the chamber proper is 3.8 by 6.8 meters wide and 5 meters high. Both the side and back walls are made of huge stones in two or three tiers, and all but one of the ceiling stones has been lost.

The chamber is comparable to that of the Ishibutai Kofun in Asuka, and is the fourth largest in Japan; however, whereas the Ishibutai chamber is made from granite, that of Hebizuka is made from chert.