Shobuike Kofun

The tumulus lies on the lower southern slope of a ridge near the border between Kashihara and the village of Asuka, on the southern edge of the Nara Basin.

Most of the mound has disappeared due to erosion, leaving two ceiling stones exposed. It was originally a hōfun (方墳) style square tumulus approximately 30 meters on each side, with a height of 7.5 meters. It was constructed in two tiers, the upper tier measuring approximately 18 meters on each side. The north, east and west sides of the mound are surrounded by ditches, and its surface is covered with reddish-gray clay.

The stone burial chamber is a horizontal-entry cave-type chamber that opens to the south. The lower half of the chamber and the passageway are buried, so the entire structure is unclear. The chamber is 6 meters long, 2.4 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. It is made of two tiers of evenly-faced granite boulders topped by three ceiling stones, with plaster filling the gaps between the stones.

Two hollowed-out house-shaped sarcophagi of hyaloclastite from the Kakogawa River basin in Hyogo Prefecture are placed on the north and south sides of the chamber. They are roughly the same shape, the southern one being slightly more elaborate. The lids of both have been moved and are damaged on all sides, but both have elaborate hipped-ridge style roofs, the ridge of the northern lid being flat and that of the southern lid concave. Traces of vermillion lacquer have been found inside the northern sarcophagus and not in the southern, although it is possible that both were once lacquered vermillion inside and outside.