Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Taishi Nishiyama Kofun
Also known asKōchi no Shinaga no Nakanoo no Misasagi · Okutsuki Kofun
DatedEst. 250–650 CE
Photo Saigen Jiro · CC0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Taishi Nishiyama Kofun, also known as the Okutsuki Kofun, is a keyhole-shaped burial mound at Taishi, in Minamikawachi district, Osaka prefecture, Japan. It is one of the mounds of the Shinaga valley group and the only keyhole-shaped mound in it. It is dated by a typological estimate between 250 and 650 CE.
The Imperial Household Agency designates it as the joint tomb of the 30th emperor, Bidatsu, and Princess Ishihime, but the actual occupant is not known.
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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
Taishi Nishiyama Kofun
The mound was built in a saddle of a ridge running north to south, west of the Hamuro settlement at the foot of Mount Nijo.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound was built in a saddle of a ridge running north to south, west of the Hamuro settlement at the foot of Mount Nijo. It faces north-west and has two tiers, with a dry moat around it. Fragments of haniwa have been collected around the mound. The burial facility is not clear, but a stone chamber entered from the side is presumed. Its length is given as 113 metres (or 93 metres), the rear circle has a diameter of 58 metres and the front part a width of 67 metres. Because it is under the management of the Agency as an imperial tomb, no full investigation has been made.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
From the haniwa recovered it is dated to the first half of the late Kofun period.
InterpretationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
The Nihon Shoki records that Bidatsu died in 585, with a query over the year, and that in 591 he was added to the grave of Ishihime, who had died earlier. The Agency designates the mound as the tomb of both. If this is the tomb of Bidatsu, it is the last imperial tomb that is a keyhole-shaped mound and the last with a row of haniwa. Because the texts record the tomb and the grave separately, some hold that the two were buried separately in the rear circle and the front part. The presence of cylindrical haniwa leads others to doubt the identification, and the mound at Hamuro has been proposed as the true tomb.
NameSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Other names recorded are Kōchi no Shinaga no Nakanoo no Misasagi. In the Shinaga valley the tombs of the emperors Yomei, Suiko and Kōtoku and the grave of Prince Shōtoku are also handed down, and together they are called the Umebachi Goryō.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 太子西山古墳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. Where the Imperial Household Agency treats a mound as an imperial tomb, the identification often cannot be confirmed, because the mound has not been excavated.
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
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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′43″ N, 135°38′08″ EFor a GPS or map app: 34.51183, 135.63549
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 Q48751982wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Taishi Nishiyama Kofun, haisho.jpgSaigen JiroCC0
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "太子西山古墳" (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): 太子西山古墳CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q48751982CC0