Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
天王山古墳
DatedEst. 250–650 CE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Tennōyama Kofun (天王山古墳, Tennōyama or Tennōzan kofun) is a keyhole-shaped burial mound in Koshinohara, Yasu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, and one of the tombs of the Ōiwayama Kofun Group, a national historic site. It is 50 m long and is estimated to date from the beginning of the 6th century, in the Late Kofun period.
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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
天王山古墳
The mound stands at the tip of a hill that extends north from Ōiwayama, on the right bank of the Yasu River in southern Shiga.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 天王山古墳 (野洲市)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 天王山古墳 (野洲市)CC BY-SA 4.0
The mound stands at the tip of a hill that extends north from Ōiwayama, on the right bank of the Yasu River in southern Shiga. Its front part faces north. No cobble facing or haniwa have been found on the surface. The mound is 50 m long; the rear circular part is 26 m in diameter and the front part is 24 m long and 8 m high.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 天王山古墳 (野洲市)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 天王山古墳 (野洲市)CC BY-SA 4.0
The tomb has been looted, and excavations were carried out in recent years in connection with site restoration (Yasu Town Board of Education, report 2001). A document of 1885 records finds from the twin tombs of Tennōyama.
The burial facility of the rear part is not known. In the front part a small side-entrance stone chamber with a sleeve on the right side opens to the west. Its total length is 4.3 m; the main chamber is 2.9 m long and 1.0 m wide, and the passage is 1.4 m long. Because of looting, all the ceiling stones are lost except one over the passage. Finds from the mound fill include Haji ware, Sue ware and Korean-style pottery.
ConservationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 天王山古墳 (野洲市)CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Japanese): 天王山古墳 (野洲市)CC BY-SA 4.0
The site was designated a national historic site on 7 February 1985, as part of the Ōiwayama Kofun Group. It has been restored and opened to the public as the Sakurabasama Historic Park on 3 November 2001. A guide office stands in Koshinohara, and the Yasu City Museum of History and Folklore (Dōtaku Museum) is the related facility.
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.
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
- 35°04′25″ N, 136°02′24″ EFor a GPS or map app: 35.07364, 136.04010
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 Q65259251wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "天王山古墳 (野洲市)" (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): 天王山古墳 (野洲市)CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q65259251CC0