The is a

Kofun period The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is ...

keyhole-shaped burial mound Zenpokoenfun is an architectural model of Japanese ancient tombs (Kofun), which consists of a square front part (, Zenpō-bu) and a circular back part (, Kōen-bu). The part connecting the two is called the middle part (, Kubire-bu), which looks ...

, located in the Kugi neighborhood of the city of

Masuda, Shimane is a Cities of Japan, city located in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 43,885 in 21,249 households and a population density of 60 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Masuda is located ...

in the

San'in region The is an area in the southwest of Honshū, the main island of Japan. It consists of the northern part of the Chūgoku region, facing the Sea of Japan. Specifically, it is the two prefectures of Shimane Prefecture, Shimane and Tottori Prefecture ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The tumulus was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1941. It is the largest in the Iwami region and the largest in Shimane prefecture.

Overview

The Sukumozuka Kofun is located in the Kushiro Hills at an elevation of about 40 meters near the Masuda River. For more than a dozen centuries after its construction, it was overgrown with vegetation and looked like a thicket of trees. It was discovered in 1939 by local historian Yatomi Kumaichirō and from 1941, it was excavated and surveyed by Ueda Sanpei, a prominent

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

commissioner who excavated the

Heijō Palace was the imperial residence in the Japanese capital city Heijō-kyō (today's Nara), during most of the Nara period. The palace, which served as the imperial residence and the administrative centre of for most of the Nara period from 710 to 79 ...

and Toro Ruins. It was designated as a National Historic Site on December 13 of the same year as a large burial mound; however, the designation was immediately controversial as many archaeologists argued that it was a , which is shaped like a keyhole, having one square end and one circular end, when viewed from above, or else a shaped like two co-joined rectangles. The issue was only settled in October 2022, when the Masuda City Board of Education announced that findings confirmed the Sukumozuka Kofun to be a keyhole-shaped burial mound. The tumulus has a total length of 100 meters, the diameter of the posterior round mound is about 47 meters with a height from its surroundings of seven meters. The surface of the tumulus is covered with ''

fukiishi ( or "roofing stone") were a means of covering burial chambers and Tumulus, burial mounds during the kofun period of Japan (). Stones collected from riverbeds were affixed to the slopes of raised kofun and other burial chambers. They are consi ...

,'' the size of a human head, and had two rows of cylindrical ''

haniwa The are terracotta clay figures that were made for ritual use and buried with the dead as funerary objects during the Kofun period (3rd to 6th centuries AD) of the history of Japan. ''Haniwa'' were created according to the ''wazumi'' technique ...

''. There is a 17 x 15 meter square structure on the north side of the circular portion, presumably a ceremonial platform. The anterior portion is 19 meters wide at the neck, 29 meters wide at the end, and 2.5 meters high on the north side. There were formerly small circular ''baizuka'' accompanying tumuli on both sides of the main mound. The mounds were ten meters in diameter with a height of 2.6 meters, but the ones on the east side have disappeared, and the ones on the west side have hardly preserved their original shape. Judging from the size and style of the ''kofun'', it is believed to have been built from the end of the early to early middle Kofun period (late 4th century), and to be the tomb of the chieftain who ruled the Masuda region. It is located about 15 minutes by bus from the

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, ...

Masuda Station is a passenger railway station located in the city of Masuda, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. It is operated by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West). Lines Masuda Station is served by the JR West San'in Main Line, and is located 514.5 kilomete ...

References

External links

Masuda City Tourist Association home page
{in lang, ja History of Shimane Prefecture Masuda, Shimane Historic Sites of Japan Zenpokoenfun

Overview

See also

References

External links