Mitsujo Keyhole Tomb

 

Heading south out of Saijo I stopped in at the Mitsujo Tombs, a cluster of ancient burial mounds inlcuding a rather large "keyhole" tomb.

What is particularly fascinating about this one is that they have replicas of haniwa set up on the mound.

Most of the kofun I have seen have been simply grass-covered, but here they have restored the burial mound to its original form, covered in a layer of river rocks as well as the haniwa. 

It is believed about 1,800 haniwa were placed on the mound originally, mostly simple. cylindrical ones, but a variety of others too.

A small museum at the site contains examples of some of the original haniwa as as ewll as other unearthed materials.

With a length of 92 meters, it is one of the biggest keyhole tombs in Hiroshima and attests to the importance of the ruler who was buried here.

Right next to the main mound is a smaller, circular mound, that predates the larger one.

In the main mound they discovered three burial chambers, two with stone sarcophagi.

On the basis of some of the ceramics found in the tomb they date the construction of the mound to 421.

According to the mythology, still written and spoken about as fact in many cases, this was about a thousand years after Jimmu conquered Japan and established Yamato rule over the whole country. Absurd but still touted as fact.

The materials on the tomb write of it belonging to the person who "governed" the area, not the person who "ruled". In so many subtle and not so subtle ways Japanese history still serves nationalist mythology.

The previous post in this series was on the things seen in the sake brewing district a little to the north.