The } is a late

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 ...

burial tumulus located in the Sanden neighborhood of the town of

Hōdatsushimizu, Ishikawa is a town located in Hakui District, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 13,418 in 4962 households, and a population density of 84 persons per km2. The total area of the town was . In 2013, the Food and Agricultu ...

in the

Hokuriku region The was located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lay along the Sea of Japan within the Chūbu region, which it is currently a part of. It is almost equivalent to Koshi Province and Hokurikudō area in pre-modern ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The tumulus was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1982.

Overview

The Sandenkanaya Kofun is located a hill at the confluence of the Shio River and the Kose River at the base of the

Noto Peninsula The Noto Peninsula (能登半島, ''Noto-hantō'') is a peninsula that projects north into the Sea of Japan from the coast of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Honshū, the main island of Japan. The main industries of the peninsula are agricultur ...

. The tumulus is an oval-shaped ''kofun'', with maximal length of 21 meters, partially surrounded by horseshoe-shaped moat three meters wide and 0.5 meters deep. The horizontal

burial chamber A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could a ...

opens to the southwest, and has a total length of 9.85 meters, length of 5.80 meters, width of 2.65 meters, and height of 2.76 meters and is the largest in the Hokuriku region. It is made of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomi ...

and the sarcophagus is made of granite. *Major axis: 21meters *Minor axis: 18.5 meters *Height: 3.5 meters This tomb was excavated by locals in 1903, and a house-shaped

sarcophagus A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...

with a roofline decorated with ''chigi'' was found. It is an Ishikawa Prefectural Tangible Cultural Property.

Grave goods Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods may be classed as a ...

included

Sue ware was a blue-gray form of stoneware pottery fired at high temperature, which was produced in Japan and southern Korea during the Kofun, Nara, and Heian periods of Japanese history. It was initially used for funerary and ritual objects, and origin ...

, swords, bronze mirrors, beads and other jewellery, and horse fittings. The tumulus is believed to have been built in the latter half of the 6th century, based on excavated items. Restoration work on the tumulus was carried out from 1986 to 1988, and the tumulus was partially dismantled and repaired in 2006 to 2007. Some of the excavated items are kept at the

Tokyo National Museum The or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage ( :ja:国立文化財機構), is considered the oldest national museum in Japan, ...

. The site is open to the public as part of an

archaeological park An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and ...

. The burial chamber can be viewed only from the outside. It is located about 20 minutes by car from Minami-Hakui Station on 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, and ...

Nanao Line The is a railway line in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West) and the Noto Railway. It runs between Tsubata Station in Tsubata and Anamizu Station in Anamizu. JR West operates the section between Tsuba ...

References

External links

Ishikawa Prefectural information home page

Hōdatsushimizu Information

Tourist Information
{{in lang, ja History of Ishikawa Prefecture Hōdatsushimizu, Ishikawa Historic Sites of Japan

Overview

See also

References

External links