Comments on: Daisen-Kofun

By: tono

tono — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:29:41 +0000

wow, I lived near city in my childhood.
#sorry, I can’t speak english well, but try it

It is called “Daisen-Kofun” recently, but I think it is academic name.
We call it “Nintoku-Tennou-Ryou”, The Emperor Nintoku’s mausoleum .
(It is not certified academeically that the tomb is for emperor Nintoku)

Yes, it looks like “keyhole” shape, but it does not mean “keyhole”.
It’s shape is called “ZENPOU-KOUEN-FUN”, a kind of tomb shape, ah…. “A burial mound with a square front and a round back” (great, web traslator could translate the word! )

from japanese wkipedia …. (sorry my bad translation)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%89%8D%E6%96%B9%E5%BE%8C%E5%86%86%E5%A2%B3
“In the current study, The circle region is tomb for burials, and the trapezoid(or other shape) region is for altar. But the trapezoid region also used for burial later era.”

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:54:30 +0000

Cool. I walked past one of these this year and had no ida what it was. It was in Kobe, just along the shore from Osaka. Big, but not compared to the great pyramids.

By: Ian Brown

Ian Brown — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:03:54 +0000

Steve - Wikipedia says the history of locks & keys can be traced back 4000 years, though I've not been able to find any more about whether keyholes shaped like this were known in Japan in the period in question. This page talks about padlocks from the far east, so to me it's likely that these were meant to be keyhole shaped, though any experts are welcome to correct me!

By: Steve Barron

Steve Barron — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:54:35 +0000

Forgive my ignorance, but was the keyhole invented (and shaped that way) by the 5th century (well, 5th century Japan)?

If not, does anyone know what these shapes were meant to represent?