Mozu Tombs (Emperor Nintoku's Kofun)
The Mozu Tombs are a series of 49 tombs in Sakai, Osaka which date back to the Kofun Period (c. 250 C.E. to c. 538 C.E.). The tombs are mostly keyhole/pitshaft tombs and are scattered around a small area. The largest is the Nintoku Tombulous which is believed to be the resting place of Emperor Nintoku. It’s not only the largest in this cluster, it’s the largest in all of Japan and rivals other noted earthen tombs like the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Tomb of Qin Shihuang-di in China for sheer size. Because of this achievement by the main tomb, the tumulus group has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For visitors: 2.
I’ll start with why this is ranked so low. The simple answer is you can’t see anything. The tomb is massive, and the central earthen mound is beyond not one, but three moats of water. But for something this large, surely visitors can make some kind of entry on the grounds, right? Absolutely not. This is the tomb of an emperor and that means it’s hallowed ground and entirely off limits to anyone without imperial consent. From the “front” at the bottom of the keyhole shape there is a gate and a stone torii, but beyond that are just trees. There are no viewing towers or similar structures nearby which offer any significant vantage point to appreciate the profound size of this one tomb. Can you fly a drone to attempt a better view? Nope. But there is a small visitor center which has a little video show all about the tombs. It does have great arial shots, but I felt let down all the same.
After all that, I will say that the rest of the nearby park is lovely and there are many smaller earthen tombs that are marked clearly with signs which you can walk around and appreciate.
Forgive me, but I’m going to rant now.
For those who know me, or have been reading my posts, I hope you are able to glean my feelings towards history and truth. If not, then let me tell you that I was taught that history is a story often told from a certain point of view. If you ask enough questions, you’ll find that most histories have holes and failings. “Yes, that thing did happen then, but it didn’t actually happen that way.” While this can sometimes feel like ruining a perfectly good story, it’s also important to reframe that story as a lie, and then ask the question: of whom did that lie benefit and whom did it suppress? It’s the job of historians to ask those questions that ruin the story so that we can find truth. In that line of thought, I do what I can to share as much accurate information as I have access to regarding the locations I visit and their histories, and sometimes that means calling BS on their believed narrative (though obviously I do my best to not be a complete jerk about it). What frustrates me the most about the Tomb of Emperor Nintoku is that the narrative surrounding it is not only covered in falsehoods, but it doesn’t take any effort to discover just how false it all is. And though one could argue we know little about the Kofun Period, I argue that we know enough to say that the imperial narrative is just not reasonable.
First, let’s talk basics about the Kofun Period of Japan and what historical facts we do have about that time. It’s important to note that we don’t have much in terms of records. Almost everything we know about pre-imperial Japan comes from accounts written by Chinese envoys because Japan didn’t have a writing system of its own. So, what do we know? We know that Japan was not centralized but instead was a series of tribe nation-states across the western half of the archipelago with a higher density around modern Nara and Osaka. Each tribe was led by a “king” and “queen.” What we’re learning more now is that in these societies, the “king” was the political and military leader of these nation-states, but true power lay with the “queens” who were the conduits between the gods and the people. They were the spiritual leaders that really dictated the direction of the nation. As a comparison, the queen was like the captain of a ship, they have all the charts and training to know where to go and how best to get there, while the king is the first officer who carries out those orders and actually runs the ship. As we discover more about early Japan, we learn that it wasn’t a patriarchal society, that even visually, it was the queens that held more power and wore more decorations. So the question must then be asked, if the queen was the actual authority figure, why is it assumed it’s a man buried in that big tomb and not a woman? We see similarities with early tombs found on the Korean Peninsula with queens wearing large golden belts with intricate designs, while the kings wore smaller golden belts with less embellishments. Now, I’m not saying that Japan and Korea did all the same things, because that’s a politically charged can of worms I don’t want to get anywhere near, but clearly there was trade and a communication of ideas between the two landmasses that helps piece together the complex unknowns of early Japan. So I ask again, who’s to say that it’s an emperor in that tomb and not an empress?
Second, by now you’re thinking something like, “Brennan, I’m sure they’ve excavated the tomb and they know it’s a dude buried there.” That’s where you’d be wrong and I have one of my biggest beef’s with the Imperial Household Agency. None of the tombs that are believed to be imperial tombs have been touched. None of them. Any tomb that the monarchy believed was imperial, they declared it as such and then restricted all access to the site. In an overly crude way, someone in the past looked at these earthen tombs and based on exterior only, decided that certain tombs were imperial, and the rest were aristocracy or some other lower rank. Tombs that are not considered imperial are allowed to be excavated by archaeologists and thanks to them we’ve learned a lot about early iconography and ceremony, but we don’t know who is buried there or the significance of the sudden boom in earthen tombs across western Japan. Once again, this leaves the rather uncomfortable and unresolved questions: but how do they know who’s buried in there? How do they know that person was imperial? And how do they know it’s a guy in there?
Lastly, we come to the widely accepted falsity: there probably wasn’t an Emperor Nintoku. While it’s always been a possibility that he could have actually existed, it’s highly doubtful because there are no documents or evidence to support the claim that he was the 16th emperor of Japan. The strongest evidence for a centralized imperial government is the tombs themselves which would have required considerable coordination to gather resources and a significant labor force to then construct a single earthen tomb in a time of divided peoples. The fact that these tombs were built suggests a possible greater community with a common goal to create these structures, which some claim would be the early imperial lineage, but that’s still supposition and inference. The honest and fair thing to say is that we just don’t know. So, what evidence do we have of early emperors? Basically, all we know is what was written in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, two pseudo historical chronicles which record myths, legends, and the early emperors in Japan. Because these documents are effectively imperial propaganda to establish an undeniable authority to rule, most scholars agree that the “historical facts” laid out in its contents are dubious at best. And why aren’t they trusted, because the stories recorded aren’t corroborated by physical evidence collected from pre-imperial sites, nor do they share any similarities with documents archived by the Chinese envoys I mentioned before. You might be wondering why the Chinese would be such a trusted source? The simple answer is that they wrote down everything about everything in bones, on paper, in clay, in bronze, everywhere. The envoys are especially trusted because the Chinese emperors wanted precise information about distant lands and what tributes they could levy from them. It’s thanks to the Chinese that we know so much about so many places in early history. So, the lack of corroboration or general overlap between historically trusted sources and the official origin narrative of the Japanese imperial lineage does not support any claim to the identity of the tomb’s occupant.
This all brings me to the real reason why I ranked this so low: I just don’t respect it. I could probably respect the tomb if I could visually comprehend the massive structure far beyond the immediate tree line. But because I’m not even allowed to do that, what I’m left with is a story that I know just isn’t true. I know there isn’t an emperor in there, I know no one knows who’s in there, and I know no one’s going to be allowed to find out either. So until an honest to goodness effort has been made to seek truth and not just a convenient story, I’ve decided that it’s a woman in there, a queen who was so badass that they built one of the largest earthen tombs in the world to honor her. Since their story is based on falsehoods, there’s no rational basis to reject my claim. Either way, buck the patriarchy!
Yup, that’s all you can see.
Arial photo of the tomb. You would be a tiny dot on the left next to the street.
