Japanese Kofun Tombs: Archaeology and Landscape Context

Description

Japanese kofun are ancient burial mounds mainly constructed between the middle of the third century to the early seventh century CE. The term ÒkofunÓ, which means Òancient tombÓ, is also used to indicate a period in the history of Japan, from about 300 AD to 538 AD, which is the year of the official introduction of Buddhism in the archipelago. The larger kofun have a very distinctive shape and are usually defined as keyhole-shaped mounds. The Japanese term is zemp_-k_en fun, which means Òsquare in the front and round in the rearÓ, according to the geometric bases of the two mounds composing the kofun. On kofun and their orientation, a large literature in Japanese exists and we will give reference of it.
The study here presented is aiming to investigate the orientation of the tumuli in their specific landscape, in the framework of the culture and religion of the period, including the Japanese geomancy too.

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