Incredible 1,400-year-old tomb belonging to elite warrior found under car park

01 October 2023 , 19:33

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The tomb belonged to a member of the Japanese elite (Image: Credit: Naohiro Toyoshima via Pen News)

An ordinary bush in a Japanese car park turned out to be covering something extraordinary - the 1,400-year-old tomb of an elite warrior.

The car park was being dug up to make way for a hotel courtyard in Ikaruga. But as the site is near the Horyuji Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, experts decided to excavate the car park first.

They found a wealth of old artefacts including jewellery, iron swords, arrowheads and clay pots dating back to the late 6th century AD. The artefacts were all part of a special type of burial known as a kofun, reserved for rulers, warriors and nobility. Kofun tombs were built between the middle of the third century and the early seventh century.

Archaeologists found a wealth of artefacts under the car park (Credit: Naohiro Toyoshima via Pen News)

Professor of archaeology at Nara University Naohiro Toyoshima said: “Before the excavation, many small trees were planted in the tomb. This place is planned to become a hotel courtyard, so I needed to find out if it was an ancient tomb or not. Iron swords, iron arrowheads, horse harnesses, earthenware, and necklace beads were found inside.

The body of the warrior had already “rotted and disappeared” according to Prof Toyoshima. “However, based on the location where the sword was placed, it can be inferred that two people were buried there. It is an important tomb. Since it was built independently and the stone chamber is large, we believe it to be the tomb of a local influential person. The burial is about 500 years too old to be a samurai,” the professor added.

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Clay pots, iron swords and arrowheads were all discovered in the warrior's tomb (Credit: Naohiro Toyoshima via Pen News)

Almost four metres in length, 1.6 metres wide and a metre deep, the tomb had never been looted - but the stone ceiling was damaged. Prof Toyoshima believes it may have been salvaged as a building material for the Horyuji Temple built in the seventeenth century AD. It also may have been used for a palace on the east side of the Horyuji complex, for the commissioner of the temple Prince Shōtoku

The site has been renamed the Funazuka kofun burial mound, and the “grave will be backfilled and preserved”, Prof Toyoshima added. “The artifacts will be placed in a local museum.”

Alex Croft