It was only after the beginning of the 6th century, when the Soga clan became powerful, that burial tumult began to be built in the Asuka region,which fell within the sphere of Soga influence. In the 7th century tumult were built here by numerous powerful persons including emperors and others of the imperial clan. The burial tumult in the Asuka region are noteworthy for their use of quarried granite and also for their elaborately constructed stone chambers with lateral entrance passage' ways, a characteristic construction found also in the burial tumult of the Kawachi-Asuka region, an area also known as "Nearer Asuka" (chika-tsu-Asuka) within the ancient province of Kawachi and including such areas of present-day Osaka-fu as Habikino-shi and Fuijidera-shi, but offering few other examples in the country as a whole. Influences from Korean burial tumult are strikingly evident, testifying to the strong connections with newcomers from the continent.
Emperors and members of prominent clans continued to be buried in traditional-style kofun into the 7th century. However, together with Buddhism the practice of cremation was introduced, and in time the custom of cremating bodily remains came to be adopted by all,from the Emperor the nobility downward. The earliest written record of cremation in Japan refers to the priest Dosho (d. 700. or the 4th year of the reign of Emperor Monmu).Already by that time large kofun (tumulus graves in the old style) were no longer being built, and the adoption of cremation further hastened the end of all tumulus building. Certain kofun exhibit a transitional character. as for ex-ample the Nakaoyama Kofun (Asuka-mura, Hirata) , which was designed with an octagonal mound and a minutely worked stone crypt for the deposition of cremated bones.
|TAKAMATSUZUKA KOFUN |THE ASUKA TEMPLES |ASUKA AND THE MAN'YOSHU|
Copyright (c) 1995 ASUKA HISTORICAL MUSEUM All Rights Reserved.
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