Kitafunkyubo

These burial mounds are thought to be the resting places of successive generations of Yoshinogari rulers. These are artificial mounds piled in layers of different kinds of soil and very strong in structure. 14 burial jars were found in the mounds; one of them kept glass beads and an elaborate-designed bronze sword. These burial mounds were made and used in the middle Yayoi period, 1 B.C. But they were not used as tombs afterward, and it is believed to have been a resting place of ancestral spirits.

These are some of the funerary goods found in one of the 14 burial jars in the burial mounds. Although a grip of a regular bronze sword is made of wood, this elaborated sword was made entirely of bronze, which is very unusual. Raw materials of the beads were certainly from China, but it is unknown in which country they were made, China or Japan. These valuables indicate a man of rank was buried in this jar.

The tall pole in front of the northern burial mounds is called Ricchu, column. It seems to have been the symbolic pole in which ancestral souls rested.

This is believed where people gave prayers and offerings to ancestral spirits resting in the mounds.

This is believed to have been the special way through which people visited the burial mounds to worship souls of ancestors from the outside of the circular moats.