The term Kofunof Japan is characterized by being the period in which the written history of the island country begins, but also by the presence of a large number of burial mounds. In one of these, on the outskirts of the city of Nara, a team of archaeologists recently found the remains of a sword of more than two meters.
Archaeologists believe that, at 2.3 meters in length, this sword would not be intended for use in combat but rather an artifact for ritual use, probably to protect the dead from evil spirits. The sword could be about 1600 years old and its blade would have had a serpentine shape, swords known as dako in Japan.
“I wouldn’t say they were common,” explained archaeologist Stefan Maeder in statements collected by the portal live science. “They are prestigious objects of high society.” Despite this, combat swords are not uncommon in this type of find, as explained by this expert in Japanese swords.
The sword is not the only item that has caught the attention of archaeologists. At the site they also found a bronze mirror about 60 centimeters long by 30 wide. It is also believed that it had a more ceremonial than practical function, to protect the dead from the spirits.
Other artifacts discovered in the environment include agricultural tools, copper vessels, and even kitchen utensils. “[Estos descubrimientos] they indicate that the technology of the Kofun period was beyond what was imagined, and that there are masterpieces of metallurgy from that period,” Kosaku Okabayashi explained to the news agency Kyodo News.
The word kofunIt is used not only to designate the period of Japanese history between (approximately) 300 and 538 CE, but also a series of funerary structures located on elevations of land. Most of these burial mounds date from the Yamato period (a period that includes the kofun), period in which the center of power was located precisely in the surroundings of Nara.
And it is precisely for this reason that a good part of the kofun well-known and some of the largest such as the burial mound of Tomio Maruyama, where this last finding was made.
The largest known kofun, however, is in neighboring Osaka. The Daisenryo Kofun is a lock-shaped structure, surrounded by water, with a length of 525 meters and a perimeter of almost three kilometers.
Tombs are structures of great importance in archaeology. From the pyramids of Egypt to the burial complex of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, tombs have given archaeologists the opportunity to better understand how our ancestors lived before we began to record history (and even somewhat after we began to record it). ).
The tombs of emperors, pharaohs and great warlords are perhaps the most famous (it is believed that Tomio Maruyama Kofun may have belonged to someone linked to the ruling dynasty in Japan), but in reality, the most popular cemeteries also have valuable information for researchers.
Japan has one of the most attention-grabbing stories in the world. However, not everything is samurai and martial arts. Sometimes swords are more than combat tools but artifacts to better understand the spirituality and fears of those who lived almost two millennia before our time.
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Image | Replica of the space placed in the place of discovery. Saigen Jiro, CC0 1.0