Japanese Royal Tomb Opened

This month a group of 16 experts led by the Japanese Archaeological Association released results from their February visit inside Gosashi tomb.

The event marked the first time that scholars had been allowed inside a royal tomb outside of an official excavation led by Japan's Imperial Household Agency. Archaeologists have been requesting access to Gosashi tomb and other imperial sites since 1976, in part because the tombs date to the founding of a central Japanese state under imperial rule. But the agency has kept access to the tombs restricted, prompting rumors that officials fear excavation would reveal bloodline links between the "pure" imperial family and Korea—or that some tombs hold no royal remains at all. Although the team's visit didn't lay any of those issues to rest, experts celebrated it as a first step toward expanded access to the mysterious tombs.

The keyhole-shaped kofun tomb of Japan's Emperor Nintoku lies nestled in the bustling seaport of Sakai in an undated aerial photo. The fifth-century tomb is the largest in Japan.

Gosashi tomb in western Japan's Nara Prefecture is revered as the resting place of Empress Jingu, the semi-legendary wife of the country's 14th emperor. Jingu is thought to have ruled as regent for her son starting around A.D. 200. During their two-and-a-half-hour visit, the team was allowed to explore the lower part of the 886-foot-long (270-meter-long) burial mound. In addition to overseeing Jingu's tomb, the Imperial Household Agency looks after some 896 sites said to contain the remains of imperial family members. Of those, around 70 are kofun tombs dating to before the seventh century. These keyhole-shaped mounds surrounded by moats are some of the largest and most historically important burial sites in Japan. Of the oldest, most significant tombs under the agency's jurisdiction, very few can realistically be proven to contain the remains of imperial family members, he said. Nevertheless, the status of the tombs is all but set in stone. The last time that the agency changed an imperial tomb's designation was in 1881.