Database: Forgotten Tombs

With the emergence of the State and under the influence of Buddhism, the high aristocracy ceased burying their deceased in tombs and chose cremation instead. It was during the Heian period (794–1185) that the Imperial Court gradually stopped maintaining these ancient tombs. Very quickly, vegetation overtook them. The largest appeared as wooded hills in the middle of plains covered with fields and rice paddies and the moats that sometimes surrounded them were used as water reservoirs by the local peasants.

During the Middle Ages, the purpose of these tombs, buried under blankets of vegetation, was forgotten. At best, a small shrine to a local deity might be found at their height, hinting at their once sacred design. Tomb raiders from this period took advantage of the political anarchy to loot some of the mounds.

It was only from the end of the Edo period (late 18th century and especially in the 19th) that various authorities and some scholars attentive to "ancient studies" again became interested in these tombs. The first excavations took place while the structure of the tombs were recorded to try and explain them. Antiquarian Gamō Kunpei (1768–1813) was the first to formulate a typology of these tombs and to establish the first terminological markers. It was also a matter of locating the tombs of ancient sovereigns to pay them homage, within the framework of Confucian thought at the time. During the Meiji period, a list was drawn up of those among the great kofun that were the tombs of former monarchs, and these tombs were protected and became inaccessible to research excavations. For some of these ancient tombs, they still are. Presently, the great kofun are the subject of keen interest from tourists.