Furuichi Kofun Group

The Furuichi Kofun Group is a cluster of burial mounds from the Kofun period, situated across Fujiidera and Habikino in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The site spans roughly 2.5 kilometers from north to south and 4 kilometers from east to west, occupying plateaus and hills at an average height of 24 meters above sea level. The mounds were constructed between the late 4th and mid-6th centuries AD. In 1956, twelve of these tumuli were individually named National Historic Sites of Japan; fourteen more were added collectively in 2001, and the protected area was expanded in 2018.

Twenty-seven of the tumuli, including many of the largest ones, are managed by the Imperial Household Agency and designated as imperial tombs, which means archaeological excavation is not permitted. Originally, there were 123 mounds in the group, but only 87 survive today. Of these, 26 are keyhole-shaped (zenpō-kōen-fun), 5 are circular (empun), 22 are square (hōfun), and 34 are of an indeterminate shape.

The Furuichi Kofun Group, together with the Mozu Kofun Group, was proposed for UNESCO World Heritage listing in 2010. On July 6, 2019, the combined Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group was inscribed as a World Heritage Site under criteria (iii) and (iv). After the Ichinoyama Kofun, the era of large tomb groups began to wane. Although a few sizable tombs, such as the Okamisanzai Kofun, were still built, their frequency and scale decreased. The Kawachi Otsukayama Kofun, an outlier located between the Mozu and Furuichi groups, measures 355 meters in length; its construction during this period remains unexplained and requires further study. As the Furuichi group declined, the focus of tomb building shifted to areas like Shinagadani (also called Kawachi-Asuka), near present-day Taishi Town, moving the primary burial site in the Kawachi region away from Mozu and Furuichi. The Mozu Kofun Group lies roughly 10 kilometers to the west.