Basement and Cellar 犬山城 地下一、二階（穴蔵）

Official explanation

The entrance to the castle is through the basement, which offers a glimpse of the sixteenth-century craftsmanship and construction techniques used to erect the castle, as well as a look at its defensive features.

The castle is supported by a five-meter-high stone base that was constructed by the nozurazumi technique for building dry stone walls. This technique is also used for shrines and temples. In this method, uncut stones are piled in such a way as to minimize gaps between them, and no mortar is used.

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The basement is a chamber built between two sections of the stone base, and the stone base itself forms the walls of this chamber, visible inside the basement. The chamber comprises two levels and has a steep staircase. The steep angle of the staircase was designed to impede armor-clad intruders carrying weapons.

The thick wooden beam running horizontally along the ceiling of the upper level of the basement is the main support for the castle tower which rises 19 meters above it. Traces of the workmanship are visible here, too, in the marks of the carpenter’s adze on the surface of the beam.

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.