What is a Kofun? 古墳とは？

The manual labor needed to construct a kofun was available only to those with tremendous power and wealth. The bigger the kofun, the more power the person interred inside is thought to have had. After the mound was formed, its slopes were covered with fist-sized stones. Terracotta objects and sculptures were placed around the mound, perhaps to be used during rituals.

The burial chambers in the earliest kofun were unadorned, but painted decorations and murals commonly adorn kofun in northern Kyushu made during the sixth century and later. The deceased would be interred with funerary objects laid inside and around the coffin. The items discovered inside kofun provide insight into cultural and technological life in ancient Japan and interactions with the rest of Asia. Early kofun contain mainly comma-shaped beads, bronze mirrors, and other ritualistic objects, but from the sixth century onward, iron weaponry, armor, and other armaments were also common.

Ōmuta has numerous kofun, the most prominent of which are the Hagino-o, Kugurizuka, and Kurosaki Kanzeonzuka burial mounds. Artifacts excavated from local kofun are on display at the Miike Playing Cards and History Material Museum.