New weapon wielded in old tomb debate

New weapon wielded in old tomb debate
Information disclosure law reveals uncertainty over emperor's graves

By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer

A law enacted six years ago has given historians a new powerful
weapon to challenge a long-held taboo preserved by the Imperial
Household Agency: investigating the secrets of ancient emperors'
tombs.

The weapon is the public information disclosure law, which has
allowed Noboru Toike, assistant professor at Den-en Chofu University
and an expert on Imperial tombs, to access and obtain copies of
internal agency documents.

The documents suggest that the agency, despite official denials,
once conducted academic studies to review the attributions for at
least 10 ancient tombs that it claims belong to emperors from the
early fifth century to the early 13th century.

Toike's discovery made headlines because it supported a widespread
belief by historians and archaeologists that the government's
designations of ancient burial mounds as the tombs of emperors were
made on shaky grounds.

"These (documents) show the agency itself had questioned its own
attributions of the tombs, and conducted academic research on them
at least until around 1958," Toike told The Japan Times.

"But today, the agency does not allow (scholars) to enter or
excavate (emperors') tombs for academic research. Their position has
receded" from decades past, when the documents were compiled, Toike
said.

According to the Imperial Household Agency, there are 112 burial
mounds nationwide for all 124 past emperors, including Jinmu, the
mythical first emperor, and Hirohito, the 124th, who fathered
today's Emperor Akihito.

Some of the tombs contain the remains of more than one emperor.

But the consensus of Japanese archaeologists and historians is that
the government's claims on most of the ancient "Imperial" tombs are
academically unacceptable because they lack scientific grounds.

Most of the tombs were designated as emperors' tombs in the late
19th century, just as Japan was trying to establish a modern state
centered on the emperor to compete with the Western powers. The
designations on many of the tombs relied on references found in
ancient documents and folk legends.

According to Koichi Mori, a tomb expert and professor at Doshisha
University, archaeologists have found that only two of the
government's designations for the 42 tombs said to contain emperors
who reigned before and during the Kofun (burial mound) Period from
the third to seventh centuries are acceptable.

The two are the tomb of Tenji, the 38th emperor, in Kyoto, and a
tomb in Nara where the 40th emperor, Tenmu, and the 41st emperor,
Jito, are buried together.

"Usually in Japan, no epitaphs were placed in ancient tombs to
identify their occupants," Toike said.

"So you can't determine the occupant of an ancient tomb with hard
evidence. All you can do is to establish a hypothesis by examining
the form of the tombs, unearthed articles, historical documents and
related geographical names," he said.

The route to Toike's discovery started two years ago, when he bought
an old mimeographed booklet at a secondhand bookstore in Tokyo.

Toike, taking advantage of the information disclosure law, obtained
a copy of the same booklet from the Imperial Household Agency but
found it had additional pages and handwritten memos.

Some of the pages in the agency's copy were dated 1958 -- an
indication the relevant studies were conducted at least until that
year, according to the scholar.

The copy included a list of "reference places" managed by the
Imperial Household Agency. In the terminology of the agency,
reference places refer to ancient tombs whose occupants have not
been identified but could possibly contain a member of the Imperial
family.

The list divided the reference places into four categories,
depending on the degree of likelihood that the occupant is from the
Imperial family.

The list included nine sites designated as possible emperor mounds
that were ranked "2-A" or "2," meaning their chances of authenticity
were one below the top category.

"I was surprised because the agency has consistently explained
that 'reference places' are described as such because they have no
idea who their occupants are," Toike said.

As he examined the booklet, Toike also learned about a special
expert committee established in 1935 by the predecessor to the
Imperial Household Agency to examine the ancient tombs.

After obtaining more copies of agency documents concerning the
committee, Toike found that it concluded that an ancient tomb in
Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, should be designated as a reference
place because it could be the tomb of Emperor Keitai, who reigned
during the sixth century. The agency officially said Keitai is
buried in the city of Ibaraki in the same prefecture.

Toike stressed the importance of conducting scientific probes on
ancient tombs, noting they could unlock a number of historical
mysteries related to ancient Japan.

Most large tombs were built during the Kofun Period, when the
Imperial regime was in the process of creating the first unified
state that would control much of Japan for the first time, he said.

Japanese historians have long and repeatedly demanded that the
government allow them to conduct excavations of the "emperor" tombs.

Claiming that the "peace and calm" of the late emperors must be
maintained, however, the Imperial Household Agency has refused to
allow any excavation or scientific review of any of the tombs
designated as being those of past emperors.

The agency argues that excavations of the burial sites
are "tantamount to destruction" of the tombs, where the Imperial
family has performed traditional religious rites in honor of their
ancestors.

But Toike said: "The tombs should be first treated as historical
sites to be studied and preserved under the Cultural Properties
Protection Law."

The Japan Times: June 4, 2005
(C) All rights reserved