The tomb of Emperor Nintoku

The largest keyhole tomb on Earth, sealed and grown over with forest

The largest burial mound in Japan, said to be the largest of its kind in the world, rises in the middle of Sakai: a keyhole-shaped mound about 500 metres long and 35 metres high, ringed by three moats, the whole tomb 840 metres from end to end. It was built over some twenty years in the middle of the 5th century. Whose tomb it is cannot be confirmed. It is commonly accepted as the tomb of Emperor Nintoku, the Imperial Household Agency treats it as such, and so it is off-limits: nobody walks on it, and the mound has grown over into a dense island of forest, with the moats a haven for fish and waterbirds. Mounds of this group held iron weapons, arrowheads and swords, and gilt-bronze horse fittings. It is the heart of the Mozu group of tombs, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2019. The public can look across from a viewing platform on the middle moat at the south side, 500 metres from Mozu Station and across the street from the Sakai City Museum.