Gobōyama No. 3 tombThis is a tomb of the Final Kofun period located at Tatsuta Kita in the town of Ikaruga, Ikoma district,
about 850 m southwest from Hōryūji temple’s Chūmon (inner gate). One of three tombs accidentally
discovered during the development of residential land, the mound itself no longer survives. The burial
facility was a compartment-like stone chamber with a side entrance, consisting of an upper stone made byhollowing out a huge block of granite and fitted onto a base stone, and the chamber’s interior contained alacquered stoneware coffin. From the skeletal remains inside the coffin, the interred is thought to have beena male 14–15 years in age, around 150 cm in stature.
Regarding the compartment-like chamber’s size, the upper stone is 275 cm long by 158 cm wide and 97
cm in height, the base stone is 298 cm long by 144 cm wide and 56 cm thick, and the entrance was sealed
off by a cover stone 105 cm wide by 86 cm in height and 35 cm thick. The space inside the chamber was
225 cm long by 71 cm wide, and 52 cm high. The stone exteriors were not dressed but were used with theirnatural surface, although the inner surface of the chamber was dressed to a smooth finish. The inner surface
had been plastered over, and from an investigation carried out in 2015, the seam where the cover and basestones met was also found to have been plastered.
The lacquered stoneware coffin has 3 rows of 7 legs, for a total of 21, on its bottom, and is fitted with alid. The lid is 156 cm long by 47.2 cm wide and 25 cm high, while the coffin itself is 157 cm long by 47.8cm wide and 25 cm high, and its interior dimensions are 146 cm long by 36 cm wide and 20 cm high. Thelid had a hole 6.5 cm in diameter at one end, which was closed with a ceramic plug after it was fired. Also,
the lid was fitted with a wedge-shaped bronze plate 13.7 cm long by 7.3 cm wide, thought to have been forreinforcement of a fissure. The coffin’s legs had been pared down considerably after firing to make themlevel, and in its present form the longest of the legs on the coffin’s short end are only about 5 cm high.
Traces of paring after firing are also visible on the upper portion of the coffin, and on the portion of the lidthat fits onto the coffin. As there was only 5 cm of leeway in height when the coffin was placed within thechamber, these parings are thought to have been modifications to lower the coffin’s height.
Inside the coffin, a circular lidded inkstone made of three-color glazed ware was placed to the right of
the interred’s head (by the right ear), and a glass tube thought to have been the shaft of an ink brush was
deposited to the head’s left (by the left ear). The interred had also been laid to rest upon a pillow carvedfrom amber. These items, unique examples nationwide, are extremely precious. The three-color glazed
circular inkstone is a small item, with the lid just 6.7 cm at its greatest diameter and the width of thegrinding surface at 3.5 cm, and has 10 legs called “water drop legs” because of their shape. From the period
when such legs were popular, as well as from the characteristics of the clay paste and the glaze, it isthought to have been produced in China between the start and the middle of the seventh century, and thus
considered to be an early example of Tang three-colored glazed ware. As an item similar to the glass tube
was recovered among the grave goods in the Sui dynasty tomb of Li Jingxun, who was interred in 608,
along with the inkstone it was probably an import from China. Incidentally, the grave goods from theGobōyama No. 3 tomb, and the coffin and chamber are all designated as Important Cultural Properties bythe Japanese government.