Kanakuma Ruins

One Burial Site, Designated by the State in 1972

Kanakuma Ruins (金隈遺跡) lie at 1-39-52 Kanenokuma, Hakata Ward, Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, the site of a communal cemetery of the Yayoi period, designated by the state on 17 May 1972. Its category is that of historic sites.

The owner is Fukuoka City.

The city records that it lies near the middle of a line of hills running north and south along a river on the east of the Fukuoka plain, and that it was in use for about 400 years, from the middle of the Early Yayoi (the 2nd century BC) to the first half of the Late Yayoi (the 2nd century).

Three Ways of Burial, Appearing in Turn

Within one cemetery, the manner of burial changes over time.

The city records that 348 jar burials, 119 pit burials and 2 stone-cist burials have been excavated here.

It continues that the pit burials are thought to have come first, then the jar burials, and last the stone cists.

A pit burial lays the dead in a hole dug in the ground; a jar burial uses large jars as the coffin; a stone cist is a coffin built of stone slabs.

At Tobayama Cave, three states of human remains lie side by side in one cave.

Here three ways of burial appear one after another. Jar burials are by far the most numerous; stone cists number only 2.

Shown as Excavated, Under a Roof

The graves found can be seen where they were dug.

The city records that in March 1985, to preserve and display the site, a hall was built as though roofing over the excavation, so that jars and bones can be seen as they were found.

In the hall, 91 jar burials, 34 pit burials and 4 skeletons can be seen as excavated, and jars that came out of the ground can be touched.

At the grave of Fumi no Nemaro, the grave is in Uda and its epitaph plate and other contents are kept at a museum in Tokyo.

Here graves and contents were not moved from where they were dug, and a roof was raised over them. The site itself becomes the display.

The city records that it was preserved as a national historic site as a typical site of Yayoi burial practice.

The Stature of the Dead, and a Shell from the Southern Seas

From the contents of the graves, the look of those buried and their contacts are read.

The city records that 136 skeletons came from the jar burials, with an average height of 162.7 centimetres for men and 151.3 centimetres for women; compared with Jomon people, their faces are longer and their stature abruptly taller.

It continues that intermarriage through contact with the Korean peninsula is thought possible. The point is put as a supposition.

Among grave goods are bracelets of a large sea shell that lives only in waters from the islands south of Kyushu to Australia, with stone swords, stone arrowheads and beads for necklaces, which speak of contacts with the Chinese mainland and southern cultures.

The shell is a large sea snail of southern waters. Bracelets cut from it come from graves in northern Kyushu.

From the form of the bones, contact with the peninsula to the north is read; from the shell bracelets, contact with the seas to the south.

Visiting

The site lies at 1-39-52 Kanenokuma, Hakata Ward, Fukuoka City, owned by the city.

The city gives the hall's hours as 9:00 to 17:00, closed on Mondays and over the New Year. Opening conditions may change. Check before travelling.

The national online heritage database has no entry for this site. This article rests on the city's cultural properties record.

The name is written without the particle no, the address with it. The English name in the database reads Kanakuma.

The cemetery was in use for about 400 years.