What a dobei is
A dobei is a wall built mainly of earth and capped with a narrow roof, usually of clay tiles. Earth washes away in rain, so the top is sheltered and the face is commonly sealed with lime plaster. Such walls enclose houses, temples, shrines and breweries, and where they run along a street they form part of its character.
Several construction methods fall under the term. The tsuijibei, of rammed or layered earth, and the neribei, of alternating tiles and clay, are both kinds of earthen wall named for how they are built. When a record simply says dobei, it usually means a wall of plastered earth raised between timber posts, or an earthen wall set on top of a stone base.
Registered Tangible Cultural Property entries list the structure first, then the roofing and the length, along the lines of earthen wall, tiled, 16 m long. The front wall of the Kato Sake Brewery in Shimabara, Nagasaki Prefecture, dating from the Taisho era, stands on dressed stone courses 1.3 to 1.7 m high, with the earthen wall rising above, a capping of pantiles and a coat of plaster; the whole is 2.4 to 3.4 m tall. The brewery's rear wall is built the same way.
What to look for
A small tiled roof along the top and a smooth face of earth or plaster usually indicate a dobei, distinguishing it from boarded fences, brick walls and concrete. Where plaster has fallen away, the earth beneath settles the question.
Posts are handled in two ways. Some walls bury them in the earth; others leave them exposed. The Matsumoto family walls in Koryo, Nara Prefecture, from the early Showa period, run 27.1 m on the west and 11.6 m on the south, and show their posts on the south face.
Thickness and surface separate the named variants. A tsuijibei is massive, and at temples may carry horizontal white lines marking rank; a neribei sometimes leaves its tile courses unplastered as visible stripes. In writing, use the more specific term when the record gives it, and dobei when that is all the record says.
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Kato Sake Brewery Front Earthen Wall
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00007414
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Kato Sake Brewery Rear Earthen Wall
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00007415
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Matsumoto Family Residence, south and west walls of the south compound
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00012005
Last verified: 2026.10.04