What nunozumi is
Nunozumi lays stones of even height so that the horizontal joints run straight across the wall. The Japanese name compares those joints to the weft of woven cloth.
Estate walls use it. The stone and earthen walls at the Fukuda Residence in Wakayama Prefecture, built between the late Edo period and the Taisho era, are described as a front wall four metres high and 98 metres long, finely laid in level courses with a curved batter, an earthen wall 63 metres long finished in Shikkui and roofed in Sangawara-buki, and a rear wall of 56 metres in the same coursing. The entry says the scale gives the property the air of a castle.
Records sometimes count the courses. The west wall at the Hiraoka Residence in Tokushima Prefecture, from the early Meiji period, is 21.2 metres long in six level courses of split sandstone, with Sangi-zumi at the outer corner and a curved batter.
Civil engineering uses it too. The Shakujigawa erosion-control dam in Osaka Prefecture, from the late Meiji period, is 9.2 metres long and 2.2 high, its body laid in level courses with a spillway one stone deep.
Against irregular coursing
The opposite is Ranzumi, where the stones vary in height and the joints do not run through. One produces an ordered face, the other an irregular one.
This is a separate question from how the stones are worked. Whether stones are Kirikomi-hagi or Uchikomi-hagi, they may be laid either way, which is why records state both facts.
One structure may use both. The Iguchi salt-field culvert in Ehime Prefecture, from the late Edo period, is described as a dry-laid granite structure 12 metres long and 0.9 wide at the top, its battered lower part laid diagonally and its near-vertical upper part in level courses.
On site, follow the horizontal joints. Stone tops aligning in a straight line that runs level across the wall indicate this method; lines that break and step indicate the irregular kind.
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs: Registered tangible cultural properties (structures)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/toroku_yukei.html
- National Cultural Properties Database: Fukuda Residence stone wall, four metres high and 98 long, in level courses with a curved batter
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00009216
- National Cultural Properties Database: Hiraoka Residence west wall, six level courses of split sandstone with interlocking corners
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00014297
- National Cultural Properties Database: Shakujigawa erosion-control dam, its body laid in level courses
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003124
- National Cultural Properties Database: Iguchi salt-field culvert, dry-laid with diagonal coursing below and level coursing above
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003152
Last verified: 2026.09.10