Kubura Family Residence Stone Wall

What is the Kubura Family Residence Stone Wall?

The Kubura Family Residence Stone Wall (久部良家住宅石垣, Kubura-ke Jūtaku Ishigaki) is a late-Meiji enclosure wall of coral limestone at 365 Aza-Yonaguni in Yonaguni Town, Okinawa Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on October 2, 2007.

Registered under number 47-0057, the Ishigaki edges the plot of the main house registered the same day (47-0056). The Agency for Cultural Affairs counts it as one structure, built of stone and running 39 meters in total.

It does not ring the whole property. The wall stands only along the east and south sides, turning a single corner in an L shape to hold that end of the homestead.

Why the Kubura stone wall was registered

The Kubura Family Residence Stone Wall was registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country. In the Agency's words, it works together with the main house to create a historic scene peculiar to the Okinawa region. The value lies less in the wall on its own than in its role as the frame around a tile-roofed island house.

The dates are worth a second look. The Agency places the wall in the late Meiji period but the arrival of the main house in 1940. Taken at face value, that makes the Kubura Family Residence Stone Wall the oldest thing on the site in its present position: it was marking the edge of this plot before the house it now encloses was shipped in.

Coral limestone, stacked as found

The stone is coral limestone, laid in the Nozurazumi manner: pieces used more or less as they came from the ground, with little or no dressing, and fitted together by shape. Because the faces never line up, the surface is a patchwork of bumps and hollows that catch the low sun.

The wall runs 39 meters, stands 1.3 meters high and is 0.7 meters thick. That puts the top at roughly chest-to-shoulder height for an adult. The thickness is about half the height, enough depth for dry-laid stones to settle under their own weight.

Big stones at the corner and the gateway

The detail to look for on the Kubura wall is how its ends are handled. According to the Agency, larger stones were chosen for the corner where the east and south runs meet and for either side of the gateway, and these points were packed especially firmly.

In a dry-stacked wall, the free ends and the turns are where collapse begins. Follow a long run of the wall with your eye and then look at the corner, and the difference in stone size is plain. Standing at the gateway, you can see heavier blocks set on both jambs.

Visiting the Kubura Family Residence Stone Wall

Since the Kubura Family Residence Stone Wall stands on the boundary of the plot, its outer face can be seen from the street. The ground inside is a private home and is not open, so please do not peer in through the gateway; the coursing and the height are best judged from the road.

Please do not climb the wall or move any stones. A nozurazumi wall holds together by the way its stones lock, and a small shift can start a collapse. There is no official guidance on photography, but if you take pictures, choose an angle that keeps the house and its occupants out of frame.