Where the Stone for Musashi Itabi Was Quarried
The Shimosato Aoyama Stone Tablet Manufacturing Site (下里・青山板碑製作遺跡, Shimosato Aoyama Itabi Seisaku Iseki) is a site in Ogawa Town, Hiki District, Saitama Prefecture, where stone memorial tablets called itabi were made from the Kamakura to the Warring States period, which in 2014 was designated a Historic Site.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists it under the criterion for sites of production and other economic activity, and places it in the Ogawa basin at the northeastern foot of the Outer Chichibu mountains.
Itabi are a type of stone Buddhist memorial tablet made in medieval Japan. Ogawa Town explains that in the Kanto region they were mostly made of green chlorite schist and are called Musashi-type itabi; locally the stone is known as Shimosato stone or blue stone.
Discovery and Investigation
According to the Agency, from around the thirteenth century rising Buddhist devotion in Kanto led to the building of temples and a boom in raising itabi of chlorite schist. Ogawa had long been thought a major source of the stone.
Worked stone collected in Shimosato in 2001 prompted the Ogawa town board of education to investigate. Ogawa Town says survey and trial excavation of the Wariya site began in 2009, and 19 places where stone may have been quarried were identified, including the Wariya, Nishisaka Shitamae A and Uchikanzawa areas.
How the Tablets Were Made
The Agency describes an outcrop of chlorite schist at Wariya and a terrace about 50 metres wide and 45 metres deep built up from quarry waste. Excavation found blocks with wedge holes, stones scored with the outline of a tablet or cut with grooves, and stones bearing flat-chisel marks, revealing the process from quarrying to shaping the tablet.
Ogawa Town explains that an itabi passes through six stages: quarrying, splitting, rough shaping, finishing, carving and decoration. Only stones up to the finishing stage have been found at the 19 sites, so the Sanskrit letters and inscriptions were not carved here; the blanks were sent out to other places.
Comparing the size and working of the unfinished pieces with itabi in and around Ogawa showed that quarrying at Wariya peaked from the mid-fourteenth to the late fifteenth century, when the most itabi were made in Kanto.
Why It Matters and Visiting
The Agency concludes from the size of the site and the number of possible quarries that Ogawa produced a vast number of tablets and was the main centre of itabi production in Musashi Province. Ogawa Town sees it as the chief source of the Musashi-type itabi, said to number more than 50,000 in Kanto. The Shimosato Aoyama Stone Tablet Manufacturing Site sheds light on medieval spiritual culture as well as on production and trade.
No official information on visiting conditions could be found. The site is a mountain quarry where slopes of rock and waste are unstable, so contact the Ogawa Town lifelong learning section in advance if you wish to visit.
Q&A
- When was the Shimosato Aoyama Stone Tablet Manufacturing Site designated?
- It was designated a Historic Site on 6 October 2014.
- What are itabi?
- Stone Buddhist memorial tablets of medieval Japan; in Kanto they were made of green chlorite schist.
- What was done at the Shimosato Aoyama Stone Tablet Manufacturing Site?
- Stone was quarried and shaped into tablet blanks; the inscriptions were carved elsewhere.
- When was the Shimosato Aoyama site most active?
- Quarrying at Wariya peaked from the mid-fourteenth to the late fifteenth century.
- Can I visit the Shimosato Aoyama site?
- No official visitor information was found; contact the Ogawa town board of education.
Basic Information
| Name | Shimosato Aoyama Stone Tablet Manufacturing Site (下里・青山板碑製作遺跡) |
|---|---|
| Location | Ogawa Town, Hiki District, Saitama Prefecture |
| Designation | Historic Site |
| Year Designated | Designated 2014/10/6 (Heisei 26) |
| Quantity | 19 possible quarry locations |
| Dimensions | Terrace at Wariya about 50 metres wide and 45 metres deep |
| Owner | Not recorded in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database |
| Public Access | No official visitor information found |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs Database: Shimosato Aoyama Stone Tablet Manufacturing Site (Japanese)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/401/00003858
- Cultural Heritage Online: Shimosato Aoyama Stone Tablet Manufacturing Site (Japanese)
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/273516
- Ogawa Town: Wariya Site (Japanese)
- https://www.town.ogawa.saitama.jp/gyosei/sosiki/17/12/1/1145.html
Last verified: 2026.09.28