540 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
Around the whole structure runs a large ditch or moat. The orienta- 
tion of the long dimension is east and west. The entrance to the 
dolmen is in the south side about a third or half way up the cir- 
cular mound. It contains one and often two stone or terra cotta sar- 
cophagi. At other times the sarcophagi are buried in the mound 
without any real dolmen structure. The whole mound is surrounded 
at different levels by several rows of short, broad, hollow tubes of 
terra-cotta placed close together. The total number of these often 
runs up into the thousands. The terra cotta figures, called Tsut- 
shinigyo (earth figures), are also found here, but only a few are 
preserved, since most of them soon crumble away in the open air. 
An idea of the enormous labor which the erection of such grave 
mounds entailed may be obtained from the fact that one of these 
misasagi with its moat covers not less than 200 acres. 
ELEVATION B 
Scale of Feet 
o 50 100 200° ggo). 400) 
<----150' 0---> 
de | Fe 
man nnn nena 526 0 ee ee 
SECTION THROUGH A.B. 
Scale of Feet 
© 5° 100 200 300 400 
VU rmrres 
Fic. 7.— Japanese imperial grave in longitudinal and cross section. After Gowland. 
During the many centuries of Shogun rule, when the Emperor was 
a purely nominal potentate and lived almost a prisoner in his capital, 
these graves were so completely neglected that farmers laid out fields 
on some of them. Gowland found the largest grave mound he exam- 
ined entirely given up to agriculture. 
In 1868, however, the Emperor was fully reinstated in his rights 
and power, and since then all the imperial mounds have been rigor- 
ously protected. They are fenced in and Shinto temples have been 
erected at their foot. They are particularly numerous in the provinces 
of Yamato and Kawachi, and they have a very imposing and stately 
appearance as they rise from the plain. Each one is attributed to a 
special Emperor, but it is doubtful in some cases whether just that 
Emperor whose name the mausoleum bears lies there. 
The objects found in the dolmen or rock graves are very numerous 
and often valuable from an artistic point of view. 
