kofun period

The Tomio Maruyama: Discovering the longest sword and largest mirror in ancient Japan

In January 2023, the finds from excavations within the Tomio Maruyama burial mound in Nara city caused a media sensation. For the second in a two-part series examining Japanese tombs, Simon Kaner travelled to Nara and caught up with Okabayashi Kosaku, recently retired Deputy Director of the Nara Prefectural Kashihara Archaeological Institute, to find out more about the discovery and see how the story is developing.

Japan’s royal tombs: Burial mounds and Korean connections in the 3rd-8th centuries AD

Japanese burial mounds can be stunning in scale, while the decorated tomb chambers and grave goods sometimes found within have the power to astonish. In the first of a two-part series examining these tombs, Simon Kaner introduces the archaeology of burials mounds from the 3rd-8th centuries AD.

World news in brief: finds from Japan, Iraq, and Egypt

A round-up of some of the latest archaeological news from across the globe.