8 August 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Archeologists unearth largest rare wooden “Haniwa” Statue in Japan

The remains of a 3.5-meter-tall wooden “haniwa” statue have been discovered at one of the “kofun” ancient burial mounds that comprise the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in western Japan, according to a local education board on Thursday.

The statue is thought to be one of the largest wooden haniwa found in Japan, with parts measuring 75 centimeters wide and around 8 cm thick.

Haniwa are large hollow funerary objects. Massive amounts of haniwa, many of which were nearly life-sized, were carefully placed on top of colossal, mounded tombs known as kofun (“old tomb” in Japanese). During the Kofun Period (c. 250 to 600 C.E.), haniwa evolved in a variety of ways, including their shape, placement on mounded tombs, and, presumably, their specific function or ritual use.

The haniwa was discovered during an excavation of a moat surrounding the 96-meter-long Minegazuka Kofun, which is thought to have been built at the end of the fifth century, according to the city of Habikino’s education board.

The statue is an Iwami-style haniwa, which “has only been found at 15 kofun tumuli in Japan so far,” according to an official of the education board.

The Minegazuka Kofun ancient burial mound in Habikino, Osaka Prefecture. Photo: HABIKINO BOARD OF EDUCATION / VIA KYODO
The Minegazuka Kofun ancient burial mound in Habikino, Osaka Prefecture. Photo: HABIKINO BOARD OF EDUCATION / VIA KYODO

“The haniwa is a very rare artifact as it is made of kōyamaki (Japanese umbrella pine), which was a type of wood favored by people in power at the time,” the official said.

According to the Habikino education board, the haniwa is the tallest ever discovered, surpassing the 2.6-meter-tall Iwami-style specimen excavated from the Ohakayama Kofun in the city of Tenri in neighboring Nara Prefecture.

Studies of kofun indicate that a powerful state had emerged by around 250 C.E. in Japan. This state is identified by various names (such as the Yamato polity) and was generally centered in what is now Nara, Kyoto, and Osaka prefectures.

Many monumental tombs (kofun) were built in the shape of a keyhole, or zenp ken fun (“front squared, rear rounded tomb”). The square section is the front, while the round section is the back and houses the deceased’s body (or bodies). Keyhole-shaped tombs were adopted as a kind of signature style of this state.

Nara prefecture is home to the majority of the earliest surviving keyhole-shaped colossal tombs from the third century. One of these is Sakurai’s famous Hashihaka kofun, which measures approximately 280 meters in length and 30 meters in height. In comparison, the Khufu pyramid in Giza measures approximately 230m in length and 146m in height.

The earliest haniwa, from c. 250 C.E. to around the 450s, were simple forms and most were cylindrical.  While the positioning of the haniwa varied from tomb to tomb, they were frequently lined up along the outermost perimeter of the tomb surface, seemingly to delineate boundaries.

Cover Photo: Remaining parts of a 3.5-meter-tall wooden haniwa statue unearthed from the Minegazuka Kofun in Habikino, Osaka Prefecture | HABIKINO BOARD OF EDUCATION / VIA KYODO

Related Articles

A mysterious lead tablet with an unknown 13th-14th-century script: Might be an old Lithuanian script?

26 February 2024

26 February 2024

In the Museum of the Palace of the Grand Dukes in Vilnius, Lithuania, a mysterious lead tablet dating back to...

Hundreds Of Mummified Bees inside their Cocoons from the Time of the Pharaohs found in Portugal

25 August 2023

25 August 2023

Hundreds of mummified bees inside their cocoons have been found on the southwest coast of Portugal, in a new paleontological...

Bronze Age Petroglyphs discovered in Kazakhstan

1 May 2024

1 May 2024

Volunteers in Kazakhstan have discovered new petroglyphs from the Bronze Age. The rock carvings were found by volunteers of the...

A Christian monastery, possibly pre-dating Islam, found in UAE

6 November 2022

6 November 2022

A Christian monastery has been discovered on the island of Siniyah off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE),...

2,000-Year-Old Artifacts Found at Swat’s Butkara Site in Pakistan, Including Coins and Kharosthi Inscriptions

14 February 2025

14 February 2025

Excavations at the Butkara Stupa, located near Mingora in Swat, Pakistan, have uncovered significant findings, including two-thousand-year-old coins, pottery, and...

A rare Roman cornu mouthpiece found at Vindolanda

23 September 2022

23 September 2022

Just south of Hadrian’s Wall, archaeologists have discovered an extremely rare Roman cornu mouthpiece beneath the remains of the ancient...

Archaeologists find a 3,000-year-old bronze sword in Germany

15 June 2023

15 June 2023

Archaeologists discovered a bronze sword more than 3,000 years old during excavations in the town of Nördlingen in Bavaria, Germany....

Mass graves of Crusaders killed in the 13th century have been discovered in Lebanon

17 September 2021

17 September 2021

From 1096 to 1291, waves of Europeans took up arms and marched into the Middle East. They hope to “take...

Archaeologists find the earliest evidence Maya sacred calendar in the Guatemalan pyramid

14 April 2022

14 April 2022

Archaeologists identified two plaster fragments depicting a date that the Maya civilization called ‘7 deer’ and was part of the...

3500-year-old ceramic oven discovered in Turkey’s Tepecik Mound

24 August 2021

24 August 2021

A 3,500-year-old ceramic oven was unearthed in Tepecik Mound in the Çine district of Aydın, in western Turkey. Tepecik Höyük,...

The 6th-Century “Türk-Kagan” Coin Discovery in Uzbekistan Could Rewrite History as the Oldest Known Record of the Name “Türk”

15 May 2025

15 May 2025

A remarkable archaeological find in Uzbekistan has unearthed a 6th-century coin bearing the inscription “Turk-Kagan,” a discovery that could significantly...

Archaeologists unearth 6,000-year-old two monumental mounds containing wooden grave chambers in Germany

16 March 2024

16 March 2024

Archaeologists from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt (LDA) have uncovered a significant Neolithic burial landscape on...

Sensational Discovery in Kazakhstan: Rare Turko-Sughd Early Medieval Coin Discovered in Almaty Region

24 June 2024

24 June 2024

A sensational discovery was made in the Kogaly Valley, two hours from Almaty, Kazakhstan. For the first time in Kazakhstan,...

73 intact Wari mummy bundles and Carved Masks Placed On False Heads Discovered In Peru

1 December 2023

1 December 2023

At Pachacámac, an archaeological site southeast of Lima in Peru, archaeologists unearthed bundles of 73 intact mummy bundles, some containing...

8,000-year-old Yarmukian ‘Mother Goddess’ figurine discovered in Israel

9 July 2022

9 July 2022

An 8,000-year-old Yarmukian Mother Goddess figurine was found at Sha’ar HaGolan archaeological site, located on the northern bank of the...