[251 – 538] Kofun Period and the Yamato State

The years are 251 to 538. Across the Japanese archipelago, the landscape is being reshaped. Not by earthquakes or volcanoes, but by human hands, driven by ambition, reverence, and power. From the sky, they look like colossal, grassy keyholes set upon the plains—silent monuments on a scale that beggars belief. These are the *kofun*, the great burial mounds that give this era its name. The largest of them, the Daisen Kofun in modern-day Osaka, is longer than the Great Pyramid of Giza is tall, a man-made hill stretching nearly 500 meters, requiring the labor of thousands of people for decades. But who were these silent kings and queens who commanded such devotion even in death? To understand them, we must look to the heartland of Japan, to the Yamato Plain. Here, a powerful confederation of clans, or *uji*, was engaged in a delicate and often brutal dance of alliance, intimidation, and conquest. At their head was a lineage that claimed primacy, whose leader was known as the *Ōkimi*, the Great King. This was the birth of the Yamato state, the ancestor of the imperial line that continues to this day. Power was a family affair. Society was rigidly stratified, a pyramid with the Yamato Ōkimi at its peak. Below him were the other powerful *uji*, aristocratic warrior families who controlled their own lands and people. They served the Ōkimi in a system of shifting loyalties, providing soldiers for his campaigns and officials for his court. Their power was displayed not just in battle, but in the scale of the tombs they were permitted to build. Below them were the *be*, hereditary groups of specialized workers. Think of them as guilds bound by blood. There were the potters, whose hands spun new forms of high-fired, grey-blue pottery called Sueki ware—a technology that arrived from the Korean peninsula, its charcoal-grey gleam a mark of continental sophistication. There were the weavers, turning rough hemp into tunics and trousers for the common farmer, while aristocrats flaunted vibrant silks imported from the mainland. And, most crucially, there were the ironworkers. The clang of the blacksmith’s hammer was the true pulse of the Kofun period. Iron, another gift from the continent, was revolutionizing life. It gave the farmer a stronger plowshare to turn the wet soil of the rice paddies. But more importantly, it gave the Yamato warrior a deadlier sword, a stronger spear, and armor that could turn aside a bronze-tipped arrow. Control the iron, and you controlled Japan. The Yamato court made sure it did, establishing its own *be* of metalworkers to equip its growing armies. Life for the vast majority, the farmers living in pit-dwellings with thatched roofs, was tied to the seasons and the demands of their local lord. Their world was one of mud, rice, and reverence for the local *kami*—the gods and spirits inhabiting the mountains, rivers, and trees. This faith, which would later be called Shinto, was a world away from the grand political theater of the Yamato court. Inside the dark, cool stone chambers of the kofun, a world was being prepared for the afterlife. The deceased chieftain was laid to rest surrounded by the treasures of their life. There were glinting bronze mirrors, their backs intricately decorated with divine beasts, believed to be portals to another world. There were comma-shaped *magatama* beads of jade and agate, symbols of spiritual authority. And everywhere, there was iron: stacks of helmets, swords, and armor, enough to equip an army in the next life. But perhaps the most captivating artifacts are the figures standing eternal guard on the mounds outside: the *haniwa*. These are not grand statues, but charmingly expressive terracotta cylinders, sculpted into the forms of warriors in full armor, shamans in ritual dress, graceful court ladies, and even houses, boats, and chickens. They are a clay snapshot of Kofun society, a silent procession showing us what they valued and who they were. They were not just grave markers; they were a barrier, separating the sacred world of the dead from the profane world of the living. For centuries, this system of clan power, continental technology, and monumental burials defined the Yamato state. Legendary rulers, recorded in later chronicles like the *Kojiki*, emerge from the mists of this period—figures like the warrior Empress Jingū, who allegedly conquered parts of Korea, or her son Emperor Ōjin, later deified as Hachiman, the god of war. While history and myth are deeply intertwined in these accounts, they reveal a state forging its own identity and origin story. Then, a new wave of change began rolling in from the west, from the Korean kingdom of Baekje. It was not an army of soldiers, but of ideas. Around the year 538, the king of Baekje sent the Yamato Ōkimi a gift: a brilliant gold-plated statue of the Buddha, along with sacred scriptures. He sent a message, extolling this new faith as the most profound of all doctrines. The Yamato court was thrown into turmoil. This was not just a new *kami* to be welcomed into the pantheon. Buddhism was a complex, literate religion with a deep philosophy, a structured priesthood, and a vision of the universe that challenged the very foundations of Yamato power, which was rooted in divine lineage and ancestor worship. The powerful Soga clan saw an opportunity and championed the new faith. The rival Mononobe and Nakatomi clans, keepers of the traditional court rituals, saw a threat and fiercely opposed it. The age of the great tombs was ending, and a new era, defined not by burial mounds but by temple bells, was about to begin.