Qualla: Yoshimi Hundred Caves

Yoshimi Hundred Caves: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nori Norisa from 熊谷市, Japan, CC BY 2.0. They called it the Hundred Caves, but the actual count is 219. Row upon row of square openings, each roughly a meter across, punctuate the tuff cliff face on the northern slope of a hill overlooking the Nogawa River in the town of Yoshimi, Saitama. From a distance the effect is startling, as though the hillside itself has been turned into a honeycomb. Step closer, and each dark opening leads through a narrow tunnel into a vaulted chamber two to three meters square, some extending several meters into the rock. These are yokoanabo, lateral-entrance tombs carved during the late Kofun period around the 7th century AD, and together they form the largest grave cluster in all of Japan.

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Image: Nori Norisa from 熊谷市, Japan | CC BY 2.0

Yoshimi Hundred Caves: The Debate That Launched Japanese Archaeology

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 京浜にけ, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Tsuboi Shogoro of Tokyo Imperial University first excavated the site in 1887, he uncovered Jomon pottery fragments, magatama jewels, gold and silver rings, swords, and bronze mirrors. Tsuboi proposed a radical theory: these were not tombs at all, but the cave dwellings of a ...

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Image: 京浜にけ | CC BY-SA 3.0

Yoshimi Hundred Caves: Architecture of the Dead

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nesnad, CC BY 4.0. Each tomb follows a similar pattern. A square opening barely large enough for a person to crouch through gives way to a narrow entrance tunnel, which opens into the main burial chamber. Inside, most caves contain an elevated platform that once held coffins or the bodies of the de...

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Image: Nesnad | CC BY 4.0

Yoshimi Hundred Caves: Green Light in the Darkness

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nesnad, CC BY 4.0. Deep inside certain caves, where daylight never fully penetrates, a faint emerald glow emanates from the walls. This is Schistostega, luminous moss that reflects even the faintest trace of light with an otherworldly green shimmer. The moss was designated as a Natural Monument of ...

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Image: Nesnad | CC BY 4.0

Yoshimi Hundred Caves: From Tombs to Factory Floor

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 京浜にけ, CC BY-SA 3.0. The caves endured for more than a thousand years before their most dramatic transformation. In the final months of World War II, the Japanese military commandeered the site, enlarging a portion of the ancient tombs to create an underground aircraft engine factory for the Nakajima...

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Image: 京浜にけ | CC BY-SA 3.0

Yoshimi Hundred Caves: Walking Among the Openings

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 京浜にけ, CC BY-SA 3.0. The site is partially open to the public, accessible by a twenty-minute walk from Higashi-Matsuyama Station on the Tobu Tojo Line. Visitors approaching from the path below see the cliff face first as a wall of shadow and texture, the dark openings arranged in rough tiers. The exp...

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Image: 京浜にけ | CC BY-SA 3.0