Tomb of Minamoto no Yoritomo

rdf:langString Tomb of Minamoto no Yoritomo

rdf:langString The tomb of Minamoto no Yoritomo (源頼朝の墓) (see photo below) is a monument in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, located some hundred meters north of the site where the palace called Ōkura Bakufu, seat of Minamoto no Yoritomo's government, once stood. Although there is no evidence his remains are actually there, it is commonly assumed to be the resting place of Minamoto no Yoritomo, founder and first shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate. The cenotaph consists of a 186 cm gorintō (a Buddhist stone stupa) surrounded by a stone tamagaki (a fence usually delimiting the sacred soil of a Shinto shrine), and was built during the Edo period (1603–1868), far after the shōgun's death in 1199. In the course of history, the site's prestige has attracted other structures, so that now it is occupied by the Site of the Hokke-dō, (the spot where Yoritomo's Hokke-dō, or funeral temple, used to stand during the Edo period), Shirahata Shrine (白幡神社, Shirahata Jinja) (not to be confused with the homonymous shrine part of Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū), and the black stone stele commemorating the Hokke-dō and the mass suicide of the Miura clan. A couple of hundred meters further to the east lie the yagura (an artificial cave used during the Kamakura period as a grave or as a cenotaph) of the Miura clan, the twin tombs of Oe no Hiromoto and of his son Mōri Suemitsu, and the grave of Yoritomo's illegitimate son Shimazu Tadahisa. The grave of Yoritomo and the ruins of the Hokke-dō are national Historic Sites.