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Imperial mysteries: historians gain potentially controversial access to Japan’s royal tombs

Tokyo: Some of Japan’s mysterious imperial tombs are to be opened to archaeologists and historians for the first time early next year, in a move expected to anger the country’s ultra conservatives.

Experts have long been denied access to the hundreds of mausoleums and tombs, which Japan’s imperial household agency regards as not so much cultural relics as sacred religious sites.

Some historians, however, put the agency’s reticence down to fears that close inspection of the burial mounds could reveal evidence that shatters commonly accepted theories about the origins of the Japanese imperial family.

Members of archaeological and historical societies will be granted limited access to two tombs in February and March, the Kyodo news agency said, quoting imperial household sources.

Excavation work will be prohibited and researchers will be permitted to enter only the tombs’ fringes. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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