Ao Burial Mounds (city-designated historic site)

It is said that there used to be about 100 ancient tombs collectively known as the Kabe Tomb Group on the gentle slope spreading out to the south of Fukuoji Temple. Many of them have been lost due to farming and residential development, but it seems that they were mainly small tombs with horizontal stone chambers. The Ao Tomb Group is part of the Kabe Tomb Group, and 15 tombs once remained in the residential area, but only four remain today. One of them has distinctive features such as stones laid on the floor of the burial chamber and stones piled up at the base of the burial mound. Also excavated from the site are sueki and hajiki tableware, iron weapons, and accessories such as gold rings, which are characteristic of the latter half of the Kofun period (6th to 7th centuries), indicating that the tomb group was built around that time. It is said that the reason why many kofun from the latter period were built in this region, where few kofun from the first period can be found, is that the widespread use of iron farming tools led to the large-scale development of rice paddies, and people began to live in places where no one had lived before, in search of new farmland. It is also speculated that the reason why so many kofun are concentrated in one place is probably because at the time, not only influential people but also people of lower classes began to be buried in horizontal stone chambers. Location: 35 Kameyama 5-chome, Asakita-ku, Hiroshima City Date of designation: May 30, 1973 (Showa 48)