Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/115

RV 93 (507–531 ), when there flourished in Chikushi a local magnate remarkable for his extravagant style of life and ultimately for rebelling against the Imperial authority. It is stated that he adopted the Chinese custom of causing a grand tomb to be erected for himself, and that he collected a number of skilled workers in stone for the purpose. Encircling and guarding the tomb were placed sixty stone effigies of warriors each seven feet high and each with a stone shield planted beside him. In a recess on the south of the tomb a figure was set up representing a judge, before whom a naked culprit kneeled to receive sentence for stealing four wild-boars, which also were sculptured in the same material, and close at hand stood three horses with a background of two stone edifices. Some traces of this elaborate monument remain, but even in their complete absence the record is sufficiently explicit to show that the chiselling of natural objects in stone was understood at that remote time, though the manner of applying the art was alien, and its products were probably very crude. Moreover, after the abolition of the barbarous customs of burying alive the chief vassals of a prince or noble at the time of his interment,—a reform effected at about the commencement of the Christian era,—images of stone were sometimes used as substitutes for these living sacrifices, though in ordinary cases rudely shaped effigies of sun-dried clay were deemed sufficient. Excavations recently made near the tumulus of the Emperor Kimmei (540–571 ) brought to light a number of stone images of men and animals, and similar objects have been found buried at other places under circumstances which suggest great antiquity. But not one of the specimens hitherto found