Japan Navigator

Sakai City, just south of Osaka, is first and for all famous for the huge 5th century Daisen Kofun, popularly called the “Nintoku Tumulus,” the largest grave mound in Japan, belonging to an early Yamato king.

[Sakai City Museum - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The museum stands S of this tumulus (which you have to see on aerial photos to get a good impression of its size; another good option is the viewing lobby of the Sakai Municipal Office) and the main part of its display is dedicated to articles found in this and other graves from the enormous “Mozu Kofun cluster.”

In the first section of the museum, “Ancient Age Sakai,” you will also find Yayoi pottery, stone knives, and – an unusual item – ceramic pots for catching octopus. These pots reminded me of Basho’s haiku (indeed written in West-Japan, though not in Sakai):

octopus pots -
fleeting dreams
under the summer moon

There are large cylindrical haniwa as well as the grayish but sturdy Sue ware pottery. This section closes with a copy of a statue of the famous priest Gyoki, who was born in the Sakai area in 668 (you often meet him in my temple articles as the purported funder of countless temples around Japan).

The next section, “Medieval Age Sakai,” is mostly dedicated to the 16th c., when Sakai had developed into a free, self-governing trading city. This liberal city culture, resembling Renaissance Europe in certain respects, also makes Sakai special. (It is the subject of the Sakai Festival held annually on the 3rd Saturday & Sunday of October). There were also contacts with the West as is shown in the Nanban screens in the museum.

Unfortunately, Sakai’s merchants also made money by providing warlords as Nobunaga and Hideyoshi with guns and this would be their undoing – when Japan was unified with an iron fist, Sakai lost its independence. The most famous scion of the city, in these and other ages, was Sen Rikyu, the tea master, who served Hideyoshi and eventually also became the despot’s victim.

[Statue of Sen Rikyu in the museum grounds - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The third section about “Pre-Modern Age Sakai” has models of a town house and a festival cart.

The last part, “Modern Age Sakai,” exhibits items from the Meiji and Taisho periods about Sakai’s early industrialization. In this period, the tanka poetess Yosano Akiko was born in Sakai.

This is a pleasant museum with a well-planned exhibition. In the museum garden you will find two tea ceremony houses as well as a 14th c. stone pagoda.

Tel: 072-245-6201
Address: 2 Mozusekiun-cho, Sakai-shi, Osaka-fu 590-0802
Hrs: 9:30-17:15; CL Mon, day after NH (except Sat & Sun)
Access: 5-min walk from Mozu St on the JR Hanwa Line