Kofun: the burial mounds of kings and the birth of Yamato

From the middle of the third century the rulers of the Nara plain and the Osaka area bury themselves in keyhole-shaped mounds ringed by moats; the largest, attributed to the sovereign Nintoku, stretches almost half a kilometre. The period is named after these mounds—kofun. The Chinese History of Wei already knows, in 239, the ruler Himiko of the land of Wa, and sword inscriptions of the fifth century already name the "great king" of Yamato, served by the rulers of distant regions: out of the courts around Nara grows a single power. From the mainland, through Korea, come iron, writing and the potter’s wheel; settlers from the Korean kingdoms serve as scribes and craftsmen. In 538 (by another reckoning, 552) the ruler of Baekje sends a statue of the Buddha and sutras to the court—the conventional start of the next period, Asuka.