Yagura (tombs)

are artificial caves used during the Middle Ages in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, as tombs and cenotaphs.

It is generally believed that tombs were dug into the soft rock of the hills around the city because of lack of space in the valley below.

[7] It was previously thought that an ambiguously titled law that forbade cemeteries in towns (the Fuchū Bochi Kinshirei (府中墓地禁止令)) referred to Kamakura, and therefore was the origin of the custom.

It is now believed that the law was promulgated for the city of Fuchu, in Bungo Province of Kyushu, by the Ōtomo clan.

[8] The custom continued after the demise of the shogunate and well into the Ashikaga period, until the middle of the 15th century, after which it declined.

[3] The yagura of the time give some indication of the decline of the custom: some have been converted to storehouses, others served as a convenient grave for inhumation, and thus were filled.

According to one hypothesis, the name derives from yakura (矢倉), or watchtower, but it seems more likely that it is just a local corruption of iwakura (岩倉), that is, a stone storehouse.