The Megaliths of Mt Senge, Nakatsugawa City – 2

Fig. 1 Mt Senge, Nakatsugawa City

2022 October 5 Megaliths of 浅間山  Mt Senge Report #2

This Iwakage post is a free translation from the Japanese-language blog of the Kanayama Megaliths. The Kanayama blog is written by Ms Shiho Tokuda. The photo credits are given in the original blog. The photos were taken mostly by Ms Tokuda and some older photos are shown taken possibly by Mr. Y. Kobayashi and Mr. K. Sugisaka.

The summer time of 山に入る “entering the mountain” is now over. On the 29th, six days after the autumnal equinox (September 23rd in Japan), we resumed the survey of the megaliths of Mt. Senge (浅間山 Sengeyama) in 中津川市 Nakatsugawa City. See Fig. 1.

At 11:05, with Mt. Kasagi in the west, we started climbing the mountain and aimed for the target megalith. Arrived around 11:40. It was a 35-minute climb, but the trail at the top was completely covered with ferns and there weren’t many people. The first thing that greets you when you climb the mountain trail is this Slit Megalith. 

Fig. 2 Slit megalith, seen from the west.

There is a vertical slit in the middle of the 5.5m high boulder. We named the right A stone and the left A’ stone (Fig. 2). On Mt. Senge is a line of megaliths for about 50m in the east-west direction. Looking at this from the back side (east side), the observer will see the light of the sun of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes that sets at Mt. Kasagi shining into this slit. This photo (Fig. 3) shows this megalith from the north side. 

Fig. 3. Slit megalith as seen from the north. The megalith “faces” west.

 Behind this stone, megaliths are aligned in the easterly direction, as seen here (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. A row of megaliths aligned east-west “behind” the slit megalith.

Fig 5 shows the megaliths (A’ and A stones) viewed from the reverse side.

Fig. 5 Slit megalith Stones A’ and A as seen from the reverse side.

Report #3 follows.

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