Maruyama Stone Quarry

Background

The Manazuru area was already well-known area for good stone and was one of the first places daimyo laid their eyes on to quarry stone. In the first phase of stone wall construction, ten daimyo had quarries around here. The area has been mostly developed over, so the only remains are a few scattered stones left behind that have been collected into this album. The Banbaura Stone Quarry on the Manazuru Peninsula is one special site long the coast that is split out into it's own album.

Near the Manazuru Town Hall is a small park which has several stones and a memorial to the stone cutters of Manazuru. Records indicate this park was the site of a quarry run by Kuroda Nagamasa and a kokuin based on his kamon can be prominently found on several stones here. In addition to his kamon mark is another that mark and is attributed to one of his retainers. The same kokuin combination can be seen at the Akasaka Mitsuke Gate. The book I have says that this is the only place it can be seen but I've found others across moats with a good zoom lens.

In a later phase of stone wall construction, the Maruyama Quarry was also used by the Mito and Owari Tokugawa. Typically, stone quarrying was done by the Western Daimyo, so why would two of the top Tokugawa families participate? It is theorized that with the incredible expense of the tenkabushin projects there was some sense of unfair treatment with the Tokugawa families not participating, so they also quarried some stone from this fairly easy quarry. It is likely that these Tokugawa families were so wealthy they didn't actually quarry the stone themselves but simply hired out nearby stone cutters since this was an area that had such artisans already. On the boundary stone below (水戸殿石場 Mito-dono Ishiba) claims the area for the Mito Tokugawa. It uses an honorific (dono) that a daimyo wouldn't likely use at his own quarry and is neatly carved into a nicely shaped pillar that you don't see at any other stone quarry, so this theory seems very likely.

Gallery

border stone

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Maruyama Stone Quarry Profile
English Name	Maruyama Stone Quarry
Japanese Name	円山石丁場
Location	Manazuru, Kanagawa Prefecture
Castle	Edo Castle
Coordinates	35° 9' 28.04" N, 139° 8' 19.32" E
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ARTShogun

36 months ago

Score 0

Great detective work

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