Mimizuka

Brief Information

Mimizuka is called the “Ear Mound,” but its original name was more precise and harsher: Hanazuka, the “Nose Mound.” Buried inside the monument are the severed noses of at least 38,000 Koreans killed during the Japanese invasions of Korea. The name was later softened, and that substitution itself became part of the meaning of the place: the monument speaks not only of the violence of war, but also of how uncomfortable memory was made less direct.

The monument stands in Kyoto just west of Toyokuni Shrine, a shrine commemorating Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who demanded such trophies as proof of killings. This proximity matters: a place of veneration for a military ruler stands beside a mound containing the remains of his victims. Because of this, Mimizuka reads not as a separate grim relic, but as a visible dispute between the memory of the victor and the memory of the dead.

What to Notice First

The main detail is the name itself. You can compare the two names: the earlier “Nose Mound” directly named the contents of the burial, while the current “Ear Mound” sounds softer but is factually inaccurate. In this way, language changes the first impression of the monument even before its form is examined.

It is worth noticing three things that shape how the place is read. The mound is arranged as a burial because Hideyoshi ordered the trophies to be interred and instructed Buddhist priests to pray for the souls of the dead. Its location west of Toyokuni Shrine links the monument to the man on whose orders these trophies were collected. The grounds around the memorial are maintained by local residents on a voluntary basis: caring for the grass and order here is also part of modern memory, not merely a practical detail. A separate removed plaque from the 1960s shows that even the explanation of the monument changed: the text beside it proved as contested as the mound itself.