A hundred kilometers west of Asuka Park, near the town of Takasago, there is an object that is a megalith attached to a rock, measuring 5.7x6.4x7.2 meters and weighing about 500-600 tons.
Ishi no Hoden - this is the name of this monolith, a kind of "semi-finished product", that is, a block that remained in place of its manufacture and has clear signs that it was not completed to the end.
One of the vertical surfaces has a truncated prism-shaped protrusion - the result is a stable feeling that the object is lying on its side. This position "on the side" seems strange only at first glance. The fact is that Ishi-no-Hoden was made quite simply - on the edge of the rock mass around a large piece of the mountain, a rock was chosen, and this piece of the mountain itself was given the non-trivial geometric shape described above.
At the same time, the position of Ishi-no-Hoden "on its side" turns out to be just such that it was possible, on the one hand, to guarantee the desired shape of the object, and on the other hand, to minimize labor costs for excavating excess rock around it.
Megalith 3D model
However, even with this minimization of work, a lot had to be done. According to rough estimates given in the available sources, the volume of the removed rock is about 400 cubic meters and a mass of about 1000 tons. Although on the spot it seems that the volume of the excavated rock is much larger (offhand, one and a half to two times) - the size of Ishi-no-Hoden is so impressive. It is even difficult to photograph it in its entirety, and the two-storey Shinto temple standing next to it seems to be just an aerial structure next to this stone mass.
The temple was built here because the megalithic block is considered sacred and has been worshiped since ancient times. In accordance with Shinto traditions, Ishi-no-Hoden is tied with a rope with "tassels-pompons" hanging on it.
Promotional video:
A small "altar" is made nearby, which is also a place where you can ask the kami - the spirit of the stone. And for those who, for some reason, do not know how to do this, a small poster with brief instructions in pictures is installed how many times and in what order you need to clap your hands and bow so that the spirit of the stone hears the questioner and draws attention to him …
The grooves on the side surfaces are somewhat similar to technical details along which something had to move. Or vice versa: the stone itself had to move along some mating parts in an even larger structure. In this case (if the assumption about its position “on its side” is correct) it was planned to move this megalith in such a structure horizontally.
It can also be suggested that this monolith was supposed to serve only as one of the pillars of some huge structure. The official version is a stone tomb. There is no scientific data on who and for what purpose the megalith was made.
Under the megalith is a large stone reservoir in the form of a tray filled with water. As follows from temple records, this reservoir does not dry up even during prolonged droughts. It has even been suggested that the water level in it is somehow related to the water level in the sea, although the sea level in reality is clearly lower. Because of the water under the megalith, the supporting part in the center of the stone - the bridge, which still connects the megalith with the rocky base - is not visible, and it seems to be floating in the air. Therefore, Ishi-no-Hoden is also called the "Flying Stone".
According to local monks, on the upper part of Ishi-no-Hoden there are notches in the form of "baths", similar to those seen on the Masuda-Iwafun megalith. But this seems to me extremely doubtful, since such notches here would look like a completely illogical element. However, this cannot be verified - the top of Ishi-no-Hoden is covered with gravel and earth, and there are even trees growing there. The megalith is sacred, and therefore its top cannot be cleared.
Masuda Iwafun, another huge Japanese megalith
In 2005-2006, the Takasago City Council of Education, together with the history laboratory of Otemae University, organized a study of the megalith - three-dimensional measurements were carried out using a laser and the nature of the surrounding rock was carefully examined.
In January 2008, the Japan Cultural Research Society conducted additional laser and ultrasound examinations of the megalith, but a report published in July of the same year indicated that it was impossible to determine the presence or absence of any cavities in the megalith from the data obtained.
The surface of the megalith is covered with caverns, as if from the chipping off of material, and at first glance gives the impression of being handcrafted. However, as on Masuda-Iwafun, there are no regular or extended traces of a kyle or a similar instrument (such traces, as if specially for comparison, are found only under the megalith on the bridge connecting it with the mother rock).
Although the surface itself, in terms of the presence of caverns, is more similar not even to what can be seen on Masuda-Iwafun, but to the surface of the so-called Southern Stone in the Lebanese Baalbek, which we were able to inspect during the expedition through Syria and Lebanon in January 2009.
Southern stone in Baalbek
At the South Stone, the traces of the kyle were also clearly visible only on the bridge below, connecting the block with the parent rock. And on all faces there are also only irregular cavities. True, these caverns were larger on the Lebanese megalith than on Ishi-no-Hoden. In addition, there is a feeling that the size of the caverns on the Japanese megalith is decreasing from bottom to top.
The lack of regular pick marks could be attributed to erosion. However, to all appearances, Ishi-no-Hoden (in contrast to the same Southern stone) was for a long time covered with rubble and debris that had once collapsed from the top of the mountain, possibly during some kind of earthquake.
That this was exactly the case is indicated by the very rubble that remained on the upper part of Ishi-no-Hoden (otherwise it could not have ended up there). And only later the passage around the megalith was cleared. And if so, then no erosion could affect the filled-in stone.
So here we have an indication that there were no regular marks of a pick or chisel on Ishi-no-Hoden. Such a nature of the surface on Ishi-no-Hoden again makes one think about a certain instrument, such as a mechanical "bur", which did not chip, but simply crumbled or grinded the material. And even with the visible difference between the surfaces on Masuda Iwafun and Ishi no Hoden, it is possible that the same tool was used when processing both objects.
And the visual difference in surfaces is due to the fact that the megaliths are made of different materials - according to available sources, Ishi-no-Hoden is not from granite, but from the so-called hyaloclastite, formed during the eruption of liparite lava into water about 70 million years ago …
However, if the side faces with their caverns make one seriously think about which tool was used in their manufacture, then the "bottom" or the lower face of Ishi-no-Hoden (if we consider that the megalith lies "on its side", then its "bottom" now vertically) is generally confusing - there are absolutely no traces of processing.
This side of the megalith - farthest from the mother rock - looks as if some giant in one fell swoop simply tore off the part of the mountain that was located outside of it.
But even more puzzling is the absence of tool marks on the rock around Ishi no Hoden. There are no traces of any machine tools or hand tools. The chisel and pick were noted only in one place - at the very bottom on the rock opposite the wedge-shaped ledge of Ishi-no-Hoden. However, to all appearances, here they only widened the passage for people bypassing the megalith. And this was clearly much later than the creation of Ishi-no-Hoden, when he had already become an object of worship.
The rest of the rock is literally "pristine clean" from any traces. When there is a simple sampling of material in a quarry or quarry, no one will ever flatten the remaining rock mass, nor will they overwrite the tool marks that remain automatically when sampling as a by-product.
It is obvious. Traces inevitably remain, and they are easy to see in any quarry, be it modern or ancient. Therefore, the absence of traces of a pick and chisel on the rock around Ishi-no-Hoden can only mean one thing - these simple tools were not used when sampling the material.
But there are simply no other tools for manual work in the quarries. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that the material around Ishi-no-Hoden was chosen using not simple manual techniques at all, but somehow differently. Otherwise, it means only one thing - some kind of developed, most likely, machine technologies!..
However, as already mentioned, there are no well-known traces of machine sampling on the rock. No traces, no other signs of them. It turns out that the technology used is unknown to us.
The official version says that the megalith was planned to be used as a kind of tomb. Apparently, this is why the researchers tried so carefully to find cavities in it. After all, you can't put anyone in a solid stone. However, none of the known Japanese burials is precisely a monolithic tomb. This completely falls out of local traditions, where only sarcophagi were performed monolithic, and even then the lid of the sarcophagus has always been a separate element. But even under the sarcophagus Ishi-no-Hoden does not fit - the dimensions are too large.
And historians have no other versions of the purpose … Meanwhile, we have, though not direct, but indirect indications that a technically advanced civilization was involved in the creation of Ishi-no-Hoden. This is not only the absence of traces of manual sampling of the material, but also the weight of the megalith. Those who created it obviously did not have any special problems somewhere later to move half a thousand tons. And therefore, it is not necessary to limit ourselves to the traditional versions of historians.
Local legends associate Ishi-no-Hoden with the activities of certain "gods" who, in our view, are none other than representatives of that very ancient civilization highly developed in a technical respect. According to local legend, two gods participated in the creation of Ishi-no-Hoden - Oo-kuninushi-no kami (God-Patron of the Great Country) and Sukuna-bikona-no kami (God-Kid).
When these gods came from the country of Izumo no kuni (the territory of the present province of Shimane) to the country of Harima no kuni (the territory of the present Hyogo prefecture), for some reason they had to build a palace in just one night. However, as soon as they had time to do only Ishi-no-Hoden, the local deities of Harima immediately rebelled. And while Oo-kuninushi no kami and Sukuna-bikona no kami, abandoning construction, suppressed the rebellion, the night ended, and the palace was unfinished.
But both gods still swore to defend this country … I have more than once had the opportunity to be convinced that ancient legends and traditions are very often not at all an invention or fantasy of our ancestors, as historians claim, but represent, albeit a peculiar, but valid description quite real events. Another thing is that they cannot be taken literally. So in this case, one should not think that the expression "in one night" here means precisely the period from dusk to dawn.
This may well be, in professional language, only an idiomatic phrase, which actually means "very quickly." As, for example, in the Russian language "now" is not at all equal to one hour, and "in one second" is also not always associated with a single second of time.
And in the ancient Japanese legend, it is only said that the timing of the creation of Ishi-no-Hoden was so fast that it was beyond the power of an ordinary person. Naturally, this astonished the ancient inhabitants of the area so much that they used the phrase “overnight” to emphasize the highest rate of megalith production. And this indirectly indicates that the "gods" (kami) possessed such capabilities and technologies that the ancient Japanese did not have …