Newly excavated stone wall could show original Edo period route to Sendai Castle keep

SENDAI -- Another stone wall near the site of Tatsumi Gate, located northeast of the keep site of Sendai Castle here in northeast Japan, has been excavated in a discovery which could possibly lead to finding the original route to the structure.

The Sendai Municipal Board of Education showed the foundations to the press on Oct. 9. An official in charge of the excavation said, "The findings will help us to estimate where one of the two routes to the castle depicted in an Edo period map was."

A stone wall measuring about 20 meters long has previously been confirmed to exist near the gate site, and the education board has since carried out excavation work at a location north of that point since July. The newly unearthed stone wall is about 60 centimeters tall and around 4 meters long.

The authority believes that the newly found wall could have been added or repaired sometime after the late Edo period because the axes of the two walls are not in line, and china dating to the 19 century has been discovered in the same location.

(Japanese original by Masaru Yoshida, Sendai Bureau)