Local News

The city of Usuki in Oita Prefecture announced the discovery of one of the largest Christian burial grounds in the country. The grounds were used from roughly 1580 to 1610, which corresponds to the late Azuchi Momoyama period to the early Edo period. A total of 37 graves have been confirmed. Other gravesites from that period have been found in Osaka and Oita City, but many were destroyed when Christianity was suppressed in the country. This is the first to have been found with the surface gravestones and the overall structure largely intact.