Tamaudun

Tamaudun sits just west of Shureimon, the gate everyone photographs on the way up to Shuri Castle, and most of the tour groups walk straight past it. That is their loss. King Sho Shin, the third king of the Second Sho Dynasty, built it around 1501 to rebury his father, Sho En, and the kings of the line were laid here for the next four centuries.

You come in through a stone wall into a courtyard spread with white coral gravel, then through a second wall into the inner court. The tomb itself is a long, low building of cut limestone in the form of a house with a gabled roof, split into three chambers. The central one held remains before the bone-washing ritual; afterwards, kings and queens went into the east chamber and other royals into the west. Carved stone lions sit on the parapet above, and the railings carry relief carving. A stone tablet in the outer court, dated 1501, names the people allowed to be buried here and calls down a curse on anyone who breaks the rule.

The tomb was badly damaged in the Battle of Okinawa and repaired over three years from 1974. In 2018 it became the first building in Okinawa Prefecture to be designated a National Treasure. It is also one of the nine parts of the Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu, inscribed as World Heritage in 2000, together with Shuri Castle and Sonohyan-utaki Stone Gate up the road.

Tickets (300 yen) are sold at the entrance, where a small exhibition room has photographs of the tomb before the war and during repair. You will not need more than 20 to 30 minutes. The courtyard is bare and bright, so bring a hat in summer. There is no car park of its own; use the Shuri Castle Park car parks.