Sakamoto, having developed as a temple town of Enryakuji Temple and Hiyoshitaisha Shrine for more than a thousand years, has also been known as “a town of stone walls”. As you walk through the town upward on the gentle slopes of Mt. Hiei, you’ll see high and low dry stone walls flanking the streets and the temple precincts.
This masonry is a product of the traditional technology called “Ano-shu Zumi” or “Ano Zumi”, which has been passed down through centuries among the master stone masons in the village of Ano, just south of Sakamoto. “Ano-shu” (Ano guild) were hereditary stoneworker engaged in constructing the foundations and walls of many Buddhist buildings of the Enryakuji temple complex which sprawled over the hills and valleys of Mt, Hiei.
A major feature of Ano-shu Zumi is its technique of painstaking interlocking natural unhewn boulders of various sizes and shapes without any mortar or cement to bond them together. Unlike masonry made of neatly shaped blocks, stonework of Ano-shu Zumi inevitably has many gaps both on the surface and inside. Despite this seemingly rough and weak structure, they have extreme durability and strength, which have been scientifically demonstrated recently. In the medieval age, shoguns (military dictators) and feudal lords admiring its structural and aesthetic excellence employed Ano-shu for construction of many of Japan’s important castles including Himeji, Nagoya, Osaka and Kumamoto castles. It is indeed beyond our imagination how enormous skill was needed to place the heavy stones of irregular shapes into a cohesive whole structure in the age before cranes and computers were invented!
Today in Sakamoto, a lot of Ano-shu Zumi works stand peacefully here and there, with most of them covered with moss. Along with quiet small temples and runnels from the mountain, the masterpieces of the traditional technology enhance the historical ambience and the fun to stroll of the town.
