Aterazawa-Tateyama Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Aterazawa-Tateyama Castle occupies Mount Tateyama in Aterazawa, in the town of Ōe (Yamagata Prefecture). Perched above a bend of the Mogami River, it controlled the gorge linking the Okitama and Murayama basins and offers a wide view over the Sagae plain. This yamajiro was built by a branch of the Ōe clan, descended from Ōe no Hiromoto, when Ōe Tokishige distributed his sons among several fortresses in the face of the conflicts of the Northern and Southern Courts; his son Motoji was its first lord and died in 1368 fighting the Mogami. The lords of Aterazawa held it for nine generations before the Mogami seized it in 1584. The site, extending about 1.3 km from east to west, preserves its enclosures, cut scarps and transverse trenches in exemplary fashion; excavations have revealed post-built structures. Abandoned in favour of a new residence below during the Kan'ei era, it is now protected as a National Historic Site and regarded as one of the most representative medieval castles of the Murayama region.