Suruga-tsutsumi (Levee)

Built in 1685 by Okabe Suruga-no-kami Katsushige (Eleventh Yamada [Yoda] Magistrate)

Among the four remaining auxiliary levees extending from the main levee of the Miyagawa-tsutsumi, the Suruga-tsutsumi is the second one from upstream: those auxiliary levees are also called “tsukidashi-tsutsumi” (literally, “protruding levees”) because they protrude obliquely downstream from the main levee.

This straight levee, with a length of approx. 55 m, was designed and built to protect the main levee by weakening the flow of the Miyagawa River in the event of flooding. Even today, it still functions adequately as originally designed. The Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period (1603–1868) paid 20 kan of silver (kan: currency unit used in the Edo period) to financially support the construction of the levee.

The end of　the levee is covered with cut pieces of phyllite to prevent its possible collapse. It seems that those pieces of phyllite as well as large, green Chinese hackberries on them somehow reflect the long history of the Miyagawa-tsutsumi.

February 2021

Ise City Board of Education