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Shingō village is the location of what is purported to be the last resting place of Jesus, located in the "Tomb of Jesus" (Kirisuto no haka), and the residence of Jesus' last descendants, the family of Sajiro Sawaguchi.[4] According to the Sawaguchi family's claims, Jesus Christ did not die on the cross at Golgotha. Instead his brother, Isukiri,[5] took his place on the cross, while Jesus fled across Siberia to Mutsu Province, in northern Japan. Once in Japan, he changed his name to Torai Tora Daitenku, became a rice farmer, married a twenty-year old Japanese woman named Miyuko, and raised three daughters near what is now Shingō. While in Japan, it is asserted that he traveled, learned, and eventually died at the age of 106. His body was exposed on a hilltop for four years. According to the customs of the time, Jesus' bones were collected, bundled, and buried in the mound purported to be the grave of Jesus Christ.[6][7]

Another mound near the alleged grave of Jesus is said to contain an ear of the brother of Jesus and a lock of hair from Mary, the mother of Jesus, the only relics of his family Jesus could carry when he fled Judaea.[8] The claims started in 1933 after the discovery of supposed "ancient Hebrew documents detailing Jesus' life and death in Japan" [9] that was supposedly the testament of Jesus. These documents are referred to as the Takeuchi Documents which are said to be ancient documents passed down through the family of Takeuchi Kiyomaro, the founder of a religious movement called Amatsukyo. The documents were allegedly seized by the Japanese authorities and taken to Tokyo shortly before World War II during a crackdown on the Amatsukyo religion in 1935, and have not been seen since.[10][11]