Kamakura
Chiba · 鎌倉Browse Chiba’s cultural heritage from the Kamakura period (1185 – 1333). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
This gilt-bronze Medicine Buddha at Kanpuku-ji once stood before the deity of Katori Jingu. Saved from melting in 1869, it is now an Important Cultural Property.
Newly designated in 2024, 839 documents trace one Nichiren temple across 620 years, from a monk's vow to guard his master's writings to letters from the Edo shogun's court.
Hokekyo-ji in Ichikawa, Chiba, holds over a hundred letters and treatises in the hand of the monk Nichiren, a rare survival named an Important Cultural Property.
A Kamakura white-bronze mirror, 20.5 cm across, from Tamasaki Shrine in Chiba, cast with an old plum, two sparrows and pampas grass; once hung before the altar.
A 1321 bronze bell cast for a temple in Shimotsuke, moved to Kamakura's Jomyoji and then to Nihonji on Mount Nokogiri, Chiba; now kept inside the Dharma Hall.
A 1286 bronze bell by the Kamakura founder Mononobe no Kunimitsu at Koamiji in Tateyama, Chiba, cast with a Sanskrit dharani; it hangs in the temple's bell tower.
Chiba's oldest dated temple bell, cast in 1264 by Hiroshina Shigenaga for Ganzoji in Nagara: a rare bell without bosses, bearing Womb Realm seed syllables.
A 1278 bell by Onakatomi Kanemori, moved from Daifukuji to Hondoji in Matsudo, Chiba, in 1482, when its seed syllables were replaced with Nichiren's lineage.
Hokekyoji Temple in Ichikawa, Chiba, preserves Nichiren's own 1269 copy of his warning to the shogunate, a 15.98-meter scroll named a National Treasure in 1952.
This National Treasure is Retired Emperor Go-Uda's autograph diary, brushed in 1319 in the margins of an annotated court almanac, now preserved in Sakura, Chiba.
A National Treasure near Tokyo: a Southern Song printing of the Hanshu in 61 fascicles, holding the earliest reliable Chinese record of Japan, the Wa people.
A complete Southern Song printing of the Book of the Later Han, kept in Sakura, whose account of the eastern peoples names Queen Himiko and an embassy of 57 CE.
A National Treasure near Tokyo: the Song-dynasty Shiji printed by Huang Shanfu, the oldest complete copy of the three-commentary edition, all 130 chapters intact.