Important cultural property

Horaguchi Family Residence in Natori, Miyagi: a Horeki-era farmhouse ringed by a ditch and igune windbreak, designated in 1971, with named posts in its earth floor.

The Matsumoto Family Residence in Kami, Miyagi, housed retainers to the Date lords' vassals. Its living and kitchen blocks stand apart beneath one thatched roof.

Cast in 1326 for Enpuku-ji Temple in Matsushima, the Unpan at Zuiganji is a rare Kamakura-period bronze gong shaped like a cloud, used to summon Zen monks. Discover this Important Cultural Property at the Seiryuden Treasure Hall.

Standing at the southern tip of Oshima Island in Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, the Oshu Mishima Raiken Stele is a slate monument over three meters tall, erected in 1307 by more than thirty disciples to honor the monk Raiken, who never left the island during twenty-two years of solitary practice. Its 643 characters of cursive script were both composed and brushed by the celebrated Chinese émigré monk Issan Ichinei. Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1955, it is one of the finest dated cursive stone inscriptions surviving from the late Kamakura period.

A complete polished jadeite axe from the Kamegaoka Site in Aomori, now housed at Miyagi's Tōhoku History Museum. Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1973, this 9 cm masterpiece reveals Jōmon-era craftsmanship and the vast trade network that carried Itoigawa jadeite across ancient Japan.

Originally preserved as a sacred treasure in an Ainu household in Hidaka, Hokkaido, this silver-mounted Kamakura-period tachi survives as a rare early example of Ezo-style ceremonial swords. Held by the Tohoku History Museum in Tagajo, Miyagi.

The Ebisu hall at Ishida Shrine in Ayabe is northern Kyoto's oldest shrine building, raised in 1311 and dated by its ridge tag, with rare early Zen-style detail.

Izumo Daijingu's main hall in Kameoka, Kyoto: a three-bay nagare-zukuri sanctuary of 1346 under a cypress-bark roof, an Important Cultural Property since 1906.

The main hall of Itsuki Shrine in Ayabe, Kyoto, a one-bay nagare-style hall of the mid-Muromachi period with unusual Zen-style details, was designated in 2024.

Around the main shrine of Iwashimizu Hachimangu stand eight designated buildings: branch-shrine halls and outer gates of the 1630s, and the Toganoo hall of 1601.

The Gorinto of Iwashimizu Hachimangu, a late Kamakura stone pagoda nearly 6 metres high, is called the Seafaring Monument after a legend of a merchant saved at sea.

A 15.2-meter granite stupa raised in 1286 by the monk Eison alongside the rebuilt Uji Bridge. Japan's largest surviving pre-modern stone pagoda, standing on a small island just upstream of Byodo-in.

A late Kamakura one-bay nagare-style subsidiary shrine at Ujigami Shrine in Uji, Kyoto, designated in 1912 and now an Important Cultural Property.

Uji Shrine's main hall is a three-bay nagare-zukuri of the Kamakura period. Until 1883 it was one shrine with Ujigami uphill. A looking-back rabbit guides you here.

Built in 1914 with twenty tracks radiating from a turntable, this Kyoto roundhouse is Japan's oldest in concrete. Designated in 2004 and open to visitors.

Ridge tags date this single-bay nagare-zukuri hall in Kameoka to 1338, with rebuilding in 1459. A rare surviving village shrine of its era, designated in 1941.

In Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto, the Urasenke Residence gathers the tea rooms Konnichian, Yuin and Kanuntei into one designated structure, rebuilt after the 1788 Tenmei fire.

Built around 1646 at the top of the Sennyuji valley in Kyoto, Unryuin's main hall borrows the plan of a Zen abbot's quarters and still works as a sutra-copying room.

The tea house Furuta Oribe left the Yabunouchi family burned in 1864. A school rule sent the oldest exact copy to replace it, and that copy is the En-an seen today.

Before Enjoji's main hall in northern Kyoto stands a stone stupa carved in 1351, dated by the Southern Court calendar and signed by a monk called Gyoshu.