Important cultural property

Discover the Important Cultural Property tsuba (sword guard) known as the 'Hand Guard with the Motif of a Fierce Tiger in the Rain' (signed Toshinaga, with kao), housed at the Tokyo National Museum. Created by Nara Toshinaga, the foremost master of the Nara school of mid-Edo period sword-fitting artisans, this 7.4 cm iron tsuba captures a tiger crouched in a storm — a dramatic miniature scene executed in high-relief carving, gold and silver inlay, openwork, and hairline engraving. Learn about the work's artistry and visit one of Tokyo's most extraordinary museum districts in Ueno.

Held at Eisei Bunko in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, the Important Cultural Property Kasugano-zu Tsuba — signed by Kaneie of Fushimi, founder of pictorial-style sword guards — is one of the masterworks of Momoyama-period Japanese metalwork. On a thin iron disk, the celebrated Plain of Kasuga in Nara unfolds in deep relief with whisper-soft gold and silver inlay. This guide introduces the work, its enigmatic maker, and the Hosokawa-family museum that preserves it, with practical visitor information.

Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1980, this 15th-century domaru armor at the Tokyo National Museum is a rare survival in which the cuirass, helmet, and large shoulder guards remain together as one original ensemble. Its distinctive katatsumadori lacing combined with the omodaka (water plantain) motif represents the artistic peak of Muromachi-period armor making.

A Southern Song tea caddy at the Nezu Museum, an Important Cultural Property since 1959, handed down from Ashikaga Yoshimasa to the Matsuya family of Nara.

Yokoyama Taikan's 1923 ink handscroll, over 40 metres long, following water from mountain mist to the sea, an Important Cultural Property held by MOMAT in Tokyo.

Discover the Shōban Zanketsu (Shokkō-kin), a pair of Asuka-period banner fragments held at the Tokyo National Museum's Gallery of Hōryū-ji Treasures. Designated an Important Cultural Property, these warp-faced compound weave brocades, woven in vibrant red with pearl roundels of lions, phoenixes, celestial horses and stags, are among the oldest surviving silk textiles in the world. A 1,300-year-old testament to Silk Road exchange between Tang-dynasty Shu (Sichuan) and ancient Japan.

The autograph diary of the Kofukuji abbot Jinken, 1562 to 1577, at the National Archives of Japan, an Important Cultural Property since 2011.

Discover the Seisetsu Shōchō Bokuseki 'Yo Kantaiji Zōsu Hōgo' at Eisei Bunko in Tokyo. This Important Cultural Property is a Dharma instruction brushed by the Yuan-Chinese Zen master Seisetsu Shōchō (1274–1339), who came to Japan in 1326 and shaped early Japanese Zen. Explore its history, artistic highlights, and visitor information.

Held by the Tokyo National Museum, this Important Cultural Property is a hanging scroll brushed in 1363 by the seventy-year-old Rinzai Zen master Sekishitsu Zenkyū. It records the Buddhist address he delivered at the formal hanging of an imperial plaque, bestowed by the retired Emperor Gokōgon, on the Seiryōtō-in memorial hall of Chōfuku-ji in Kyoto. Coinciding with the thirteenth-anniversary memorial of his senior dharma brother Gekirin Dōkō, the scroll is admired as one of Sekishitsu's most representative works of monumental Zen calligraphy.

Sō-yō-son is a bronze ritual wine vessel cast in China during the late Shang dynasty, between the 13th and 11th centuries BCE, and designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan. Shaped as two rams joined back-to-back beneath a cylindrical vessel, it is one of only two surviving examples in the world — the other resides in the British Museum in London. This 3,000-year-old masterpiece is held by the Nezu Museum in Aoyama, Tokyo.

Stone tools, chiefly spear points, from the Maedakochi site in Akiruno, Tokyo, dated to about 15,500 years ago, an Important Cultural Property since 1990.

Built in 1914 at the Railway Agency's Shinbashi Works, the wooden Nade 6141 is the oldest surviving bogie electric railcar in Japan and the prototype of today's commuter trains, introducing the three-door layout and multiple-unit control system. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2017, it is preserved and displayed at The Railway Museum in Saitama City.

Six Muromachi measuring boxes from Horyuji, now at the Tokyo National Museum, each counted as one sho yet hold 1.47 to 1.87 litres, from before standard units.

An Important Cultural Property at the National Archives of Japan, compiled from castaway Daikokuya Kodayu's account of Russia, with illustrated scrolls and maps.

An Important Cultural Property at the Maeda Ikutokukai: a fragment of the Lotus Sutra's eighth fascicle, dated 1326, brushed by the noble Madenokoji Nobufusa.

Two Kunoji-kyo scrolls at the Gotoh Museum: a Heian decorated Lotus Sutra written one chapter per person by Retired Emperor Toba's court circle around 1141.

Three Kunoji-kyo scrolls at the Tokyo National Museum, a gold-strewn Heian sutra copied by court nobles, ranked Important Cultural Property, not National Treasure.

At the Tokyo National Museum, this Important Cultural Property holds the Lotus Sutra in eight handscrolls, all written in one early-Heian hand on yellow hemp paper.

A handscroll of the fifth Lotus Sutra volume, hand-copied in eighth-century Nara, its even script the mark of the state scriptoria. Held by the Gotoh Museum, Tokyo.

A sutra fragment dedicated in 457 by a Northern Liang king at Gaochang. Its dated colophon and early brushwork make it a key manuscript at Tokyo's Calligraphy Museum.