National Treasures of Kyoto

Unearthed on Mount Hiei in 1924, this Heian gilt-bronze box held a Lotus Sutra copied by Empress Jotomon-in in 1031. Its lid bears the title in hollow script.

A Tang hemp kesa at Enryakuji, said to have been brought from China by Saicho, a National Treasure since 1966 and a rare surviving example in hemp.

A National Treasure of Enryaku-ji: a Sui-dynasty patchwork silk robe Saicho brought back from Tang China, said to have belonged to the Tiantai founder Zhiyi.

An unsigned straight double-edged Heian sword owned by Kongo-ji, tied by temple tradition to the monk Akan's esoteric rites and kept at the Kyoto National Museum.

Copied in 1160 by Fujiwara no Koreyuki, these National Treasure scrolls at the Kyoto National Museum set a complete Heian poetry anthology on ashide-e paper.

Around 1180, fourteen poets including Saigyo and Jakuren each turned a Lotus Sutra chapter into a waka. The oldest poem papers extant, kept at Kyoto National Museum.

A Tang manuscript of the Book of Han, chapter 57 on poet Yang Xiong, at Kyoto National Museum. Taboo strokes and 948 reading marks trace ten centuries of study.

A Kamakura-period National Treasure in Kyoto: Amida, gilded head to foot, rises beyond a mountain ridge. Cords once ran from his hands to believers at the deathbed.

Fujiwara no Kintō's only surviving autograph draft of the Hokuzanshō, held at the Kyoto National Museum. Its reverse hides two of Japan's oldest kana letters.

This National Treasure handscroll preserves love poems from the Kokin Wakashu in flowing kana on mica-printed Chinese paper, long credited to Ono no Tofu.

Court robes, maki-e boxes, mirrors, 29 combs, and silver toiletries offered to the Kumano gods around 1390 survive nearly complete at the Kyoto National Museum.

At the Kyoto National Museum, this gold-on-indigo scroll is the sole survivor of a handwritten Goryeo Buddhist canon vowed in 1006 by a Korean queen dowager.

At the Kyoto National Museum, the National Treasure Jōmyō Genron is an eight-scroll copy of Jizang's commentary on the Vimalakīrti Sutra, with colophons dated 706.

This Tang-dynasty scroll at the Kyoto National Museum preserves 172 lines of the Shishuo Xinshu, the world's oldest surviving manuscript of the Chinese classic.

In 741 the monk Genbo commissioned 1,000 copies of this Kannon sutra. A lone scroll survives: a National Treasure of Nara calligraphy at the Kyoto National Museum.

A National Treasure at Kyoto National Museum, this 13th-century tachi is one of few blades signed by Norikuni, a refined master of Kyoto's Awataguchi school.

A National Treasure at the Kyoto National Museum, this tachi is the only blade securely attributed to the late-Heian smith Yasuie, unshortened and finely preserved.

A National Treasure album at the Kyoto National Museum, holding 240-plus calligraphy fragments from the 8th to 16th centuries, once used to authenticate old writing.

Copied in mid-Heian times, the Iwasaki-bon preserves Volumes 22 and 24 of Japan's first chronicle, layered with ancient reading marks and 15th-century notes.

Japan's oldest complete copy of the Nihon Shoki's Age of the Gods books, an autograph manuscript by the Kamakura scholar Urabe no Kanekata, dated around 1286.