Heian

The Soryu-kyo at Katori Jingu, Chiba, is a bronze mirror dated 1149 with a continental-style twin-dragon reverse, the oldest dated Japanese mirror of its kind.

A 20.3 cm bronze ritual handbell, probably early Heian, owned by Enpukuji in Choshi, Chiba: a rare forerunner of the vajra bell, kept at the Nara National Museum.

A late Heian two-storey pagoda south of the main hall at Amanosan Kongoji in Kawachinagano, Osaka, with a shingle roof and a painted first storey holding a Dainichi.

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.

Kongo-ji in Osaka keeps a National Treasure scroll of the Engishiki shrine register, copied in 1127, naming 2,861 shrines recognized by the Heian court.

Six Bai Juyi poems in three scripts, with Ono no Michikaze's only surviving standard-script hand. See this National Treasure at Osaka's Masaki Art Museum.

Seven Heian-era kakemamori amulets at Osaka's Shitennoji, National Treasures worn at the neck, one concealing a wooden Buddha revealed by a 2018 CT scan.

A Heian National Treasure handscroll pairing thirty poets across fifteen rounds, with 130 waka in mature kana on purple-and-indigo tobikumo paper, in Izumi, Osaka.

The Kacho Maki-e Kyosoku, a 9th-century lacquered armrest at Osaka's Fujita Museum, is one of Japan's earliest maki-e works, decorated in gold and rare tin.

Dated 883, this National Treasure handscroll records Kanshinji's founding by Kukai's disciple Jichie and inventories the Osaka temple's early Heian halls and images.

A Heian court belt at Domyoji Tenmangu in Osaka, set with fifteen silver-plated plaques of hunters and ducks. A National Treasure linked to Sugawara no Michizane.

At Dōmyōji Tenmangū near Osaka, this 36.4 cm ivory court scepter is a National Treasure and one of six relics tied by tradition to Sugawara no Michizane.

The Revelation of the Two Great Sutras, a pair of Heian paintings at Osaka's Fujita Museum and a National Treasure since 1973, depicts two esoteric sutra legends.

Discover the Shitennoji Engi, a National Treasure preserved at Shitennoji Temple in Osaka. This guide introduces the history, cultural value, highlights, and visiting information for the two-scroll set bearing the legendary handprints of Prince Shotoku and Emperor Go-Daigo.

An unbroken 8.3-meter scroll of 101 classical poems in flowing 11th-century kana on cloud-patterned paper, held as a National Treasure at Osaka's Fujita Museum.

The National Treasure celadon vase 'Bansei', fired at Southern Song China's Longquan kilns, passed from an empress to a Kyoto temple before reaching Izumi, Osaka.

A ninth-century Tang manuscript of China's first dictionary survives in Osaka as a National Treasure. See its seal-script columns at the Kyou Shooku library.

Osaka's Kyou Shooku library holds eleven Song-printed volumes of the Shiji jijie, the oldest Shiji commentary, a National Treasure once owned by Naito Konan.

Printed in Southern Song China in 1139, these 17 National Treasure volumes of the Maoshi zhengyi rest at Kyo-U Library in Osaka with Kanazawa Bunko seals.

The Tobiseiji Hanaike at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, is a National Treasure regarded as the finest surviving example of Chinese Yuan-dynasty Longquan celadon with iron-spot decoration. Standing 27.3 cm tall in the elegant yuhuchun form, twenty-one iron spots dance across its jade-green glaze. Discover this masterpiece treasured in Japan for centuries through the Konoike merchants and the famed Ataka Collection.