Heian

On the back of the Akihagi-jo handscroll lies a Tang copy of the Huainanzi's military chapter, older than the poems on its front. Both sides are National Treasures.

The Kujo family Engishiki at the Tokyo National Museum is the oldest surviving copy of Heian Japan's great legal code, valued for its red marks and verso documents.

Brushed in 1124, this is the oldest surviving Zen calligraphy. Cut in two long ago, its front half is National Treasure number one, the supreme tearoom scroll.

Held at the Tokyo National Museum, these eight National Treasure scrolls gather the ordination paper, court appointment, and Tang travel permits of the monk Enchin.

An imperial decree of 927 granting Enchin the posthumous title Chishō Daishi, its privy seal pressed thirteen times over text brushed by Ono no Michikaze.

At the Tokyo National Museum, this Tang scroll is the oldest surviving copy of the early Tang writer Wang Bo, brushed around 685 to 689, a decade after his death.

Two white-bronze mirrors at the Tokyo National Museum, donated to Hōryūji by Empress Kōmyō in 736. Their backs cast a Daoist realm of sacred peaks and seas.

A National Treasure at Tokyo's Eisei Bunko, the Kashiwa-mimizuku Raden Kura is a Heian saddle of black lacquer inlaid with shell, with a horned owl among oak leaves.

A 12th-century Heian National Treasure at the Tokyo National Museum, covered with ox-cart wheels half-sunk in flowing water in gold lacquer and rare shell inlay.

Discover the Matsuya Katatsuki, an Important Cultural Property of Japan — a Chinese-made shouldered tea caddy that passed through the hands of shoguns and tea masters for over 500 years. Now housed at the Nezu Museum in Tokyo's Aoyama district.

Compiled in 905 for Kanzeon-ji of Dazaifu, this three-scroll National Treasure lists its halls, statues, estates and clergy, now at Tokyo University of the Arts.

An 11th-century draft handscroll at the Tokyo National Museum, copying a court poetry contest of around 889-893, with ink deletions and unfinished verses visible.

A National Treasure at the Nezu Museum, this 11th-century handscroll copies a Buddhist sutra in graceful wayo calligraphy on dyed gampi paper flecked with gold.

A small ink scroll the Chan master Xutang Zhiyu brushed near age eighty for a Japanese monk, slashed by a servant in 1637 and now a National Treasure in Tokyo.

Volume nine of the Yupian, a Chinese dictionary lost in China, survives in Japan as a Tang scroll. This Waseda National Treasure bears a Buddhist text dated 1021.

At the Tokyo National Museum, the gilt Dragon-Head Ewer fuses a Persian form, four engraved Pegasus, and an East Asian dragon. A National Treasure from Hōryū-ji.

Compiled for Tang emperor Taizong in 631 and lost in China, this fifty-volume statecraft anthology survives as thirteen Heian scrolls on dyed, gold-ruled paper.

Discover Jieshi Diao Youlan Daiwo, the world's oldest complete instrumental music manuscript. This 7th-century guqin tablature, designated a National Treasure of Japan, is preserved at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno, Tokyo.

Just 24.2 cm tall, this National Treasure at Tokyo's Nezu Museum is a peak of Southern Song bird-and-flower painting, attributed to Li Anzhong and shown only rarely.

A National Treasure at the Tokyo National Museum, the only Peacock Wisdom King painting left from Heian Japan, admired for its gentle deity and refined gold work.