Heian

Eighteen painted surfaces inside a Heian-period pagoda at Daigoji in Kyoto, finished in 951 at the very same moment that the pagoda itself had been done.

Nine manuscript volumes at Kyoto University in Kyoto Prefecture. The title of the work itself can be established from this one surviving copy of them.

A pair of Heian-period gilt bronze phoenixes owned by Byodoin, which once stood upon the great ridge of the Phoenix Hall and were later taken down from it.

Thirty Heian-period booklets at Ninnaji in Kyoto Prefecture. The box that was made for them was listed as a National Treasure on that very same day.

A Southern Song tea bowl held at Shokokuji in Kyoto Prefecture. On the inside, the pattern is formed exactly where the upper glaze was simply left off.

Three Tang-dynasty scrolls at Kosanji in Kyoto Prefecture. The country field of the official record reads China here, and it does not read Japan at all.

Old documents at Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto Prefecture. The title counts 2,205 separate pieces, while the quantity field counts the scrolls that hold them.

A tea bowl held at Ryukoin in Kyoto Prefecture. Yet another bowl of the very same name is recorded there under a different system of listing altogether.

Four handscrolls at Kosanji in Kyoto, of the Heian and Kamakura periods. Another record shows that the first of them had once been two separate scrolls.

Fourteen painted surfaces inside the Phoenix Hall at Byodoin in Uji, Kyoto, dating from 1053, the very year in which the hall around them was completed.

Five Heian-period sculptures at the Kyoto National Museum, owned by Anshoji. A hundred and nine full years separate the two listings that they now hold.

A Tang-dynasty copy of a letter by Wang Xizhi, kept in Tokyo. Nothing at all in his own hand survives, and so the copy itself is now the treasure here.

A Heian-period tachi held at the Tokyo National Museum in Tokyo. Its signature does survive, but several smiths in Bizen once bore this very same name.

Two Heian-period scrolls kept in Tokyo, written on paper bearing indigo cloud shapes. Tradition and inference here name two quite different hands for it.

An eight-lobed Heian-period mirror in Nara Prefecture. Nine Buddhist figures stand engraved upon its face, while flowers and birds cover all the back.

A Heian-period text owned by Zentsuji in Kagawa Prefecture. Its own fields stand almost empty, while the title itself states how it was all made here.

A Tang-period staff head owned by Zentsuji in Kagawa Prefecture. It came over from China long ago and is said to have changed the metalwork made here.

A late Heian-period scroll kept in Kochi Prefecture, handed down under one single name but held to be the work of three quite separate hands in the end.

A late Heian-period score book in Saga Prefecture. The music itself had ceased entirely, and then it began again from the old notation in the 1600s here.

A Southern Song painting on one scroll at Kuonji in Yamanashi, recorded as having once formed a single set with two other scrolls held elsewhere today.