Kamakura

A herdboy rides his ox home through falling snow in Li Di's Returning Herd in Snow, a Southern Song National Treasure kept at Nara's Yamato Bunkakan museum.

Held by the Osaka Aoyama Historical Literature Museum in Kawanishi, Hyogo, the National Treasure Tosa Nikki is the manuscript copy made by Fujiwara no Tameie in 1236, who transcribed Ki no Tsurayuki's lost autograph 'without altering a single character.' The closest surviving witness to Japan's first kana diary, it preserves the tenth-century spelling and calligraphic forms of Tsurayuki's original — a literary treasure set in Kawanishi, the legendary birthplace of the Seiwa Genji clan.

Sixty-one Buddhas carved into volcanic cliffs in Usuki, Oita, became Japan's first rock-cut National Treasures in 1995. Meet the restored Furuzono Dainichi.

The Kuden of Shakusonji Temple in Komoro City, Nagano, is a miniature shrine built in 1258 during the early Kamakura period. Preserved for over 760 years inside a cliffside rock cave, it carries the only surviving Kamakura-era umebachi gegyo gable pendant known in Japan, and is designated a national Important Cultural Property.

A 2.74-meter andesite pagoda at Jōraku-ji in Bessho, Ueda, inscribed 1262. One of only two stone tahōtō ranked as Important Cultural Properties in Japan.

Discover the Nōkyō-dō of Sanbutsu-ji Temple, a small but remarkable Kasuga-style Important Cultural Property clinging to a cliffside on Mount Mitoku in Tottori. Built in the late Heian period, this sutra hall stands moments before Japan's iconic Nageiredo.

Deer rest among golden bush clover on this Kamakura-period lacquer box kept at Izumo Taisha. Explore its sprinkled-gold artistry, shell inlay, and how to see it.

A late Kamakura armor laced in white silk, with Fudo Myoo stenciled on its breastplate. Owned by Hinomisaki Shrine and famed for its pioneering 1805 restoration.

Discover the Former Jūrin-in Treasury, a Kamakura-period azekura storehouse designated as an Important Cultural Property, quietly nestled within the grounds of Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park.

A National Treasure tachi forged by Bizen Saburo Kunimune in the Kamakura period, handed down in the Owari Tokugawa family and held by Nagoya's Tokugawa Art Museum.

Oda Nobunaga's prized tachi, seized from Azuchi Castle after Honno-ji in 1582. A National Treasure by Kamakura master Nagamitsu, now at Nagoya's Tokugawa Art Museum.

A rare signed tachi by Mitsutada, founder of Bizen's Osafune school, given by Shogun Tsunayoshi to the Owari Tokugawa in 1698. Now a National Treasure in Nagoya.

A National Treasure tachi dated 1292 and the only blade signed Rai Magotaro, an alias of master Rai Kunitoshi. Once Ieyasu's, now at the Tokugawa Art Museum.

Named for its kitchen-knife shape, the National Treasure Hocho Masamune passed from Tokugawa Ieyasu to the Owari family. See its pierced openwork carving in Nagoya.

Discover the Important Cultural Property 'Poetry Paper by Fujiwara no Kintsune' at the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya. This Kamakura-period calligraphic masterpiece features a waka poem on the theme 'Flowers Have the Color of Joy,' handwritten by one of medieval Japan's most powerful courtiers and a celebrated poet of the Hyakunin Isshu. Learn about kaishi art, Kintsune's legacy, and visitor information.

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.

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.

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.