Edo

Morita Family Residence Main House in Akiruno, Tokyo, is a late-Edo farmhouse with a zelkova karahafu porch and six-room plan, registered in 2013; interior closed.

Morita Family Residence West Storehouse, a late-Edo earthen store in Akiruno, Tokyo, keeps layered fire doors and full shelving with original ink inscriptions.

Morita Family Residence Front Storehouse, built around 1852 and moved in 1983, holds the corner of the homestead in Akiruno, Tokyo, with fire-shuttered windows.

Morita Family Residence Shop Storehouse, an 1852 earthen misegura in Akiruno, Tokyo, keeps its top-hung shop shutters and now runs as a Japanese sweets café.

Morita Family Residence Miso Storehouse is a small late-Edo earthen store in Akiruno, Tokyo, with a framed plaster doorway and deep eaves, still used for food.

Morita Family Residence Gate is a late-Edo yakuimon in Akiruno, Tokyo, framed in zelkova with a copper gable roof, side walls and a wicket door, seen from the road.

Built in 1788 and extended in 1800, the Jizo Hall at Yutenji in Tokyo has an outer ceiling painted with Edo fire brigade standards. How to read its roofs and plaque.

A late-Edo yakuimon before Yutenji's Jizo Hall in Tokyo, its ceiling carved with seven matoi standards of Edo's fire brigades and its gable held up by a small demon.

Given by Ten'eiin, widow of shogun Ienobu, the 1729 bell tower at Yutenji in Tokyo keeps mid-Edo bracketing and gable ornament. Its bell escaped wartime requisition.

The main hall of Yutenji in Tokyo grew from an 1860 Tokugawa memorial hall moved after an 1894 fire, then extended in 1898 and 1912. Its roofs show three eras.

An open 1846 water pavilion between the Nio Gate and main hall at Yutenji in Tokyo: inward-leaning posts, bracket sets and a dragon carved at its ceiling center.

Made in 1639 for Chiyohime, the shogun's two-year-old daughter, this 70-piece trousseau glitters with gold maki-e from The Tale of Genji. A National Treasure.

A Southern Song celadon vase of shimokabura form, a Japanese National Treasure with a smooth, crackle-free pale-blue glaze. Its kiln is still debated by scholars.

Letters, diaries and effects of Meiji statesman Okubo Toshimichi, 3,053 items at the National Museum of Japanese History, an Important Cultural Property since 2004.

A National Treasure near Tokyo: a Southern Song printing of the Hanshu in 61 fascicles, holding the earliest reliable Chinese record of Japan, the Wa people.

A complete Southern Song printing of the Book of the Later Han, kept in Sakura, whose account of the eastern peoples names Queen Himiko and an embassy of 57 CE.

A National Treasure near Tokyo: the Song-dynasty Shiji printed by Huang Shanfu, the oldest complete copy of the three-commentary edition, all 130 chapters intact.

Discover the Important Cultural Property tsuba (sword guard) known as the 'Hand Guard with the Motif of a Fierce Tiger in the Rain' (signed Toshinaga, with kao), housed at the Tokyo National Museum. Created by Nara Toshinaga, the foremost master of the Nara school of mid-Edo period sword-fitting artisans, this 7.4 cm iron tsuba captures a tiger crouched in a storm — a dramatic miniature scene executed in high-relief carving, gold and silver inlay, openwork, and hairline engraving. Learn about the work's artistry and visit one of Tokyo's most extraordinary museum districts in Ueno.

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.

A Southern Song tea caddy at the Nezu Museum, an Important Cultural Property since 1959, handed down from Ashikaga Yoshimasa to the Matsuya family of Nara.