Heian

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.

At the Tokyo National Museum, the National Treasure Akikusa-mon Tsubo is a 12th-century Atsumi-ware jar incised with autumn grasses and dragonflies, found in 1942.

A National Treasure at the Tokyo National Museum: an 8.4-meter scroll of dyed papers, its 48 waka written in cursive kana, the script that became hiragana.

Held at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno, Ishinpō (Nakarai Family Copy) is the oldest surviving medical encyclopedia in Japan, compiled by the court physician Tanba no Yasuyori in 984 during the Heian period. Its thirty handscrolls preserve passages from more than two hundred Chinese medical texts of the Sui and Tang dynasties, many of them otherwise lost, making this National Treasure an indispensable key to the history of East Asian medicine, language, and calligraphy.

The Uta-awase (Jikkanbon), or 'Poetry Contests in Ten Scrolls,' is Japan's oldest compiled anthology of courtly poetry matches. Held at the Sonkeikaku Bunko in Komaba, Tokyo, this National Treasure was conceived by the regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi in the 11th century to gather 46 poetry contests spanning 170 years, from the Ninna era (885-889) to 1056. Surviving as an unfinished working draft with editorial annotations and over ten distinct calligraphic hands, the five scrolls preserved by the Maeda Ikutokukai Foundation, together with companion scrolls at Yomei Bunko and the Tokyo National Museum, form one of the most important documents in classical Japanese literature.

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.