Nara

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Three National Treasure scrolls of the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish, written in the Nara period in oversized characters on paper once thought to hold relics.

An eighth-century Kengukyo handscroll in oversized characters, long ascribed to Emperor Shomu. One of the few Daishomu scrolls left whole, rarely shown in 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.

Painted by the Song court artist Li Di and dated 1197, this National Treasure pairs a white and a red cotton rose, one flower as it shifts colour across a day.

A fan-shaped Song-dynasty painting of one apple branch, its blossoms ranging from bud to full bloom. Now a National Treasure at Tokyo's Ebara Hatakeyama Museum.

A National Treasure at the Tokyo National Museum: a Southern Song three-scroll set by Liang Kai of a gaunt Buddha and snowy peaks, held by the Ashikaga shoguns.

A Southern Song scroll attributed to Ma Yuan, this National Treasure shows a lone traveler hurrying under a folded umbrella as wind and rain cross towering peaks.

Ritual deposits found beneath Kofuku-ji's Central Golden Hall in Nara in 1874: gilt bronze vessels, mirrors, gold, and coins, about 1,400 pieces, the richest known.

Discover the Aloeswood Wood-Marquetry Box, an 8th-century National Treasure housed in the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures at Tokyo National Museum. This rare Nara-period sutra box features precious aloeswood, ivory, and ebony arranged in an elegant checkerboard pattern, embodying the artistic legacy of the Silk Road in Japan.

At the Tokyo National Museum, this Important Cultural Property holds the Lotus Sutra in eight handscrolls, all written in one early-Heian hand on yellow hemp paper.

A handscroll of the fifth Lotus Sutra volume, hand-copied in eighth-century Nara, its even script the mark of the state scriptoria. Held by the Gotoh Museum, Tokyo.