Despite its name, Tokyo National Museum is Japan’s main history museum as well as the country’s largest art museum. Located in Tokyo’s Ueno Park and built in 1872, the museum features several large collections in separate buildings. I’ve been to this museum twice and I still haven’t seen everything. The Tokyo National Museum is the best history museum I’ve visited in Asia, and one of the best along with the British Museum and the Louvre.
The Honkan or main building (top photo) features Japanese artifacts such as samurai armour and swords, woodprints, and pottery, as well as a lot of Japanese artwork. There are 87 “National Treasures,” which is indicated on the name panels for these exhibits.
The museum also has an impressive collection of Asian exhibits in the Toyokan building, including Korean, Chinese, Cambodia, Indonesian, and Indian artifacts. The Toyokan also has Egyptian artifacts including an actual mummy with the head exposed. The most interesting things to see include 2,000-year-old Buddhist statues from Pakistan and Afghanistan, Khmer (Cambodia) sculptures, and Chinese antiques. Being able to see Buddhas from different regions made me realize Buddha can look very distinct, from the bald, chubby, round-faced ones common in East Asia to the curly-haired young ones with Greek/Western facial features in South Asia.
The Heiseikan building features special exhibitions and the Japanese Archaeological Gallery. The gallery features fascinating prehistoric artifacts like pottery figures that look like bug-eyed aliens terracotta tomb objects.
There is a small building nestled in a corner of the ground that showcases objects from the 7-8th century donated by the Horyuji Temple in Nara. The building itself, modern and glass-walled with two large shallow pools in front of it, is more of an attraction than the objects inside.
How to get there: The museum is inside Ueno Park, at the north end. Ueno Park is on the left of Ueno station, one of Tokyo’s main train stations as well as a subway station on both the Ginza and Hibiya lines.
Hyokeikan, only used to host events and temporary exhibitions
Egyptian mummy
12 Heavenly Generals wooden statues, 13th-12th century 
Samurai armour of a 16th-century feudal general (above) and from the 17th century (below)
Tachi sword, 13th century
Statue of Egyptian goddess Sekhmet excavated from Thebes, 16th-14th century BC
Painting of Yan Qing, one of the 18 heroes from Water Margin, the famous Chinese novel
Buddha, excavated from what is now Pakistan, 2nd-3rd century
“Above and Beneath the Bridge,” 18th century work by Kitagawa Umaro
Gallery of Horyuji Treasures
Wooden mask and chieftain’s skull from Papua New Guinea
Clay and stone dogu prayer figures from the Jomon period, 1,000-400 BC
