Onl the dates are fixed. Otherwise, history is a hotbed of debate -- and original documents, from edicts to secret diaries, contain a sea of information that historians trawl at their peril.
In the search for accuracy and truth, the preservation of these original sources is extremely important, and the latest exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum celebrates a century of just such activity by the archivists of the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo. Indeed, part of the display celebrates their know-how, explaining the conservation methods and the way in which digital technology is now used to examine and exhibit fragile artifacts such as those on show.
But this bookworms' picnic is neither as dry nor as dusty as it sounds. The broad sweep of the exhibition takes us from the imperial courts of 10th-century Kyoto, through the rise of the warrior class and the peaceful 17th and 18th centuries, before dropping us into the choppy waves of change, stirred up by the black ships of Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States sailing into Japanese waters in 1853.