The renovated Karamon gate at Nijo Castle, a World Heritage site in the city of Kyoto, was opened to the public Wednesday after 1½ years of repair work.

Relics of Japan's tumultuous times after 1867, when the Tokugawa shogunate gave way to Imperial rule in the Meiji Era, were found during the renovation.

The castle, built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603, remained the shogunate's property until the regime change. It has been Imperial property ever since.

Workers discovered that a metal Imperial chrysanthemum emblem on the gate covered an earlier one from Tokugawa times, indicating an attempt to erase the traces of its former owner.