Akishino-dera

This guide to Akishino-dera in Nara centers on a headless goddess, Gigeiten, whose eighth-century dry-lacquer face is believed to be the only surviving ancient image of Japan's goddess of the arts. It traces how a fire tore through the temple in 1135, leaving her with nowhere to stand, and how, a century later, an unnamed sculptor pieced together a new body around that ancient face. Look closely at the statue and you can still read the seam between the calm, older face and the later robes and stance built around it.