Rinno-Ji is the oldest Temple in Nikko, dating to 766AD.  Originally called Shihonryu-ji, it was renamed in the seventeenth century. It is said to hold some remarkable treasures, so I was interested to see it.

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I wandered around a large warehouse-style building a couple of times before I realised that rather that being a museum, as I had assumed, the building was encasing the original Rinno-ji Temple and this is why there was a depiction of the temple around the doorway to the building.

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Inside, there is no access to the inside of the temple and the temple is in a state of reconstruction.  Probably everything is disassembled, repaired and then reassembled.  You can see many of the components of the building laid out systematically in the foreground.  There are no nails, screws or metal bolts visible and this is because traditional Japanese construction does not use them.  Instead there are multiple interlocking mortice-and-tenon type joints.  In one of the near large beams you can see a number of holes for these and if you look closely at some of the other beams you may be able to see a number of the male joints to fit in such holes.