Sendai City Museum

About

The Sendai City Museum, in Kawauchi, Aoba Ward, Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, stands on the site of the former Sannomaru enclosure of Sendai Castle. It traces its founding to 1951, when the Date family transferred the land to Sendai City and donated about 8,000 items from its holdings; construction on the Sannomaru site began in 1960, and the museum opened in 1961. Its collection, centered on materials related to the Date family and the Sendai domain, now totals about 97,000 items. Holdings include the Important Cultural Property known as the black-lacquered five-plate armor said to have been worn by Date Masamune, and three items from the National Treasure "Documents Related to the Keicho Embassy to Europe," including the Portrait of Hasekura Tsunenaga, are inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register. The museum closed for an extended period beginning in 1983 and reopened in a new building in 1986.