Throughout most of the last two millennia, they were fought over by European superpowers and became pawns in the religious conflicts between Christianity and Islam.
For nearly two thousand years, they have been the site of religious conflicts and the clashes of superpowers.
At the top of the Omote-sando, on the left, is the five-story pagoda of the shrine, decorated with the 12 signs of the Asian zodiac and the hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa family.