A Canadian teenager was apprehended by Japanese police in Nara for carving a message on the wooden pillars of an Edo-era temple complex in Nara.

The incident happened at the Toshodaiji Kondo temple in the city of Nara, near Osaka in south-central Honshu.

The 17-year-old tourist is reported to have written the word “Julian”, scratching the name into the 8th century woodwork using his bare hands.

A police spokesperson said that the teenager damaged the “wooden pillars supporting the roof.”

“On the pillars to the side, the boy carved ‘Julian’ on a wooden pillar about 170 centimetres above the ground with his nail,” read a police statement to CNN.

The boy was reportedly seen by other visitors to the temple and told to “stop!”

Toshodaiji Kondo the 'Golden Hall' was identified as the building defaced by the Canadian tourist. Photo / 663highland, CC

The boy who was questioned by police was since released to his parents, who were with him on the visit to the temple in Nara.

It was stated by officials that the boy defaced the temple “not with the intent of harming Japanese culture.”

The building damaged by the tourist was reportedly the “Golden Hall”, builtin 759AD during the Tang dynasty, which is among the internationally protected cultural landmarks in Nara listed by Unesco.

Inhabited by Buddhist monks, the occupants of the temple complex told local newspaper, The Mainichi, that they understood that the incident was done without malicious intent, they said it was still “regrettable and sad.”

Under Japanese law damaging “important cultural property” is punishable by a fine of up to ¥300,000 ($3400) or five years in prison.

This public defacing of international heritage sites comes a week after Italian police tracked down a UK-based tourist who had been filmed writing his name on to the Colosseum in Rome.

The 27-year-old Bristol-based fitness instructor Ivan Dimitrov published an open letter in Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, expressing his regret and that he was not aware of how old the monument was when he defaced it.