> Thuya Burl Wood Boxes & Gifts
Thuya Burl is a beautiful wood sourced from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Also referred to as citron burl, Thyine Wood, or Thuya Bur, Thuya Burl is one of the most popular and exotic woods used in creating decorative wooden boxes for holding such items as jewellery, cuff links, playing cards, dominoes, dice as well as stationary items and gifts. A classic and beautiful wood, often French polished with a smooth finish, Thuya bur wood boxes make great gifts.
The wood itself comes from the roots of the trees as oppose to the bark and trunk so often used in other wood items. Sourcing suitable Thuya Burl requires extensive digging to extract it from the ground and often a long complex process in turning the raw resource into a well finished box gift. Thuya Burl wood can vary quite a bit in colour from reddish-tan darkening to a black hue. It can also be found in lighter orange-red or a golden light brown. Distinctive in nature its smooth polished finish is perfect for creating boxes and stationary gifts.
The grain of the thuya wood is usually full of knots, interlocked, contorted hard and full of knots. This is what creates the fantastic and creative natural multi-grain patterns exhibited on this unique wood. Although it can look similar to red wood burl, thuya wood is much denser and is commonly used in exquisite turnery, wood boxes , veneered furniture, and decorative veneers.
Thuya wood used for decorative boxes is usually found in Northern Africa, most commonly Morocco and Nigeria. The trees cover the Atlas Mountains and if sourced in an environmentally friendly way is suitably sustainable. Although, (somewhat ironically) much of the variety and character of the different coloured thuya wood seen today comes as a result of the natives destructively burning tree covered areas of the Atlas mountains over hundreds of years to make way for farming land. This paradoxically changed the landscape making the thuya roots unique in the world. Fortunately now there are some measures being taken to prevent too much destruction so that this beautiful wood can be appreciated for generations to come.
Interestingly, the word Thuya was given by the Greeks and means sacrifice as some of the oil from the wood was distilled and used in religious ceremonies. This is mainly because burls from thuya are as fragrant as they are beautiful. Its the particular dense nature of the thuya that makes the wood quite oily in content and adds to the texture, one of the reasons it makes such interesting decorative boxes.
The exquisite nature of the thuya wood has made it popular for creating jewellery boxes, cuff link boxes, inlays, stationary items such as pen holders, clocks, and other such gifts. Redwood burl is also used for these types of decorative boxes, but its thuya density and high polish qualities that make it better.
The Market Town offers a range of beautifully designed, high quality, hand crafted, and polished wood boxes, games, and gifts sustainably sourced from Morocco by Atlas London.
