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Unique
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GILMER WOOD COMPANY 800# 1-888-667-3979 |
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WOOD Of The
Month:
Used since the days of Solomon and David when it was called thyine wood, thuya is one of the few woods mentioned in the Bible, having been referenced by John in the Book of Revelation. Popular during King David's reign, it became a favorite among the cultured races. The Greeks named it thuya, meaning sacrifice, because they used an oil distilled from it as incense in their religious ceremonies. Some churches still use it and as sandarac oil it is valued for medicinal uses. The burls are as beautiful as they are fragrant and the Greeks and Romans vied with each other over furniture made from them. The powerful men of those ancient times had two great ambitions: to be a dictator and to own what was a thuya burl table to a Greek, a citron burl or thyine wood table to a Roman. It is said that the wife of Cicero owned a thyine burl table costing the equivalent of fifty thousand dollars. Thuya trees, along with cedars and oaks, once covered the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and Morocco, but because of over cutting, large areas have been treeless for hundreds of years. For centuries the natives had started fires whenever they wanted to clear tracts of land. Such clearing caused great destruction, but paradoxically enough, also caused burls of beautiful character to form on the roots of burned thuya trees. Found in the Atlas Mountains and nowhere else on earth, finding these rare burls is no mean feat; never very large they must be plowed for there is hardly a stump to guide the searcher. Grubbed out, most of them find their way to Europe, mainly France. Thuya burl is fairly firm and dense with a high oil content, but tends to be brittle. Its color varies from a rich, lustrous golden brown to nearly black. The eyes, perfectly round, are scattered about in some burls like the figure in bird's-eye maple; in others they are grouped as islands. An exquisite wood, today it is used for inlays, small boxes, turnery, and precious objects.
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