Boxes	Trays	Bowls	Baskets

Jewelry Chests	Mirrors	Desk Accessories	Treasures

Carvers and joiners turn the perfumed arar or thuya wood (arbor vitae) into superb tables, trays, boxes, and desk accessories inlaid with ebony, lemonwood, and mother-of-pearl. Highly polished to bring out the grain of the trunk and the burls of the root, thuya products are, like cedar, impervious to insect damage. The much prized tree grows ten kilometers from Essaouira, the old port of Mogador. It is exquisitely sculpted into small, complex pieces of palmettes, vines, flowers, diamonds, and chevrons. Woodcraft, used as early as the 8th century in Fès, now frequently incorporates other elements like leather for chests, bright paint and sculptural techniques for small tables, camelbone and Andalusian style brass stud-work for ornate mirrors. Kôhl bottles and applicators "douiaia el kohl" as well as mortars and pestles "taferdout n-zafran" are older wood pieces from the Pre-Sahara region.