Burmese Sandalwood Pagoda Shrine Carving with Guan Yu

• Blackwood - One of the best known and most widely used Australian timbers, blackwood (acacia melanoxylon), is a member of the Acacia (wattle) family and grows in eastern Australia from about Adelaide in South Australia, as far north as Cairns in Queensland.
  
  The largest, straightest and tallest trees come from the wet forest and swamps of north-west Tasmania where it is grown commercially.
  
  Blackwood timber colours range across a wide spectrum, from a very pale honey colour through to a dark chocolate with streaks of red tinge.
  
  The hardwood timber has been commonly used in the production of furniture, flooring, and musical instruments in Australia from the late 19th century. However, the straight grain timber is not the most prized or valuable, that honour falls to blackwood with a wavy, fiddleback pattern, which is used both in the solid and as a veneer. Fiddleback was only used on the finest examples of furniture.
• Sandalwood - Sandalwood is a heavy, yellow coloured and very fine-grained timber, which has a fragrance which lasts for many decades, and acts as a deterent to moths and insects.
  
  In the British colonial era, sandalwood was imported into Britain from India, and the wood also used within India for the manufacture of Anglo-Indian furniture.
  
  Becasue it does not have a distinct grain pattern, sandalwood was not used for the exterior surfaces of furniture, but was put to use for drawer and box linings, where the aroma was noticeable one the object was opened. it was also used to manufacture small objects (treen).
  
  Nowadays sandalwood is commercially grown with Australia the largest producer. As well as producing timber, oil is extracted for use in the manufacture of perfumes.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• Oriental deities, Burmese - Buddha and other deities 116
• religious objects, oriental - shrines 40