The world of spices and herbs has a colorful heritage which includes several interesting little contraptions and devices that can rightly be called objets d’art.
Cloves, for instance, were from ancient times an integral part of an Ayurvedic healer’s repertoire and very popular in the kitchens of India, prized for their antiseptic, antimicrobial and anesthetic properties and extremely good for dental hygiene. But spices like cloves were also very expensive, and carefully and zealously preserved, almost guarded we could say, like with this clove preserver featured here. Some of these clove preservers, made of wrought iron, go back to almost 3000 years.
The clove basket shown here is close to 400 years old. Also called a killi basket (killi means little bird), for the bird figurine on the top, this one also has an interesting little latch to secure its precious contents. How important those cloves must have been!