Buried Wood (Wu Mu)

Look at these tree trunks. They are not something worthless that people discarded on the field. Actually these tree trunks worth millions. They were dug out from a river bed.

These are tree trunks buried under the river bed for thousands of years. As the trunks were resistant to decay and degradation, they survived thousands of years buried under the river bed in the absence of oxygen. They were known as Wu Mu (literally means black wood due to its colour). In the 70s and 80s when China was under a development phase, large quantity of sand was required by the construction industries. So equipment was sent to a river to excavate sand. This was when these big logs were dug out as well. At that time no body knew the value of these logs and they were either threw back to the river or buried somewhere.

Today this buried wood is very valuable as exquisite carvings can be made from such wood and these carvings are highly sought after by collectors. Very good quality carvings from Golden Nan wood can fetch millions of RMB.

 

 

In the 80s when the buried wood was relatively unknown to the public, a wood carver spotted one block of such wood by the road side. He was attracted by this piece of wood and thought that he might be able to do something with it. So he took it home and carved a Lohan figure.

 

 A Taiwanese saw the carving and was very impressed with this artistic piece of art. He immediately asked the person who made it to quote a price. That person quoted 5000 RMB and the Taiwanese quickly paid 5000 without any hesitation. Just imagine, the monthly wage at that time was only 30 RMB and 5000 RMB was indeed a big sum of money. Since then this artist had been heavily involved in the carving of this buried wood. He also stock piled a large quantity of the wood for his carving business.

 

The discovery of buried wood in this town of China also created a small industry (wood carving)where there were 3000 country folks involving in this business of wood carving. Due to the scarcity or raw materials (not much buried wood can be dug out now from river bed), the price of these carvings also escalated. People were paying lots of money just to possess these carvings. Some carvings are not even for sale as the makers decided to keep the carvings themselves.

 

This wood carving artist once paid 300 RMB for a piece of buried wood and carved it into a figurine. There are people willing to pay him hundreds of thousands for it but he decided not to sell it (he really liked the carving and wanted to keep it). He said such carving is one of a kind, there won't be any two that look the same due to the nature of the raw material used.

The Taiwanese businessman himself also started his business dealing in carvings made from the buried wood and his business flourished. He has frequented this place in China to source for carvings for his shop in Taiwan.

 

Meanwhile, the person earlier who started his career in wood carving also produced a lot of master piece. Some carvings he said he would not sell no matter what price was offered as he liked to keep his works.

In a country so rich in history and culture, even tree trunks that were buried thousands of years can become valuable. When people become affluent, they would pay millions to possess the best and the rarest of things.