Exotic and elegant woods are a staple material used in fine antiques. Brazilian rosewood, Cuban mahogany, and English walnut, among others, all figure prominently in antique furniture and objets d’art. Fine woods can substantially enhance the desirability of an investment grade antique. So I was delighted when I stumbled across bog oak during my research, the rarest wood in the world.
Bog oak is a catchall name for partially fossilized wood. Although most of this wood, as its name implies, originates from oak trees, partially fossilized yew or pine wood is also considered bog oak. The origins of this ancient timber are a mysterious, wonderful thing. Thousands of years ago, swamps, fens and bogs were often surrounded by huge, primeval forests full of massive oak trees. Due to storms, floods or other natural events, these trees would sometimes fall into these adjacent wetlands.
Oak trees are rich in chemical compounds called tannins or tannic acid. Tannins are yellowish to brownish in color, astringent, and acidic in nature. Tannins are renowned for their powers of preservation. In effect, tannins have the ability to mummify organic matter when present in high concentrations.
Wetlands containing large numbers of dead oak trees naturally become saturated with tannins over time. This is the reason the mummified remains of ancient European bog bodies like Tollund Man are discovered thousands of years later in excellent condition. In fact, tannins were originally used by ingenious ancient people to tan animal hides. Words like tannins, tanning and oak tree (tanna in Old High German) have shared etymological origins, underscoring their close association over the centuries.
Any tree that fell into a bog and sank quickly had a tendency to be preserved in the tannin-rich waters. However, some types of wood were preserved better than others. Oak is already an incredibly tough and rot resistant wood. And, because it naturally contains a large amount of tannins, oak gets a double-shot of tannins from the bog water. These circumstances are ideal for preserving wood, eventually turning it into bog oak.
Over thousands of years, wetlands gradually fill in with organic matter. This process chokes off any oxygen from the submerged tree trunks, thus limiting bacterial activity. During this extended period without rot, iron and other minerals leach out of the surrounding soil and into the bog water. They then bind with the tannin saturated wood and displace some of its organic material.
As a result, bog oak gradually darkens over the millennia, slowly turning from a light, golden brown wood into a lustrous, almost ebony-black color. This color change is just a guideline however. The tree species and local bog conditions can all significantly impact the final color of a piece of bog oak.
In addition to taking on a dramatically deeper color, bog oak also becomes extremely dense. This is driven by the wood’s partial mineralization, which also renders it almost rock-hard. While bog oak’s physical properties vary considerably from specimen to specimen, it is generally very tough on cutting blades due to its excessive hardness.
Bog Oak Or Morta Woodworking Blanks for Sale on eBay
(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)
Most bog oak comes from the British Isles, Northern Europe or Russia. But the most famous deposits are the peat bogs of Ireland and the fens of East Anglia, in the southeast of England. While bog oak can form over as little as 1,000 years, it can also be almost unbelievably ancient. Specimens are regularly radiocarbon dated to between 2,000 and 5,000 BC. This means some trees were alive during the building of the Egyptian pyramids or Stonehenge, at the very dawn of human history!
The discovery and milling of bog oak is almost as miraculous as its formation. For hundreds of years, farmers in marshy areas of Northern Europe, Ireland and England have discovered ancient tree trunks when plowing their fields. In many instances these logs were cursed as a nuisance. Most farmers simply burnt the strange black logs or left them to rot once they were excavated, but a few made the effort to harvest the strange, velvety black timber.
Perhaps the wood’s greatest drawback is that it has only traditionally been available in small sizes and very limited quantities. Once an ancient log of bog oak has been uncovered in a field, time is of the essence. The wood will break down quickly upon exposure to air if it is not quickly harvested.
First, all the outer, rotten wood must be carefully stripped away. The logs are usually greatly reduced in diameter by this step. Then the logs must be quarter-sawn before being carefully seasoned, often for several years, to avoid warping. Seasoning can be accomplished either via air drying, which only works for exceptionally well preserved specimens, or kiln drying. Kiln drying is faster than air drying and can give better results, but requires tremendous experience and control. The larger a piece of bog oak, the harder it is to season properly.
Bog oak has been extensively used in European luxury goods for centuries. It was highly prized for fine woodworking – inlay, detail-work and turning – due to the fact that it is the only native black European wood. Bog oak was also in particularly high demand in the Victorian age for black mourning jewelry. The black pieces of chess sets, traditionally fashioned from ebony, were occasionally made from this rarest of black woods. Bog oak was especially prized for fine smoking pipes, where it was called “morta”.
Bog Oak Or Morta Smoking Pipes for Sale on eBay
(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)
Today, bog oak is used for small sculptures, objets d’art, jewelry, fountain pen blanks and other small woodworking projects. As far as I can tell, Bog oak is the rarest wood in the world. It is beautiful, durable and thousands of years old. And yet, ironically, it seems to be little known and substantially undervalued. Don’t overlook this incredible, exotic black wood when looking to invest in antiques.
