Tibetan Trunk or Storage Box

A trunk made from yak and pine. Tibet packed sensibly.

This trunk or storage box comes from Tibet and dates to the mid 18th century. It is yak leather and pine wood. Hide-covered chests were a common household form on the Tibetan plateau, where goods often moved long distances by pack animal. The leather has gone dark and creased, scuffed pale along the lower edge. A row of metal discs runs under the lip of the lid, threaded with leather thongs that dangle down the front like loose laces. Twenty-eight inches long and twenty-one high.

The closure appears to be a knot. There are worse systems.