This heritage of wood carving originated in the Land of Yonok, the area that is now northern Thailand, Lao and part of southern China, more than 2,000 years go. There, the ancient traditions of the Lawa people, or Tai tribes who inhabited the area at the same time, were recorded in carved wood. Theirs was a wood culture. Stories were carved into teak in much the same way that the ancient Egyptians carved hieroglyphics into stone to tell their stories.

The Lawa carvings portrayed scenes from farming, from the village, from the riverside and from the rice fields. They were oddly two-dimensional scenes carved into a three-dimensional form. This equanimity in artistic perspective in a duo dimensional medium is a hallmark of Tai carving and tapestry. It is seen not only in the early Lawa carvings but also later in much Tai art, including Lao paintings, Hmong embroidery and northern Thai mural art.

The wall and table carvings we see today are done in the same artistic tradition, with entire "Muang Scenes" carved into teak. The "muang" is the traditional Thai village or town and in the carvings the "muang" is set in a palm-filled tropical forest. The "muang scene" incorporates all of the many features of Thai village society. The "paw luang" and his acolytes are placed at the town center. The center represents the most auspicious of locations in a Thai town, signifying direct contact with the spirits and therefore the right to rule. At the side of a carved "muang scene'", off in the distance, the farmers are in the rice fields, ploughing and bent over.

Each carved teak mural depicts all features in a striking fashion. The depth of the carving into the wood is usually 1-1/2 to 2 inches. This depth on a 5-inch thick teak slab provides a level of detail not possible on less pronounced carvings in other materials in high relief. In these carvings there is little surface space left empty. Every tiny nook and cranny is carved. Even the palm leaves of the forest trees are done with such care that the veins and arteries of the leaves clearly stand out, and the stems lead the eye back into the foliage to the source at the branch on the tree trunk.

These carved teak murals are often two or three meters long. The artists sit on short stools with a set of simple carving tools consisting of a sharp knife, a few chisels of differing sizes, and a thin pick. They work across the scene as if they have a complete vision of what it will look like when they are finished. One carving takes four to five months to complete. Although a larger piece specially commissioned by an art collector, a hotel or a business could take much longer. This depends on the particular detail of the scene and the final finish to the wood. The artists who carve these incredible pieces of Tai art in the back rooms of teak factories are a very special breed.