The Kashkul

The Mysterious Seed from Nowhere

Long before Europeans discovered the Seychelles archipelago in the 18th century, enormous double-lobed nuts would wash ashore on the coasts of the Maldives, India, and the Persian Gulf — with no one knowing where they came from. Sailors called them coco de mer, "coconut of the sea," believing they grew from mythical trees on the ocean floor. The Malay name, buah tasik, means "fruit of the sea."

The seed of Lodoicea maldivica is the largest in the entire plant kingdom, weighing up to 25 kilograms (55 pounds) and measuring nearly half a metre across. The palm that bears it grows only in the Vallée de Mai and Fond Ferdinand nature reserves on the islands of Praslin and Curieuse in the Seychelles — and nowhere else on Earth. It takes six to seven years for a single fruit to mature.

Royalty, Rarity, and Legend

Before the Seychelles were charted in 1743, coco de mer nuts were among the rarest objects in the world. Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, reportedly offered 4,000 gold florins for a single specimen. The Maldivian sultans claimed a royal monopoly — any nut that washed ashore was property of the crown, and possessing one without permission was punishable by death.

In South and Southeast Asia, the nut was attributed with extraordinary medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. Its suggestive bilobed shape inspired legends connecting it to the Garden of Eden; General Charles "Chinese" Gordon, visiting the Seychelles in 1881, became convinced that the Vallée de Mai was the original Garden of Eden and the coco de mer was the forbidden fruit.

Indian royalty mounted them in gold and silver as ceremonial vessels. The Habsburg Kunstkammer treasured them alongside unicorn horns and bezoars. Portuguese sailors brought them to Europe as gifts for kings. In every culture that encountered them, they were objects of wonder.

The Sacred Bowl of the Dervish

It was in the Sufi tradition that the coco de mer found its most profound purpose. The shell's natural boat-like form — reminiscent of a crescent moon, or a cupped pair of hands raised in supplication — made it the ideal vessel for the wandering dervish. Kashkuls carved from coco de mer became the most prized of all begging bowls, symbols of total surrender to the Divine.

The rarity of the material elevated the spiritual symbolism: just as the dervish renounced the world, the coco de mer was a gift from the unknowable depths of the ocean — arriving from nowhere, belonging to no one, freely given. Persian and Indian artisans transformed these shells into breathtaking works of art, carving them with Qur'anic verses in flowing Nasta'liq script, scenes of dervish life, arabesques, and portraits of mystics.

The finest coco de mer kashkuls were created during the Safavid (1501–1736) and Qajar (1789–1925) periods in Iran. Master carvers such as Yar Muhammad signed their work, and the bowls were fitted with elaborate silver, gold, or brass mounts and carrying chains. Today, these pieces are held in the world's great museums — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Aga Khan Museum — and command prices of $20,000 to $50,000 or more at auction.

An Endangered Legacy

The coco de mer palm is now classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. International trade in the nuts is strictly regulated under CITES, and each nut leaving the Seychelles requires a government permit. This makes antique coco de mer kashkuls not only works of art and spiritual artifacts, but irreplaceable relics of a tradition that can never be repeated — carved from a material that the modern world can no longer freely obtain.