Beautiful examples of traditional Kazakh wooden tableware – kubi, ozhau, shara or tegene, ayak, tostagan, saptyayak, astau, tabak, keli kelsap – adorn exhibitions and are stored in the collections of museums in Kazakhstan and abroad, becoming permanent objects of research for scientists. Craftsmen usually carved simple tableware from a single piece of wood, processing it by chiselling with simple tools or turning on a lathe. In his research in the mid-20th century, E.A. Masanov describes the process of making dishes at the end of the 18th century using a lathe and chiselling "with a chisel and knife from a single piece of birch," noting that cups and ladles "are made from birch root using sharpened steel hooks and a simple Kyrgyz knife. They are smoothed with emery powder glued to a piece of leather" (Masanov 48). The lower part of the tree and the growths on the birch, called kapy, were especially valued. The carefully processed wood in the finished utensils was often covered with decorative silver plates and bone overlays, ornamented with engravings or openwork carvings, decorated with metal fittings, and sometimes with gemstones. "The utensils were painted dark red, brown and yellow," writes Masanov (48). Craftsmen who made and processed tableware had their own tools: a hatchet – a shot, a chisel with a short concave blade and a comfortable wooden handle – an ungur (Masanov, p. 48); a wooden hammer. Before use, the dishes were fumigated with smoke from the flowering plant ziziphora or birch bark for disinfection, and for magical rituals to achieve purity, smoke from the herb adyraspan (common harmal) or archa was used.