Clay Incense Stick Holder

A handcrafted holder for a single incense stick. Specific material and dimensions are to be confirmed from supplier - typical formats in the Stupa range include hand-thrown terracotta dishes from Kathmandu Valley workshops or carved wood. The holder is designed to hold one 10cm stick at a slight angle, with a recessed dish to catch the falling ash as the stick burns through.

1. Place the holder on a heat-safe surface.
2. Light an incense stick at the tip; blow out the flame.
3. Insert the unlit (cool) end of the stick into the holder's slot or hole.
4. The stick burns at a slight angle; ash falls onto the holder's dish surface.
5. Empty the ash when the stick has finished and the holder has cooled.

The holder is designed for stick incense only - not for resin, charcoal, or cone-format incense. Tap out the cooled ash between sessions; wipe with a dry cloth.

• Function: Single-stick holder for 10cm bamboo-less incense sticks
• Material: clay
• Origin: Kathmandu Valley
• Dimensions: 10cm
• Use with: Stupa range stick incense · other bamboo-less stick formats
• Care: Empty cooled ash · wipe with dry cloth

Clay is among the earliest materials in human incense use - earthenware vessels for burning aromatic substances appear in archaeological records from the Indus Valley, the Mediterranean, and the wider Indian Ocean trade region going back thousands of years. The single-stick holder is the smallest and most domestic of the clay forms in this lineage: a hand-formed dish sized for one stick, made by potters across South Asia for daily household use. The proportions have not changed substantially in centuries - the rolled clay, the slight angle, the small dish for falling ash.

Unglazed clay takes a faint patina with use as smoke residue settles into the porous surface; the holder darkens slightly over months of regular burning. A quiet companion piece, not a statement object.