cabinet of curiosities · case no. 05
sold to the cabinet's first keeper as the horn of a unicorn; identified later as the tooth of a narwhal. the placard never quite caught up. both names sit in the ledger, neither crossed out. the spiral is real in either case.
it was used, in its first century here, to test wine for poison. it never gave a result anyone trusted, but the gesture was elegant. a ritual survives the reason for it.
field-note · believed to date from 1632; acquired by exchange in Bruges.