Fabled Treasures

In older times, the weight measure karat was deduced from the seeds of the carob tree that allegedly always had the same weight. This has been debunked, but the weight measure persists. Equally, the rati was deduced from the jequirity bean.
Finally, there is the math problem of the rice and chessboard: a ruler wants to reward his advisor, who modestly asks that the ruler fill a chessboard with one grain of rice on the first field, twice that on the second field, and twice again on the third. In the end, he asks for more than the rice harvest of the country.
These tales have inspired me to show how the seemingly small seed has an immense impact on not only food, but legend and wealth as well.

The depicted seeds are jequirity seeds of Abrus precatorius, carob beans Ceratonia siliqua, and a variety of Oryza rice, all of which are preserved in the International Seed Vault. This was an entry to an open call by artist collective Artists4Plants to represent the theme Seeds.