Sometimes a single object can tell a very complex story about the times in which it was created.The ivory workshops licensed by the Caliphal court in tenth-century Cordoba were renowned for the exquisite beauty of the carved ivory caskets and pyxides that they created, as gifts given between members of the court and to visiting ambassadors. Understanding the iconographic programmes carved on these objects is a fascinating study in itself. But the al-Mughira pyxis, now in the permanent collection of the Louvre, can be interpreted either according to the familiar iconography – or re-interpreted to expose a complex story of intrigue, sex and murder, during a succession crisis in Cordoba, that almost beggars belief!