Old wood identify

Hi members, Happy new year and hope all is well, I want to share something to identify, It's a wood and i think some parts are carving.
Thanks to all.

 

Piece of a tree's root?? Carved on or just pareidolia?? But that one area sticking up from the right side top sure looks like a dogs head - strange.

 

Is it a carving of a small intestine or what?

 

I suspect another set of pictures with plain background instead of the fabric in this first set would be helpful.

 

it's a root.......... root toot toot !!!

 

I agree, a root, maybe from a vineyard. Maybe someone kept it because they recognized faces in it, but I don't see any carving.

 

it's beautiful in it's innocence !

 

I don't know if it is a natural carved. But sure 100% some parts was carved. And sure an old rootwood was preserved because it resembles a dragon or head of dragon.
Maybe chinese rootwood.

 

pretty sure you are seeing what you want to see.......

 

Gnarly!

 

The color and polish look consistent with Chinese root carvings. The tradition is to work with the natural interesting shapes, enhancing where appropriate.

 

If there was any carving the knife-marks should be pretty obvious. I don't see any.
There is a long tradition in the orient of saving natural roots or stones and using them as scholar's objects, for gazing or meditation. And many a beachcomber in the US has saved and varnished a piece of root or driftwood just because it looked interesting.
If there was carving, I'd expect it to actually look like something; to actually look like a dog, rather than allowing one to imagine that it might look a bit like a dog.
"pareidolia - the perception of apparently significant patterns or recognizable images, especially faces, in random or accidental arrangements of shapes and lines."
I'd say it looks like a dog, or a dragon, or a monkey, in exactly the same way a cloud or rock might look like any of those things - without having been carved.

 

..or cheese sarnies

 

I see an angel on the left and a bulldog on top in this image

 

OH Yeah - I saw the "Bulldog" but not the other - but still not carved?

 

Carves in some parts.
it looks like this

 

I say it's been carved

 

For example...Those parts are carved

 

Does it scream when you pick it up?

 

"Monkey with hand outstretched and tail" and "Pete the Pup" from "Our Gang" / "Little Rascals" : Bring on the ink blots now !!!!! I a really like this , it reminds me of My late friend Mrs. Smythe and the large polished root she had on top of a beautiful Chinese carved trunk.......