I have handled this piece and Cha Cha’s Pictures don’t show the depth of the recessed area. It must be nearly 1/2” deep. So why carve out some thing that deep just to put some mediocre to poor carvings at the bottom? The carvings inside don’t match the quality of the surface carvings. I also don’t think the recessed area was a later carved out area. For the reason stated above. So for the lack of any other logical explanation it must have been carved out to place an insert of some type and Cha Cha did a good job researching what those options could have been. Looks much better now than it did before while maintaining cultural integrity. Well done Cha Cha! 😄
|