#skull design

Three hour round trip marketplace pickup for 2 skeleton rocking chairs and worth it — lychgate

*Elledit: from the original listing, the person paid $160 for them, one of the lower skulls on the front ankle piece the top is broken off

Exquisite Helmeted Hornbill skull carving auctioned in 2007. Late Qing.

The inscription reads "殷勤寄牛女，河漢正相望". These are lines from the poem of Yuan Zhen (元稹), Chinese novelist and poet of the middle Tang.

Such a carving was a rare and valuable collector's item. Artifacts of this kind did not appear in China until the early Ming. Precious hornbill ivory could be imported from Burma, Siam and Malay Peninsula. Mostly expensive small accessories were made of hornbill ivory; the use of a whole skull is rather atypical. Currently, the trade of hornbill ivory is prohibited by law.

Despite the apparent massiveness, the skull is pretty light, since the bone outgrowth has a porous structure. Outside, it is covered with a gleaming scarlet ivory-like substance.