Little devil head.

[bob535]

I just wanted to share this. This thing has been in my family for as ling as I can remember. I don't know much about it except that I had seen this thing on a "what not" what not shelf in my grandparents house when I was a kid. I don't know why HAHA.

I was told it is a tourist ash tray, but that is it.

I did something I should not have done, but I wanted to see if I could get more info on the mark. I cleaned the bottom of it. doh!!

[mart]

Sure wish you had not cleaned the bottom. Only a glare now, can`t see it well enough to read. Guessing its possibly a Native American piece. And could have been a tourist piece but some of those are worth bucks now !!

[bob535]

Thanks mart....I really wish I didn't clean it also    I will try to get a better picture of the bottom in a little bit. I can tell you that the writing below the picture is very hard to read...this is what it looks like to me an S an O an B and maybe a K....but this is coming from someone that could not see "Made in China" staring me in the face on another piece.....LOLOL 

[bob535]

Okay I tried, and I got two more pictures, this is as good as I am going to get I think.

[Oceans64]

I wonder if a rubbing would work?

[bob535]

Hmmm I'm willing to try, how would I go about doing that?? 

[Oceans64]

Take a piece of paper (thin is best) and lay it across the bottom where the marks are. Lightly rub with the side edge of a pencil lead. The edge of the marks on the piece will catch the pencil lead making a darker spot.  Not really sure if it will work but might be worth a try...

[bob535]

I'll give that a try

[mart]

Thanks Oceans, just looked at the second pics and thought about a rubbing. Couild be just the piece but almost looks animal like in the first pic. Second ones are way dark !!

[bob535]

I haven't gotten around to the rubbing yet, but the head on the back looks a lot like the guy in the picture below. It is the Babylonian god Marduk. I'm not saying that's who it is, but looks a lot like him.

 

[bob535]

FINALLY!!!!! I knew I had a pic on this computer somewhere of this thing before I cleaned the bottom. Does this help any??

[mart]

Now I sure wish you had not cleaned it. Thats a good pic but still can`t see the writing !! Not Native American thats for sure. Do you know where your parents got it ?? Did they ever travel to GB ??

[jondar]

The interior of the piece appears "charred" or "smoke coated".  Could this be an incense burner?  My mother's family had several of these, one was a Buddha sitting crosslegged with a "tray" on his crossed legs, you put the incense in the tray and burned it.  Another was an elephant in ceremonial garb.

[bob535]

My Grand parents were mountain folks, who left the mountains for Northern VA maybe in their mid to late 20's. I don't think coal mining was something my grandpa wanted to do, but I can't say for sure that is why they moved. Anyways they never really did any traveling outside of visiting places in the VA MD PA KY TN area until much later.

BUT one of my Grandpa's brothers was in the army back in WWII, it could have maybe been a gift from him?? I don't know much about him except for the fact that he was in WWII.

[mart]

He said in thefirst post that they said it was a tourist ash tray. Could have been used as ash tray at some point. That might account for the dark interior. The figure on the bottom looks similar to a figure I saw once at an archeological dig in Great Britain.  TV had a documentary on it but its been a while since I have seen it. Can`t even remember the name of the show !!  Wish Mario or Gingertomantiques would chime in here.