Pueblo Stone Object – Tool or Neck Rest?

Item: 1559

Origin: Pueblo Southwest?
Date: 19th c. –  likely earlier

Media: Hard stone

Dimensions: 5.25″ long, 4.5″ wide, 2.75″ deep

Description: What an unusual stone piece this is!  I can’t take enough photos of it to help you understand what a magical stone this is. It’s both ancient and modern all at once. It’s dense, heavy and smooth, like a weight. Made with a hard, deep, green stone, it has been pecked at to thin out the center, leaving two, oblong boundaries on each side. It is tapered from one end to the other with an overall trapazoidal shape.   The pecking is evident, but highly polished down. Both sides have been pecked away in the center leaving two handles on each side. There is no evidence of wear coming from use if this were a tool for grinding or pounding.   Both of the rounded sides hold the original surface of the cobble (unpecked)  and themselves show a great, smoothed and shiny patina.  While the shape is bilaterally symmetrical, the shape is not perfect and this gives the piece a powerful feeling of originality. One consideration is that this is a neck rest.  I tried it, and while it could work, I am two large for it.  A person shorter and smaller might really enjoy resting on this as a support for the neck.

Condition:  Condition is original without restoration.

Provenance:  The collection history for this was that it came out of a Pueblo.

Price: 1800