Yoruba Wood Medicine Box

The lid is all geometry. The figures below have all but blended back into the wood.

This medicine box is Yoruba, from Nigeria in West Africa, in carved wood. Among the Yoruba, healers and households kept medicines and ritual materials in carved containers like this, and ornament is seldom an afterthought. A small arched handle tops the broad lid, which is filled with rings of chevrons, zigzags and squared notches. Those bands continue down the side in tight parallel rows. Beneath the join, weathered figures in high relief circle the lower half, their features soft and hard to read. The wood is a warm dark brown.

One handle, and a good deal of carving to get past first.