Posted 4 years ago
Kstrain76
(1 item)
Found this old box in a bag of clothes ,have googled it with no answers
It looks to be something very old due to the loops on top having fold out anchors like on a carter key
And very crude carving. Oh and it was made from the center of a tree or wood block
Any help will be greatly appreciated
You can post 4 pictures so how about another one with a side view.
Picture 2 has me confused....is that cord a rope or electric wire? Is it attached to something?
Could u replace picture 3 with one showing the entire interior?
Give us it’s measurements please.
It’s certainly very interesting.
Odd item. At first I thought it was a privy...maybe it's from a ship. It could hang and always stay level?
Good photos. The fact that it can be hung and just suspended there causes me to thing it once housed a box compass 100 years or so ago. Probably still needed gimbel rings to keep the compass level as the ship shifted. Have a look at antique ships box compass on google
I’m going to take a guess about this box, just going by what I would use it for myself.
Yeast dough has to rise or “proof” to make bread.
If the ambient temperature is too cold/cool, the dough will rise only very slowly or not at all.
These days, we can put the dough to be proofed in a plastic Tupperware bowl with lid and put it somewhere warm, such as on top of the refrigerator.
Before modern conveniences, people used wooden dough boxes.
You did not give us any dimensions of the interior compartment, but I’m going to simply guess it’s large enough to accommodate a risen ball of dough at least the size of a loaf of bread.
Most wooden dough boxes had legs or, if no legs, were table-top models.
Those metal loops on each end of your box could have been used to suspend the box near a fireplace opening or near a wood cook stove where it could stay warm, without getting hot.
Having no latch on the lid would let the dough push it open if the cook misjudged the amount of dough she (or he) put in the box to proof.
Do I see rounded interior bottom edges rather than squared corners? Rounded edges would make scooping the proofed dough out when it was time to do so.
All that said, I think this could be a primitive proofing box, home-made for free, carved out from a chunk of wood.