3.0" Howlite Hand Carved Crystal Realistic Skull | No.012

A realistic skull cut from a single block of howlite, 3 inches.

Howlite is a soft borate mineral — around 3.5 on the Mohs scale — which is why it can hold the fine detail you see here and also why it wants gentler handling than quartz. The grey webbing is natural veining that formed as the nodule grew.

The skull is the hardest test of a carver's eye, because everyone already knows what it should look like. The passages that take the longest are the ones you notice least: the transition from temple to cheekbone, and the way the teeth meet.

Item ID 2100012
Material 100% natural howlite
Size 3 in
Weight see photographs