Hand-Me-Downs

[fretbuzz]

Sometimes things are passed down to you because of your interest in different things. Could be an old guitar, your grandpa's old hunting rifle, or in this case a few fossils. In the box were a a couple of cool things, a fairly decent Lepidotus, a Knightia, a few trilobites, and this, of which I haven't a clue. It's roughly 2-3/4 x 4-1/4 in.

Any ideas?

Edited October 23, 2013 by fretbuzz

[Plax]

are the internal sediments soft? is the other end closed?

[Roz]

Some of the fractures look complete. Does it come apart?

[fretbuzz]

are the internal sediments soft? is the other end closed?

Both ends are open. The pics above show both ends, one with a larger opening than the other. The material in the middle is solid.

Some of the fractures look complete. Does it come apart?

The surface is fractured but it doesn't come apart. It doesn't appear to be held together artificially by any sort of bonding agent.

It honestly could be some pseudofossil-weird-thing that somebody thought was interesting and stuck in with the rest of the items. Having never seen anything like it before, which doesn't count for much, it may still end up remaining a mystery. For me it's the openings on both ends, and the material in the middle that has a different color, and appears to have had a different original consistency than the exterior.

[RichW9090]

It looks suspicously like a small, but not impossibly so, cloud-blower pipe.

[fretbuzz]

It looks suspicously like a small, but not impossibly so, cloud-blower pipe.

It could be! The patchy ochre coloring might be the giveaway. It could have been applied as decoration or to add to some ceremonial process.