Unusual hair ornament carved from boxwood (huang yand mu) and decorated with non-figurative symbols which could be Chinese characters. To us it has a very ‘Taoist’ look. We have dated it to the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912) although this particular type of headgear was very popular during the Ming period (1368 – 1644) as well and therefore could also be earlier than Qing. Length 8.3 cm.