In the interest of honesty wandering into a completely unknown area, we really have no idea of telling if this beautiful gourd is ancient or not. Nor do we know exactly how old the beautiful handmade wooden bowl is that it is sitting in, it would be impossible to tell really. Our feeling is that it's pretty old because of the subject matter, but that's a guess. What we do know is that somebody took the time to carve these beautiful llamas, Lions, birds and what looks to be some type of Spanish conquistadors. One thing is for certain, whoever carved these images was a very capable artist because they're really done quite well, especially for imagery carved into a gourd which is so delicate. Conditions - both the gourd and the bowl are in very good condition and the top piece that comes off is in very good condition fitting very tightly.