Almost looks like part of an old Chemists tool. Together with the matching bowl, the combination was known as a Mortar and Pestle. Pre-drug store and pre-made medicines, Doctors and Apothecaries had to mix and blend their own remedies using the raw ingredients and mixing them according to whatever recipe sat in front of them. The mechanism used to grind or reduce certain components from their as picked state to a more useable form was the Mortar and Pestle; usually some type of stone in line hammer with a large ball shaped end, together with a large deep bodied container to hold and retain whatever was being ground. The method was to add raw material to the bowl and then use the mortar to either pound on it or in a twisting motion to extract the desired element. There were variants, some used to grind small amounts of grain to produce corn meal or oat meal for cooking, and others for coffee, pre mechanical grinder. They still exist albeit in a more refined format. You can see them in labs, made from ceramics or fired clay/porcelain.
