"its surface is adorned with intricate carvings that suggest a sacred purpose." Not an unreasonable hypothesis, and certainly not a crock.
Why not show images of those carvings instead of someone blacksmithing?
How many times was the phrase "holy box" repeated in the article?
What alloy? (That can be tested nondestructively, so why not say?).
While metal can be carved, the box illustrated was cracked, and more likely of organic material. Much easier to carve. It was also pictured open but the speculation of what it might contain in the article was predicated on it being unopened. Is the box in the illustrations even the same box repeatedly referred to as "holy"?
The article is long on suppositions and speculation without any establishment for their basis, and scientifically suspect for that reason.
For all we know it might contain car keys I lost 20 years ago, magically transported there through a time warp.
Meh.
Nothing in the article except repetition of the phrase "holy box" shows me anything which, in fact, determines the box is even a religious artifact.
I have worked with archaeologists and cultural anthropologists, and one of the fun phrases was "obviously of great religious significance". Look around our culture and find things which are NOT of great religious significance but which are the subject of elaborate and substantial buildings, common icons, and tell me how someone of this mindset would interpret those discoveries a thousand years from now if they knew little of our history.
In the settlement, numerous icons to their gods were discovered, places of apparent worship, similarly laid out temples to the god of Light "Bud".
