Wooden bowls are a kind of container, which the player can make. They are made from a block of wood using both an axe and a knife. In the old version, 3.11c, the value of bowls were too high, making it easy for players to buy things. Their value has since been lowered.
They weigh around 0.5lb since Dec 2010 patch which is apparently affected by Carpentry skill. They cannot be built in batches and are often separated in several different groups which makes them less desireable medium of exchange than before the patch.
It takes basically about 2 hours (120 minutes, affected by skill level and tools used) to make a bowl from a block of wood.
Wooden bowls are no longer extremely useful for trading, despite the avaibility of raw materials. A decent bowl is worth around 2 arrows.