How much of a beating can an olive take?

Hi again group.

I bought a yamadori olive, likely from Syria, today. It came in a 5litre pot and almost the entire pot consisted of one giant block of wood. Oh and a very healthy ant nest . Two sides of the 'block' were clearly growing against rock and the impression of smooth stone is clear, but since the tree was removed, it's grown fibrous roots randomly all over the surface.

In order to make something nice of this specimen, I'd have to carve a hell of a lot of live material up, and I'd have to remove a chunk of the root system. I've seen guys going hell for leather with the Makita on live olives (Youtube), but always wonder if the trees actually survive this.

At the end of it, the huge shapeless lump covered in long shoots looks like a huge bag of potential once carved and wired, but I don't want to ruin what is clearly an old tree.

Any advice?

About the roots, hopefully this website will give you some idea:

http://dugzbonsai.com/olivehead1.htm

There's an error reading and I can't post a pic right now. Thanks Ryan. Boy, they CAN take a hell of a beating it seems.

Thanks for that, it solves one ot two of the bulk issues I have with this specimen.

There we go. I can't really find much on the negative effects of life wood carving. Ideally, I'd like to say this in half vertically, or at least at an attractive angle. Once the wood dies off, then try and get it looking like something with carving.