Lecture by Olga Krzyszkowska

Great centres of ivory carving often develop far from sources of the raw material, though the underlying reasons are usually obscure. This is certainly true for the prehistoric Aegean, where wide-ranging artistic, social and symbolic issues arise. Nevertheless important insights are gained by establishing the kinds of ivory (i.e. elephant or hippopotamus) employed by Aegean workshops, the advantages and drawbacks of the tusks in question, and diachronic variations. Potential sources of ivory are deduced from the presumed distribution of the species in antiquity. But charting the use of ivory in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean is equally crucial, since (relative) proximity to sources and availability of raw materials does not necessarily lead to their exploitation. Questions regarding the control of these resources also need to be addressed. For instance hippopotamus ivory, widely used from Predynastic times through the Middle Kingdom, was a useful by-product of killing animals that were damaging to crops and dangerous to humans; there is no evidence to suggest any centralized control of supplies. By contrast, elephant ivory, which reached Egypt from southern lands from the Old Kingdom onwards, apparently fell under direct pharaonic control; only in the New Kingdom did this material become common. Another potential source was the elephant of western Asia, seemingly not exploited systematically until the mid-second millennium. Tutmosis III reportedly killed 120 beasts for their ivory in the Land of Niya (perhaps the Orontes Valley); a captive elephant is depicted in the tomb of his vizier, Rekhmire. Another scene (surprisingly) shows one of the Keftiu from the ‘Great Green’ bearing a tusk as tribute. Yet exotic commodities – the stuff of princely gift exchange – could always be ‘recycled’, whether initially obtained through conventional modes of exchange or acquired as booty, perhaps gaining preciosity in the process. By the Late Bronze Age elephant ivory was clearly the ‘material of choice’ in Egypt, Syro-Palestine and the Aegean, since it permitted large carvings in the round, and offered flat blanks ideal for relief carvings. However, aside from Egypt, small populations of hippopotamus also existed in Syria (e.g. Amuq and Orontes Valley). This may well have been the source of the 20 hippopotamus tusks recovered from the Uluburun wreck. And hippopotamus ivory – dense and gleaming white – was widely used the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean until the end of the Bronze Age.