Ivory trade

The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, black and white rhinos, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants. Ivory has been traded for hundreds of years by people in Africa and Asia, resulting in restrictions and bans. Ivory was formerly used to make piano keys and other decorative items because of the white color it presents when processed but the piano industry abandoned ivory as a key covering material in the 1980s in favor of other materials such as plastic. Also, synthetic ivory has been developed which can be used as an alternative material for making piano keys.

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 * An elephant tusk from level IIA at Mehrgarh in Pakistan, c.5500 BC, grooved by artisans, is the earliest evidence for the working of an Asian elephant's tusks.
 * Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. page 116, citing (Jarrige 1984:24). 1984 'Chronology of the Earlier Periods of the Greater lndus as seen from Mehrgarh, Pakistan', in Allchin (cd.) 1984, 21·-8. Quoted in


 * A seal and a gaming piece of elephant ivory from Mundigak (III) in Afghanistan, c.3000 BC, are the earliest ivory artefacts so far discovered outside India.
 * Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994., page 116, citing (Jarrige and Tosi 1981:39) JARRIGE, J . .I., and TOSI, M. 1981 'The Natural Resources of Mundigak', in Hartel (cel.) 1981, 115-42..Quoted in


 * At this time (c. 2150-2000 BC) ivory from Meluḥḥa is mentioned only in connection with ivory bird figurines. Otherwise, in the body of texts from Ur dating to about 2000 BC ivory is attributed to Dilmun (Bahrain), where it had presumably been shipped up the Gulf from the Indus, where ivory was plentiful on the sites of the Harappan period, both as tusks and as objects.
 * Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. p 118. Quoted in


 * It is probable that at the time when south Mesopotamia was in contact with the Indus by sea, directly or indirectly, from the middle of the third millennium BC to about 1700 BC, ivory was regularly traded.
 * Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. p 118.

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 * By the late Early Dynastic era, as references to ivory figurines in the pre-Sargonic texts from Lagash attest, ivory objects had begun to reach southern Mesopotamia. While these, in theory, could have come from either Africa or the Indus region, it is generally believed that the ivory was of Indian origin for the earliest representation of an elephant in Mesopotamia, ... is definitely of the Indian as opposed to the African country. Third millennium representations of elephants in Mesopotamia are, however, extremely rare and aside from the Tell Asmar seal just mentioned none of the other elephants can be taken as confirmed [… but ...] ivory was certainly reaching the area.
 * About ivory in Early post-2500 BCE. Mesopotamian Civilization - The Material Foundations. Potts, D.T. The Athlone Press (Athlone Publications in Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies), London, 1997. page 260 Quoted in


 * A text from the time of Gudea and Ur-Baba, which is a list of items dedicated to a temple preserves the earliest attestation of ivory (zu-am-si) arriving in Mesopotamia in raw form, listing two pieces of ivory by length and thickness. The evidence of ivory import continues to grow during the succeeding Ur III period. Most of our information comes from Ur, at this time the main gateway for goods entering the region from the south and east [….] in contrast to the pre-Sargonic texts mentioning the import of finished goods in ivory, the craftsmen of Ur were in receipt of sizable quantities of raw ivory, which they then fashioned themselves into objects.
 * About ivory in Late pre-2000 BCE: Mesopotamian Civilization - The Material Foundations. Potts, D.T. The Athlone Press (Athlone Publications in Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies), London, 1997. pp 260-1  Quoted in

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 * Ivory objects from the Iberian peninsula dated from the Chalcolithic at about 3000 BC [....] brought in by sea" [excavated from the metropolis of Los Millares in the south-east of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea] "revealed a majority of Asian ivory (Elephas maximus)", [but African ivory is not found here] "before the Early Bronze Age (end of the third and first half of the second millennium BC)" ... Whereas in Portugal are found a majority of African savannah elephant in the early chalcolithic, in south-eastern Spain on the contrary we cannot identify this type of ivory before the Early Bronze Age (end of the third and first half of the second millennium BC). So the analysis of ivory from various tombs from the metropolis of Los Millares revealed a majority of Asian ivory (Elephas maximus). The situation in south-western Atlantic Spain, on the other hand, coincides with the one in Portugal, where African savannah elephant ivory can be found in the Early Chalcolithic. This speaks for the existence of an Atlantic route of contact and exchange for the western part of the Iberian Peninsula already in the first half of the third millennium BC.
 * Sourcing African Ivory in Chalcolithic Portugal. Schuhmacher Thomas X., João Luís Cardoso, Arun Banerjee, in ANTIQUITY (Journal) 83 (322) 983-997, Cambridge University Press, 2009. pp. 983 ff   Quoted in