Tracing the Source of the Elephant And Hippopotamus Ivory from ...

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Ultimately a successful provenancing of the ivory will reveal much more than the mere source. Every last bit of information which will be culled from the cargo of the Uluburun shipwreck offers a rare chance to illuminate the mechanisms of Late Bronze Age trade, hitherto poorly understood except in broad assignments of “royal” versus “merchant” initiatives, and “Canaanite” versus “Mycenaean” agents. The reality is much more complicated, and research has been limited so far, not in effort but by the paucity of information, in reconstructions of Late Bronze Age trade in the eastern Mediterranean. At the outset, however, I think it is important to stress that there are several things the present study is not trying to do. It is not trying to reconstruct with startling clarity the mechanisms of LBA maritime trade in the eastern Mediterranean on the basis of an admittedly small data set of ivory fragments. Nor is it advocating that external stimuli, such as trade, are the prime mover of cultural change and as such should be paid a great deal of attention. Instead this investigation is trying to establish, in a pilot study, whether it is feasible or even possible to use isotope ratio analyses to provenance ivory from archaeological contexts. It is trying to give a wholly contextual investigation of the Uluburun ivories, and in doing so emphasizes the necessity of placing the archaeometric analysis of the ivories within the context of the archaeology itself. How does the sourcing of ivory contribute to the broader picture and say something about the culture history of the eastern Mediterranean? What theoretical questions are being asked about LBA trade and how could an analysis of the Uluburun ivories possibly add to this discussion? Moreover, in the process of contextualizing archaeometric data, the symbolic and ideological concepts of ivory must be emphasized. What did ivory mean to people in the LBA, especially when they traded it? Just as the material itself lends the 3
possibility of sophisticated scientific analyses on account of isotopes embedded within its composition, so also does the material argue for a unique perspective on LBA trade as it is embedded within an ideology of luxury, gift-exchange, internationalism and political entente. Because the present investigation is, at its foundation, approached from a materials perspective, the morphological characteristics of ivory must be considered first, and will be covered in Chapter Two. The archaeological, historical, and osteological evidence for the sources of hippopotamus and elephant ivory in the eastern Mediterranean are then presented in Chapters Three and Four, respectively, so as to establish the geographical parameters of the isotopic ratio analyses. The results of these analyses will ultimately be incorporated into the larger picture of the mechanisms of Late Bronze Age trade. Since one of the principal stages in the ivory trade (and the hallmark of a palace economy) was the conversion of the raw material into even more valuable prestige objects, the ivory workshops within the eastern Mediterranean are the topic of Chapter Five. I will then switch gears into an explanation of the scientific analyses behind this study. A general overview of the principles of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and strontium isotopic analysis is given in Chapter Six, followed by a discussion of the ecological and dietary requirements of the hippopotamus and elephant (Chapters Seven and Eight), as knowledge of these are necessary for interpretation of the results. Further, past isotopic research on modern populations of elephants and hippopotami are reviewed in Chapter Nine. The published geological literature for the source regions of ivory are likewise considered in Chapter Ten for strontium isotope ratio data of the underlying bedrock. The laboratory and analytical procedures (Chapter Eleven) including a brief 4
Page 1 and 2: Tracing the Source of the Elephant
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents List of Tables iv
Page 5 and 6: Mechanisms of Late Bronze Age trade
Page 7 and 8: List of Figures Figure 1. Morpholog
Page 9 and 10: Figure 35. Average δ 13 C values o
Page 11 and 12: Figure 69. KW 2557 (Hippopotamus tu
Page 13 and 14: “merchants” to a larger degree
Page 15: skeletal part to verify the presenc
Page 19 and 20: B.C. and resumed Egyptian campaigni
Page 21 and 22: urbanization at centers such as Enk
Page 23 and 24: incisors”) of the elephant. Each
Page 25 and 26: Dentine in elephant tusks is essent
Page 27 and 28: perpendicular to the tubules....[co
Page 29 and 30: Figure 3 : The incisors and canines
Page 31 and 32: for the elephant, is where the dent
Page 33 and 34: Chapter 3 The Archaeological, Histo
Page 35 and 36: pastoralism. Today most of the hipp
Page 37 and 38: emains in the Syro-Palestinian regi
Page 39 and 40: near Beersheba. An EB I lower right
Page 41 and 42: Figure 13: The distribution of Midd
Page 43 and 44: Figure 14: 18 th Dynasty Egyptian t
Page 45 and 46: Chapter 4 The Archaeological, Histo
Page 47 and 48: Figure 16: Present distribution of
Page 49 and 50: Maghreb was inaccessible or nonexis
Page 51 and 52: flooding and dense human population
Page 53 and 54: BCE), mentions imports of approxima
Page 55 and 56: The degree of contact between the L
Page 57 and 58: Minoan and Mycenaean sherds from th
Page 59 and 60: are lacking in North Africa, but th
Page 61 and 62: Part II: The Syrian Elephant Turnin
Page 63 and 64: Figure 22: Location of Ghab Valley
Page 65 and 66: elephants show a lower preference f
Page 67 and 68:
similar to those of the African ele
Page 69 and 70:
Chapter 5 Ivory Workshops in the La
Page 71 and 72:
of the waste pieces may be reused f
Page 73 and 74:
ivory and silver (Odyssey XIX.55) a
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century B.C. (LH I-LH IIIB), but th
Page 77 and 78:
ivory from a burnt deposit in Thebe
Page 79 and 80:
Tell Fakhariyah has only yielded ex
Page 81 and 82:
Figure 28: Comparison of utilizatio
Page 83 and 84:
Much of the discussion about Palest
Page 85 and 86:
(Lilyquist 1998: 27; Gachet 1993: 7
Page 87 and 88:
argues that for both of the types
Page 89 and 90:
The End of Ivory-working in the LBA
Page 91 and 92:
study residence and mobility. Katze
Page 93 and 94:
feeding on the plant (Sukumar and R
Page 95 and 96:
4‰ lower than those of marine pla
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Studies which have focused on evalu
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sediments in one area had isotopic
Page 101 and 102:
local environment, and thus answer
Page 103 and 104:
Figure 32: Sr concentrations plotte
Page 105 and 106:
Figure 34: 87 Sr/ 86 Sr vs. age of
Page 107 and 108:
Chapter 7 Ecological and Dietary Re
Page 109 and 110:
wide, straight lips of the hippo en
Page 111 and 112:
unlikely that many were actually ea
Page 113 and 114:
proportion of C3 to C4 vegetation i
Page 115 and 116:
diet as interpreted from the stable
Page 117 and 118:
had larger ranges than those elepha
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Tchamba and Seme (1993) likewise re
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fact adapted to the desert, and thi
Page 123 and 124:
Table 2: δ 13 C values and % C4 fr
Page 125 and 126:
Figure 35: Average δ 13 C values o
Page 127 and 128:
Table 4: Percentage of C3 plants in
Page 129 and 130:
Table 5: Isotope values for Ambosel
Page 131 and 132:
Figure 39: “Carbon and nitrogen i
Page 133 and 134:
Table 6 (continued) 120
Page 135 and 136:
Figure 41: δ 13 C versus δ 15 N f
Page 137 and 138:
Figure 43: δ 13 C versus δ 15 N f
Page 139 and 140:
Figure 44: δ 13 C versus 87 Sr/ 86
Page 141 and 142:
In conclusion, isotopic analysis ha
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(Ugarit/Ras Shamra). Only two studi
Page 145 and 146:
fault and is filled with flood-basa
Page 147 and 148:
Figure 49: Geologic and fault map o
Page 149 and 150:
The Negev Desert in Southern Israel
Page 151 and 152:
The Eastern Mediterranean and the N
Page 153 and 154:
and water and sediment from the Nil
Page 155 and 156:
Figure 55: Contour diagrams for the
Page 157 and 158:
Figure 56: The Sr isotope ratios in
Page 159 and 160:
Figure 58: Schematic diagram along
Page 161 and 162:
strontium data from Betton and Cive
Page 163 and 164:
These flood basalts have 87 Sr/ 86
Page 165 and 166:
Figure 63: Map of the Libyan Desert
Page 167 and 168:
Table 7: Isotopic data of high-grad
Page 169 and 170:
Chapter 11 Analytical Procedures, S
Page 171 and 172:
Table 9: Collagen samples for analy
Page 173 and 174:
USF # Museum Catalog # Table 10: Ap
Page 175 and 176:
Figure 66: KW 1182 (Hippopotamus tu
Page 177 and 178:
Figure 70: KW 3842 (Elephant ivory)
Page 179 and 180:
Chapter 12 Results and Discussion R
Page 181 and 182:
d18O (apatite, per mil) 3 2 1 0 -1
Page 183 and 184:
and hippopotami are grazers. To com
Page 185 and 186:
fetched (with the Nile ≈ +2‰).
Page 187 and 188:
opposed to the 2-3 mg required for
Page 189 and 190:
international environment. The LBA
Page 191 and 192:
ecause they were subject to taxatio
Page 193 and 194:
were other ruling elites (Ratnagar
Page 195 and 196:
scientific archaeometric angle and
Page 197 and 198:
Chapter 13 Conclusion and Suggestio
Page 199 and 200:
compare, the more unique the region
Page 201 and 202:
Aufderheide, A.C., Neiman, F.D., Wi
Page 203 and 204:
Caubet, A., and Poplin, F. 1993. La
Page 205 and 206:
Finley, M.I. 1981. Mycenaean palace
Page 207 and 208:
Horn, P., and Müller-Sohnius, D.,
Page 209 and 210:
Liebowitz, H. 1987. Late Bronze II
Page 211 and 212:
Price, T.D., Grupe, G., and Schröt
Page 213 and 214:
Sherratt, A., and Sherratt, S. 1991
Page 215 and 216:
van der Merwe, N. J., Lee-Thorp, J.
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