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

Chapter 3
The Archaeological, Historical, and Osteological Evidence for the Provenance of
Hippopotamus Ivory in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean
The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) was utilized for ivory as much as
the elephant, perhaps even more so in some times and places. Moreover, much of the
ivory visually identified offhand as elephant could very well be hippopotamus ivory. The
raw ivory cargo of the Uluburun ship supports this hypothesis, as the majority of the raw
ivory is in fact hippopotamus ivory. Unfortunately not as much is known about the
hippopotamus ivory trade as the elephant ivory trade, but the more specific diet and
ecological requirements of the hippo narrows the geographical areas capable of
supporting a trade in hippopotamus ivory. In Egypt the hippopotamus was the
embodiment of one of the gods in the pantheon, and the word hippopotamus comes from
the Greek for “river horse.” The average height and weight of the hippopotamus is 140-
160 cm and 1100-2600 kg, respectively, and the animal has a life-span of approximately
40 years (Grubb 1993: 41; Eltringham 1999: 5).
Present Distribution
The hippopotamus once inhabited a much broader geographical area than it does
today. Eltringham (1993; 1999) provides the two maps below which outline the
approximate distribution of the hippopotamus today (Figure 7), and circa 1959 (Figure 8),
the latter of which utilized data provided by J. Sidney (1965). Immediately apparent is
the drastic reduction in the area where hippos dwell, and presumably a drastic reduction
in their numbers. This is perhaps a modern phenomenon, but could be a process which
has been going on since humans began to appropriate land for agriculture and
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