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

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Figure 20: Nubians bearing tribute, <strong>from</strong> <strong>the</strong> Tomb <strong>of</strong> Rekhmire at Thebes (<strong>from</strong><br />

Krzyszkowska 1990: frontispiece).<br />

North Africa<br />

As advocated above, ano<strong>the</strong>r source <strong>of</strong> elephant ivory in <strong>the</strong> Late Bronze Age<br />

may have been North Africa. <strong>Elephant</strong>s almost certainly dwelled <strong>the</strong>re, in forests which<br />

were later stripped by human activity, such as Julius Caesar’s rebuilding his fleet <strong>from</strong><br />

timber in <strong>the</strong> (<strong>the</strong>n) heavily forested Sousse region in Tunisia. No trees grow naturally<br />

<strong>the</strong>re today (Blondel and Aronson 1999: 203). Indeed, in <strong>the</strong> second half <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> second<br />

millennium B.C. elephants are reconstructed as living between Morocco in <strong>the</strong> west to<br />

northwestern Libya in <strong>the</strong> east, through Nor<strong>the</strong>rn Algeria and Tunisia, in addition to north<br />

and east <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Sudan (Hayward 1990: 104).<br />

41

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