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

Minoan and Mycenaean sherds from the 14 th /13 th centuries in Late Bronze Age contexts.
There is also evidence for copper smelting and trade in ostrich eggs (Vagnetti and Lo
Schiavo 1989: 217; Luce 1998). The site has been reconstructed as a trade entropot
inhabited during the 14 th -12 th centuries B.C., although Hayward (1990: 105) suggests the
site “does not seem to have had any real connection with New Kingdom Egypt- until the
time when a fortress was built at Zawiyat Umm ar Rakham, about 20 km to the west
during the reign of Ramesses II (c. 1279-1213 BC).” Hayward further cites one of the
obelisks erected by Hatshepsut at Karnak, which bears the inscription: “I brought the
goods of Tjehenu (Eastern Libya/Western Egypt), consisting of 700 ivory tusks (which)
were there...numerous panther skins (measuring) 5 cubits along the back (and) belonging
to the southern panther, beside all the (other) goods of this country.” Hayward (1990:
107) then proceeds to suggest the tusks “must have originated further to the west, in
North Western Libya... or, just possibly, south of the Sahara.” How the tusks must have
originated to the west when the panther skins in the same inscription originated from the
south seems questionable. Both the ivory and the panther skins could have been traded
northward from south of the Sahara, as Hayward suggests, but then the inferred “other” in
“other goods of this country” should be removed from her translation. Nevertheless, the
inscription is a tantalizing and exceptional piece of evidence for Late Bronze Age trade of
elephant ivory in Egypt.
The Possibility, and Degree, of Contact Between the Aegean and North Africa
Bass (1997) entertains the possibility of some of the Aegean ivory as coming
from North Africa, noting that ships may have stopped at Marsa Matruh on a counter-
44