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

Chapter 5
Ivory Workshops in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean
In my consideration of the provenance of ivory in the Late Bronze Age
Mediterranean, I have thus far concentrated on the “supply” end of the trade and will now
turn the focus to the “demand” end (I am not using these terms to imply a modern
economic system in the LBA). It was shown that there could be any number of
intermediaries in the trade, from the example of Egypt and the phenomenon of cabotage
trade, before the ivory reached the next stage in the process: the workshop (either
associated with a royal palace or not). The workshop transformed the ivory into a
product with even higher value and/or prestige, and consequently the workshop
represents a transformative stage in the trade, whereby the luxury items could be shipped
elsewhere or retained close at hand.
The archaeological evidence from the Aegean has not been considered until now
because the Aegean had no local sources of ivory and therefore had to procure the
precious material through maritime trade. The archaeological evidence from the Aegean
is, moreover, abundant and includes remarkable examples of workshops. Cyprus, Syria,
Anatolia, and Palestine additionally possessed workshops. Overall the eastern
Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age saw the “resurgence and apogee of ivory working”
as a widespread and decidedly international phenomenon, embodied by the 14 th to 13 th
century Ras Shamra and 13 th century Tell Fakhariyah ivories in Syria, the 14 th to 13 th
century Middle Assyrian ivories in northern Mesopotamia, and the Aegean, Egyptian,
and Palestine workshops (Liebowitz 1987: 20). In any discussion of workshops stylistic
considerations are sometimes brought to the fore in order to demonstrate distinct
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