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

ivory and silver (Odyssey XIX.55) and a bed that Odysseus built and inlaid with gold,
ivory, and silver (Odyssey XXIII.200) (Dodge 1955: 18). There is moreover the speech
by Penelope: “‘Ah my friend,’ seasoned Penelope dissented, ‘dreams are hard to unravel,
wayward, drifting things- not all we glimpse in them will come to pass... Two gates are
there for our evanescent dreams, one is made of ivory, the other made of horn. Those
that pass through the ivory cleanly carved are will-o’-the-wisps, their message bears no
fruit. The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn are fraught with truth, for
the dreamer who can see them’” (Odyssey XIX.630, translated by Fagles 1996). Clearly
ivory is a luxury item in all the above Homeric references, and was therefore probably
only available to the Aegean in restricted quantities.
Aegean ivory is generally found in workshop contexts located in prestigious
places such as palaces (Zakro and Knosses in Crete, Mycenae and Pylos in mainland
Greece), or within sanctuaries, or as grave-goods (Karali-Yannacopoulos 1993: 58). The
most common products of Aegean workshops were combs, plaques and inlays, with
elephant ivory the preferred medium (Krzyszkowska 1993: 26). The earliest (worked)
pieces come from the pre-palatial period (2500-2000 B.C), but do not definitively argue
for workshops in Crete. Ivory seals were found in the communal burials of the period,
and a worked hippopotamus lower canine was excavated from the fill below the West
Court at Knossos (Reese 1998: 142). Hippopotamus ivory has additionally been
discovered in the pre-palatial workshops of Crete, which Krzyszkowska suggests may be
of Egyptian origin (1990: 20).
By the Late Bronze Age the amount and geographical range of Aegean workshop
material dramatically increases, and represent two phases: early 16 th century-early 14 th
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