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

Ivory Workshops in Palestine
The Palestinian ivory-carving tradition thrived in the Late Bronze Age in spite of
continuous subjugation of the city-states to the Egyptians, Mitanni, and Hittites. The
small kingdoms were able to maintain their importance and wealth by playing one great
power against another and by establishing their usefulness as international emporia.
While Canaanite art may have its stylistic origins in Egyptian carving styles, by the 14 th
and 13 th centuries the region had developed a unique style of its own, albeit still retaining
some “Egyptianizing” influences (Kantor 1956: 160). Most of the ivories from Palestine
are from the second half of the LBA, as carved ivory more or less replaces bone in LB II
as a luxury item (Liebowitz 1987: 3-4). There is, however, no concrete evidence for
Palestinian ivory workshops, in that no evidence for workshops in the archaeological
record of Palestine exists. Only the finished products were recovered. Megiddo has
yielded the most notable examples of LBA ivories in Palestine, and other sites possessing
worked ivory include Lachish (Fosse Temple III), Tel Far‘ah, Ebla, Pella, Kamid el-Loz,
Lachish, Nahal Sorek (el-Jisr), Ekron, Tell el-‘Ajul (Gaza), Shiqmona, and Beth Shan
(Liebowitz 1980 and 1987; Lilyquist 1998: 26-28; Potts 1987: 59-71; Reese 1998: 141-
142). Of these, worked hippopotamus lower canines were recovered from LB I Tell el-
‘Ajul (fragment of a clapper/wand), Shiqmona (a 14 th century LB II hand and Hathor-
headed clapper/wand), another Hathor-headed clapper/wand from Beth Shan at the Great
Court of the Temple of Amenophis III (1411-1314 BC), and Megiddo (a LB I wand)
(Reese 1998: 141-142). In fact at least ten of the worked ivories from Megiddo were
fashioned from hippopotamus canines or incisors.
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