Ivory: Did you mean...?

European colonising powers sought to exploit Africa's resources from the 15th century onwards. Arab traders had been doing the same in North Africa and East Africa through the Middle Ages, but it was from the 17th century that European traders...

A late-19th-century photograph of an ivory trading station (factory) in French Congo. Private Collection.

This ivory plaque depicts six Assyrian worshippers in procession in six vertical rectangles. Note the details of their dresses. The men are bare-chested and wear kilts while the women wear a full dress. Both genders wear an impressive belt...

This object is an ivory furniture inlay depicting a striding sphinx. It was excavated from Samaria and dates to the Iron Age II (9th–8th century BCE). It has a length of 7.5 cm and a width of 7 cm. (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem) ©The Israel...

The 6 ivory panels, set within a plane framework, would originally have been mounted on the concave inner surface of a curved wooden support. By analogy with a similar curved back rest from Salamis in Cyprus, it seems likely that this piece...

A Greek ivory pyxis depicting griffins attacking stags. 15th Century BCE. (Agora Museum, Athens)

An ivory statuette of Apollo Lykeios, 3rd Century BCE. The statuette was restored after being found in 200 pieces at the bottom of a well. (Agora Museum, Athens)

Ivory head of a lion, part of the so-called "Nimrud Ivories" that decorated chariots, high-status furniture, and horse trappings. They were covered with thin gold leaf or ornamented with semiprecious stones. From Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) northern...

Stools were the most common pieces of furniture used in ancient Egypt. This ivory leg was probably attached to a frame by means of a leather thong lashed through the holes. From its cylinder shape, it was likely to have been the front leg...

These three frontlets were found inside Well AJ at the North-West Palace at Nimrud (in modern-day Nineveh Governorate, Iraq). They are part of the so-called "Classical Phoenician" hinged frontlets of Group 2. The middle frontlet depicts...