Flutes
Ivory
200 BC

The ivory used to make these objects came from elephant tusks imported from the Indian subcontinent. Elephants had once lived on the Syrian steppe but had been overhunted and finally died out in about 700 BC. Hippopotamus teeth were also a source of ivory for Syrian craftsmen. The hippopotamus was another animal that at one time lived on Syrian territory, along the Mediterranean coast, but it, too, had been hunted into extinction. Hippopotamus ivory was whiter than that obtained from elephants and was therefore more highly valued. In Syria, the production of ivory objects reached its apex at the beginning of the first millennium BC, when the Aramaeans made splendid ivory inlay for furniture; the disappearance of the elephant from Syrian territory was a consequence of the growth of this craft and the popularity of its luxury product.


Lattakia 3.1 cm/10.5 x 0.3 cm/3.6 x 3.9 cm/11.2 x 1.9 cm
Lattakia Museum
264/246, 263, and 245

_{© Musée de la civilisation, 1999}