IVORY (שֵׁנ֒, H9094, tooth, possibly from the tooth of an elephant; Gr., ἐλεφάντινος, G1804, ivory). Material which forms the tusks of elephants.

Ivory was a form of wealth in ancient times. Ivory tusks were brought to Tyre, a trading nation, for her abundant goods (Ezek 27:15). In Revelation 18:12, 13, “articles of ivory” is an item listed with other numerous products of great value in trade and commerce. The material was secured from a breed of Indian elephants in the upper Euphrates, where there were large herds in the second millennium b.c. There are Assyrian accounts of elephant hunts with many slain in that period. They became extinct there about the 8th cent. b.c. Ivory was also obtained from India by ocean-going ships; and from Africa-Rhodes or Dedan (KJV) doubtless referring to that traffic passing through (Ezek 27:15). In Solomon’s time his “ships of Tarshish” brought in ivory with gold and silver (1 Kings 10:22). The fact that they came every three years shows how far ranging they were, prob. reaching India. Excavations at Alalakh in Syria turned up large ivory tusks. Egyptian and Assyrian art shows tusks as trophies of war.

In the Bible we learn that there were ivory beds (Amos 6:4) and houses (1 Kings 22:39, King Ahab’s; Ps 45:8; Amos 3:15); and Solomon’s throne was of ivory overlaid with gold (1 Kings 10:18; 2 Chron 9:17). The Phoenicians may have decorated their ships with it, for Tyre is said metaphorically to be a ship with ivory inlaid decks (Ezek 27:6). Qualities of the body are likened to ivory in Song of Solomon 5:14; 7:4 the product being suitable to represent flesh. We learn from extra-Biblical sources that ivory was used in making figurines, spoons, flasks, gaming boards, combs, boxes, and articles of furniture such as chairs and beds in which there was doubtless much inlay work. There were guilds of ivory workers in Phoenicia who supplied products for export to middle eastern lands and prob. beyond. Conquerors have listed objects of ivory in booty taken from Pal. as did Sennacherib who listed in the tribute paid him by Hezekiah in 701 b.c. “couches (inlaid) with ivory” (ANET 288). Extraordinary stores of ivory have been found at Ras Shamra and Megiddo, a hoard of 383 pieces of carved work from the latter alone in 1932, ascribed to 1350-1150 b.c. Thus, whether as raw material or in the form of finished products ivory was of considerable value in the commerce of the ancient world.

Bibliography J. W. and G. M. Crowfoot, Early Ivories from Samaria (1938); G. Loud, The Meqiddo Ivories (1939); R. D. Barnett, “Phoenicia and the Ivory Trade,” Archaeology, IX (1956), 87-97.