Ivory and men

The use of ivory dates back to prehistory, where early men hunted the mammoth for flesh and fur. Tusks and bones were used to make tools and occasionally to express themself artistically. Ivory, with its delicate creamy white colour, is known to men for its beauty and special characteristics. Unfortunately, nowadays this precious material is also connected with poaching and illegal trade. Mammoth ivory however, comes from the tusks of woolly mammoths that roamed the earth free and undisturbed for thousands of years until they became extinct some ten thousand years ago. The cause was the sudden climate change at the end of the last ice age. The material has the same properties as elephant ivory. Both can easily be distinguised from each other by checking the typical “schreger-lines”.

The ivory we offer is of mammothtusk origin only. Big pieces often have some part with distinct colouring caused by the humus the material was burried in for thousands of years. This can be from a coffee brown to an even greenish hue. Smaller white pieces that where made from the inner part of big tusks often lack this typical colour. Even these can be distinguished from elefant ivory by looking at the typical “schreger-lines”. The lines seen in mammoth ivory meet at an angle smaller than 90 degrees, whereas the angle typical for elefant ivory extends 110 degrees. In the picture you see the “schreger-lines”in one of the mammoth ivory carvings from our shop.