Ivory carving

Ivory carvings are decorative carvings made from ivory, a natural material produced by certain mammals, such as elephants and walruses. When properly carved and polished, ivory is smooth, white, and shiny. Many artists consider ivory a visually pleasing medium. For this reason, the material has been used for various types of carvings since the Stone Age.

Archaeologists study ivory carvings to gain insight into extinct cultures. Many ivory carvings feature religious scenes, which provide modern experts with an understanding of how people of the past worshiped. Even some tools, such as utensils and parts of weapons, were carved in ivory.

However, the hunting of animals for ivory has endangered elephants. For this reason, the sale of ivory and ivory carvings is banned throughout much of the world. Despite this, a black market for ivory thrives in many nations. Poachers often kill endangered elephants to harvest their tusks for illegal sale. This has caused some nations to obtain armed guards to protect their remaining elephant populations.

Background

Ivory carving has been practiced since the Stone Age. Prehistoric crafters used the tusks of mammoths and other large, ivory-producing mammals to create tools or art. Many prehistoric crafters created sculptures of people, animals, or religious scenes. Archaeologists have discovered many ivory sculptures of women believed to be fertility goddesses.

Historians believe that much of this ivory was not created by local artisans. Instead, it matches up with a style of sculpting found in Mesopotamia and other lands. For this reason, experts think that an ivory trade slowly came to exist during this period.

Ancient Egyptians carved ivory harvested from the tusks of elephants and hippopotamuses. They created statuettes of their rulers, jewelry, and eating utensils. Egyptians also used ivory inlays on larger, more traditional sculptures. The Ancient Greeks used ivory in larger sculptures as well to create pale flesh and eyes while using other materials for clothing and objects. The Romans emulated the Greeks, and though they failed to advance the art of ivory carving, they did begin to mass produce it.

Anglo-Saxon artists further developed ivory carving. During this era, ivory was used primarily in the creation of large statues. However, many artisans worked with ivory, metal, and bone to create intricate and detailed imagery. Because the ancient Anglo-Saxons had no natural source of ivory, they imported the material. Most of their sculptures were made from whale ivory and walrus tusks.

After the decline of Anglo-Saxon power, walrus tusks remained an incredibly popular source of ivory. Some artisans would carve scenes directly onto the tusk itself. Others would rework tusks into other shapes, creating a variety of objects, such as ivory book covers and crucifixes.

Renaissance-era artists greatly advanced the field of sculpting. While cheap wood became the chosen medium for most small sculptures, many masters still preferred to work in ivory. At the time, ivory was an expensive medium to work in and was not suitable for novice artists. For this reason, ivory's popularity as a medium began to wane. It dropped off heavily after the seventeenth century and never fully recovered.

Overview

Archaeologists can learn a great deal about past societies by studying ivory carvings. Well-maintained ivory does not corrode easily, so it provides brief insight into the lives of people from extinct civilizations. Ivory tools tell archaeologists about the common problems ancient peoples faced, while ivory weapons can tell them how physical conflicts were fought. Ivory jewelry helps experts better understand the fashions of certain eras and the statuses of individuals, and religious reliefs can provide information about the spiritual beliefs of various cultures.

Ivory carving was a simple but difficult process. First, artisans had to strip away the outer layer of the tusk or tooth. The outer layer of raw ivory was simply too dry to be used for artistic purposes. Artisans used specialized axes, chisels, and adzes for this task. They had to be careful not to cut too deeply because the innermost layers of the ivory were also unusable. The innermost layer, called the pulp cavity, was too soft for traditional carving.

Once the surface of the ivory was cleaned, stripped, and prepared, the tusk needed to be trimmed. Artisans would often cut a large tusk into many smaller chunks, allowing them to create many carvings or to reassemble the ivory pieces how they pleased.

After the ivory was cut and shaped appropriately, the carving process could begin. Sculpting ivory was very similar to sculpting in other mediums. Artisans took a hand chisel, gauge, and saw to the piece. They first carved out the general shape, then used smaller tools to work in details. Finally, the piece could be polished and smoothed.

Carving ivory by hand is a long and difficult process. It takes significant time to carve, saw, and polish a properly prepared piece of ivory. However, this changed in the twentieth century with the introduction of power tools. Suddenly, handheld drills, saws, and carvers could gouge designs into tusks with little to no physical effort on the part of the artist. Power tools drastically reduced the time and skill required to produce basic ivory sculptures and still allowed for a great degree of precision when carving.

The trade of ivory carvings has a long and controversial history with environmentalists and animal rights advocates. As ivory became more valuable, many of the animals that produced ivory were overhunted. Elephants in particular were commonly hunted for their ivory tusks. Elephants are long-lived animals that reproduce slowly, so constant hunting quickly reduces even large populations. In two centuries, the population of African elephants dropped from twenty-six million to fewer than one million. For this reason, the trade of ivory has been made illegal in many areas. Similarly, hunting elephants for their tusks had been made illegal. Despite this ban, poachers routinely kill elephants to sell their tusks on the black market. Many elephant sanctuaries have resorted to hiring armed guards to protect the few remaining elephant populations from poachers. Some nations, like the Democratic Republic of Congo, have even hired former members of the national military to fight poachers. Organizations interested in stopping the hunting of elephants for their ivory have focused efforts on education, alternative job creation for those resorting to poaching, and influencing those who buy ivory to stop.

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