IvoryAlthough very few ivory objects have been excavated on archaeological sites in Mesopo-
tamia, their presence – probably always as rarities and luxuries – is confirmed by a
small but important number of cuneiform texts which refer to figurines, combs, rings
and other unidentified items as well as raw (i.e. uncarved) ivory. Theoretically the
ivory used in Mesopotamia could have been from the tusks of either African or Indian
elephants but the marked absence of evidence for close ties between Mesopotamia
and Egypt (or the Horn of Africa), prior to the Kassite period,^5 combined with the
far more compelling evidence of contact with the Harappan civilization during the
late third and early second millennia BC, suggests that the ivory known to the
Mesopotamians of the earlier periods was Indian in origin.
Ivory figurines were already being imported to Lagash during the late Early Dynastic
period (c. 2400 BC) and in the reign of Gudea, governor of Lagash around 2100 BC,
raw ivory made its first appearance. Slightly later texts from the time of the Third
Dynasty of Ur ( 2100 – 2000 BC) refer to the import of about 10. 58 kg of unworked
ivory, and to an ivory object (unfortunately unidentifiable because of damage on the
tablet to the name of the item) weighing about 19 kg, which may, in fact, have been
a complete tusk (Heimpel 1987 : 55 ). Mesopotamian woodworkers (carpenters, cabinet
makers, makers of musical instruments) used ivory for inlaid decoration in a variety
of settings, and carvers of figurines and statuettes fashioned objects such as goats and
‘Meluhha birds’ (During Caspers 1990 ). Ivory objects also appear in the dowry of a
Marduk priestess at Babylon during the Old Babylonian period (Dalley 1980 : 66 ),
but it is unlikely that ivory was widely available in Babylonia outside of elite circles.
Very few ivory objects from this period have been recovered in excavation, though a
small number of pieces were recovered at Babylon in a sixth-century context (Moorey
1994 : 121 , 125 ). Certainly Babylonia never seems to have had access to nearly as
much ivory as the Assyrians were able to acquire as tribute or the Persians were able
to extract from their African and Asian satrapies.
Shell, mother-of-pearl and tortoise shellA variety of shells coming from the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the western
Indian Ocean were used in Mesopotamia for the manufacture of jewellery, cylinder
seals and inlays (like ivory, on furniture and musical instruments, including the
famous lyres found in the Royal Cemetery of Ur). Shell lamps made of Lambis truncata
sebae, a large gastropod common along the coasts of Oman, have been excavated at
Tello and Ur, while large cylinder seals made of Turbinella pyrum, a gastropod found
on the coasts of India and Pakistan, were found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur
(Gensheimer 1984 ). Many more molluscan species common in the Indo-Pacific region
(Engina mendicaria, Oliva bulbosa, Strombus decorus persicus, Conus ebraeus, Dentaliumsp.,
Pinctada margaritifera, Chicoreus ramosus) have been found on sites in Mesopotamia and
are likely to reflect trade either with the peoples of the Persian Gulf littoral (Dilmun,
Magan and the Iranian side of the coast) or the Indus Valley (Meluhha).
In addition, tortoise shell also appears in the cuneiform record (Leemans 1960 :
25 ). On analogy with sites in eastern Arabia, this is likely to have derived from the
carapace of the green sea-turtle (Chelonia mydas) although the Mesopotamian sources
are very unspecific (Farber 1974 ; Frazier 2003 ).
— D. T. Potts —