14 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



carver has given these latter a curved shape, as though 

 they were swimming through water, they were pierced from 

 end to end for suspension as charms or amulets. A stag 

 browsing off the foliage of a tree was the best specimen dis- 

 covered of the ancient Sumerian work.* An example of 

 ivory inlaying was offered by the fragments of a vase on 

 which the artist had depicted a royal procession, in which 

 were musicians bearing seven-stringed harps. Here the 

 skirts of the figures had consisted of ivory inlays, one of 

 which was still in place, the hollowed surfaces indicating 

 where the other similar inlays had been set.f 



The sovereigns of Israel from Solomon's time indulged in 

 the luxury of ivory ornaments for their palaces, and to Solo- 

 mon himseK is attributed the possession of a splendid ivory 

 and gold throne with six steps, each step flanked on either 

 side by the figure of a lion, while two lions were placed one 

 at the right and the other at the left of the seat. The work 

 was probably executed by Phoenician artists, and with ma- 

 terial brought from Egypt by way of Tyre. About three 

 centuries later than the time of Solomon we find recorded in 

 the annals of Sennacherib, in the year 701 B. C, that Heze- 

 kiah. King of Judah, gave "ivory couches, and ivory thrones 

 (or seats) " as part of his tribute to the Assyrian.^! In the 

 sixth century B. C, during the Babylonian Captivity, the 

 prophet Ezekiel writes of horns of ivory (lit. "horns of 

 teeth" .f*) as articles brought into the great mart of Tyre. 

 In one of the Tel-el- Amarna letters, dating from the four- 



*Edgar James Banks, "Bismaya, or the Lost City of Adab," New York and London, 

 1912, p. 272. 



fOp. cit., p. 268; several of these ivories are figured on p. 274, and one on p. 273. 



JRobert William Rogers, " Liscriptions of Sennacherib," in Records of the Past, New 

 Series, Vol. VI, pp. 80-101; London, 1892; Column III, Line 36 of inscription known as 

 the Taylor Cylinder, or Prism. See also Bezold, "Die Prisma Inschrift des sog. Taylor 

 Cylinders"; Keilinscriftliche Bibliothek, Vol. II, Berlin, 1890, p. 97. The Assyrian name 

 for ivory is shinni piri (elephants' teeth), and elephants are mentioned in Shalmanassar 

 II's Nineveh Obelisk as tribute from the land of Musri. 



