402 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



Fossil ivory appears to have been known as early as the 

 third century B. C, as Theophrastus writes that the colour 

 of ivory that had been dug up was a mixture of white and 

 black.* In their ignorance of the true nature of these de- 

 posits the ancients took refuge in the explanation that ele- 

 phants sometimes buried the tusks they had lost through 

 old age, accident, or violence. f 



When Firmus of Seleucia, the friend and associate of 

 Queen Zenobia of Palmyra (fl. 270 A. D.), was overcome by 

 Aurelian (c. 212-275 A. D.), the latter secured among other 

 valuables two enormous elephant tusks, each 10 ft. in 

 length. Of these, with the addition of two others, Aurelian 

 proposed to have executed a seat or throne upon which 

 should be placed a golden and jewelled image of Jupiter. 

 This design was probably frustrated by the emperor's death, 

 and we are told that the tusks were eventually given to "a 

 certain lady," who had them worked up into a couch for 

 herself, t 



One of the ninth-century relics in the treasury of the Cathe- 

 dral of Aachen is an entire elephant tusk, rounded off at 

 either end and having a series of longitudinally cut and 

 smoothed surfaces. These are in part adorned with designs 

 of animal forms in low relief. During the Middle Ages it 

 was provided with a gold mounting and ornamented with 

 gems cut en cabochon. Possibly in its original state, before 

 carving, the tusk may have been among the gifts sent by 

 Khalif Haroun-al-Rashid to Emperor Charlemagne. As has 

 been noted, a live elephant was one of the most important 

 and interesting of these gifts. There is also, however, a 

 possibility that the tusk in question may have come from 



*Theophrastus, "De lapidibus," cap. 37. 



fPauly's "Real Encyclopadie des class. Altertumswissenscliaft," Vol. V, Stuttgart, 

 1905, p. 2358; art. Elfenbein. 



JFlavii Vopisci, "Firmus," in Scriptores Historise Romanse, Heidelbergiae, 1743, Vol. 

 TI, p. 421. 



