Annie Caubet, “The Art of Ivory in the Ancient World. From the origins to Islam”

Annie Caubet
French archaeologist and museum curator Annie Caubet is currently a professor at the Ecole du Louvre and on the board of the Shelby White Leon Levy Publication Programme at Harvard. She was head of Department of Ancient Near East, Louvre museum 1988-2006. Her expertise and extensive field work in Syria, Cyprus and other Near Eastern sites has led to the curation of many exhibitions (including a future exhibition for The al-Sabah Collection in the Kuwait National Museum) and the publication of numerous books.

The Art of Ivory in the Ancient World. From the origins to Islam
For more than 10,000 years, ivory was an important media for craftsmen and artisans in the ancient world. This lecture will concentrate on the use of ivory from the Paleolithic period, to which approximately 30,000 ivory masterpieces have been credited, to Al Andalus in Spain and Morocco in the 800 – 900 CE. Ivory comes from the tusks of various animal species, the best known being the elephant. Tusk from mammoth, hippopotamus, walrus and even dugong from the Persian Gulf, have been made into works of art. The anatomy of ivory and techniques for working it will be presented. The distribution and habitats of sources will also be discussed. Finally, the lecture will close with a brief survey of ivory applications in the ancient world and the ecological impact today.