Tracing the Road of Elephant Ivory at the End of Late Antiquity – Archaeometric Analysis of Ivory Artefacts from the 6th–7th-Century Carpathian Basin

Bajnóczi, Bernadett and Koncz, István and Bollók, Ádám (2023) Tracing the Road of Elephant Ivory at the End of Late Antiquity – Archaeometric Analysis of Ivory Artefacts from the 6th–7th-Century Carpathian Basin. ACTA ARCHAEOLOGICA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE, 74 (2). pp. 399-414. ISSN 0001-5210 (print); 1588-2551 (online)

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Abstract

Elephant ivory, a prestigious and valuable raw material in the post-Roman West and Byzantium between the 5th and 7th centuries AD, may originate from various sources. While both written and art historical evidence suggests that in the case of early medieval artefacts, African provenance is more likely than Asian, no data at hand is conclusive. The present paper investigates, with the help of FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, carbon and nitrogen concentration and nitrogen isotope (δ 15 N) analyses, the material resources of elephant ivory artefacts discovered in 6th- and 7th-century AD archaeological context in the Carpathian Basin to contribute to our understanding of late antique long-distance trade networks and economic relations.

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