Ivories and Steatites

Objects carved from elephant ivory and steatite (soapstone) have been identified with Byzantine culture from Late Antiquity to the Late Byzantine period. Mainly relief icons, and ceremonial and liturgical objects, most are small enough to be held in the hand or worn as amulets. No other organic material carried as high an intrinsic and symbolic value as elephant ivory, and its increasing rarity in the Middle Byzantine era lent carved objects especially high status. When the trade ceased in the eleventh century, steatites took on greater importance. Evidence of polychromy on ivories has altered traditional perceptions of the medium and its aesthetic. Technical analyses and interdisciplinary approaches have the potential to shed new light on long-held issues.

Part II Predominant Security Challenges and International Law, Environmental Security, Ch.33 Wild Fauna and Flora Protection

This chapter explores wild fauna and flora protection. Recently, the United Nations Security Council, which bears ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’, has adopted a number of resolutions regarding the security situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, in which a nexus is recognized between the poaching and associated illicit trade in wild fauna and flora (particularly elephant ivory) and international peace and security. While the chapter is concerned specifically with the link between the protection of wild fauna and flora and global security, the international legal regime geared towards such protection is most developed in the context of conservation and trade. The chapter looks at the broader conservation framework, with particular emphasis on the regime created by the 1973 Convention on Illegal Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). CITES is the apex instrument for the regulation of trade in wild fauna and flora.

Sixth- and Seventh-Century Elephant Ivory Finds from the Carpathian Basin •

Jelen tanulmány célja az elefántcsont mint nyersanyag lehetséges forrásaira és értékére vonatkozó, a római és a késő ókori mediterrán világból származó adatok áttekintése, információkat nyerve ezáltal a 6–7. századi Kárpát-medence régészeti hagyatékából előkerült elefántcsonttárgyak eredetére, elérhetőségére és árára vonatkozólag. A hellenisztikus kortól a kora középkorig terjedő időszakban a Földközi-tenger vidéki elefántcsont-kereskedelem dinamikáját megvilágító írott és tárgyi források áttekintése nyomán úgy tűnik, hogy a 6–7. századi Közép-Duna-vidéki elefántcsonttárgyak nyersanyaga a Földközi-tenger medencéjén keresztül Afrikából, ezen belül is talán a kontinens keleti feléről érkezett. Megállapítható emellett, hogy a mediterrán világ keleti és középső régióiban készült, a Kárpát-medencébe elkerült elefántcsonttárgyak nem tekinthetők kiemelkedően drága luxusjavaknak, többségük viszonylag szerény áron megvásárolható volt.The present paper seeks to examine the available data on the possible sources and monetary value of elephant ivory, both as raw material and finished products, in the Roman to late antique Mediterranean world in order to gain a better understanding of the wider context of elephant ivory artefacts dating from the sixth and seventh centuries discovered in the Carpathian Basin. After reviewing the written and material evidence on the dynamics of the Mediterranean elephant ivory trade from the Hellenistic period until the Early Middle Ages, our main conclusion is that the raw material of the sixth- to seventh-century ivory objects of the Middle Danube Region in in all probability originated from Africa, possibly from the continent’s eastern parts, and arrived to this area through the Mediterranean. It is further argued that the few artefacts manufactured of elephant ivory in the eastern and central regions of the Mediterranean that reached the Carpathian Basin cannot be regarded as extremely expensive luxury goods – in fact, their majority would have been quite affordable to customers of more modest means.