#59: Revealing the Source of Royal Ivory from Biblical Times

Ivory was a luxury item in the ancient biblical world, associated exclusively with royalty and the rich. King Solomon sat on a throne of ivory in Jerusalem. King Ahab had a famous house of ivory in Samaria. Where did the Bible’s ivory come from? Dr. Harel Shochat from the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa answers this question in a recently published article titled “A Thousand Years of Nubian Supply of Sub-Saharan Ivory to the Southern Levant, ca. 1600–600 B.C.E.” Dr. Shochat explains how ivory was exported from Nubia, Egypt’s southern neighbor on the Nile, to the Southern Levant. On today’s program, host Brent Nagtegaal and Dr. Shochat take a deep dive into his paper. They analyze what the data shows about ivory exports during biblical times.