Ivory was known to the Egyptians as an article both of use and ornament.  They manufactured it into combs, rings, and a variety of similar things.  The processions on the walls of their palaces and tombs would seem to indicate the fact of its having been obtained from India, and also from Ethiopia or Central Africa.  There is every reason to believe also that the harder and more accessible ivory of the hippopotamus was extensively used by them.  Colonel Hamilton Smith has seen a specimen of what appeared to be a sword-handle of ancient Egyptian workmanship, which has been recognised by dentists as belonging to this class of ivory.

Ivory was extensively used by the Jews.  It is frequently spoken of in Scripture as being obtained from Tarshish—­an indiscriminate term for various places in the lands of the Gentiles, but probably referring in this case to some part of India or Eastern Africa.  Wardrobes were made of ivory, or at least inlaid with it; the splendid throne of Solomon was formed of this material, overlaid with gold; Ahab built an ivory palace:  and beds or couches of the same material were common among the wealthy Israelites.  The Phoenicians of Tyre—­those merchant-princes of antiquity—­were so profuse of this valuable article of their luxurious commerce as to provide ivory benches for the rowers of their galleys.  Assyria—­whose records and history are only now beginning to be unfolded—­possessed magnificent articles of ivory.  Mr Layard, in his excavations at Nineveh, found ’in the rubbish near the bottom of a chamber, several ivory ornaments upon which were traces of gilding:  among them was the figure of a man in long robes, carrying in one hand the Egyptian crux ansata—­part of a crouching sphinx—­and flowers designed with great taste and elegance.’

The Greeks—­who were acquainted with it at least as early as the time of Homer—­gradually introduced ivory as a material for sculpture.  In certain forms of combination with gold, it gave origin to the art of chryselephantine sculpture, so called from the Greek primitives, gold and ivory.  This art, which was perhaps more luxurious than tasteful, was introduced about six hundred years before the Christian era; and it was much admired for its singular beauty.  It was not, however, till the days of Phidias that it attained to its full splendour.  Two of the masterpieces of this sculptor—­the colossal statues of Minerva in the Parthenon at Athens and the Olympian Jove in his temple—­were formed of gold and ivory.  The Minerva was forty feet high, and the Olympian Jupiter was one of the wonders of the world.  In the latter of these, the exposed parts of the figure were of ivory, and the drapery of gold.  It was seated on a throne elaborately formed of gold, ivory, and cedar-wood; it was adorned with precious stones; and in his hand the god sustained an emblematic figure of Victory, made of the same costly materials.