Where Does Ivory Come From?

Ivory comes from the tusks of elephants and from mastadons and mammoths, ancient ancestors of our modern-day elephant.

Mastadons lived until the end of the last Ice Age, about 8,000 years ago. Many mammoths lived in Siberia, and for a long time, most of the ivory came from there. Men dug up the skeletons of long-dead mammoths preserved in the frozen ground. This ivory is called dead ivory, and it is not of such a high quality as live ivory.

Live ivory, of course, is more scarce. The best live ivory comes from the tusks of the African elephant. These tusks usually measure six to eight feet long, taller than the average man.

Because of the great demand for ivory, many African elephants were killed. The elephant population in Africa became much reduced from this senseless, greedy slaughter. Now, laws have been passed to protect the African elephant. Also, the increasing use of plastics may replace many of the former uses of ivory.

The longest African elephant tusk ever to be measured was eleven and a half feet long on the outside curve!