Ebony

Ebony appears once in Scripture, in Ezekiel 27:15, as one of the luxury goods brought by merchants from Dedan to the great trading port of Tyre: "They brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony." Ebony is a dense, black hardwood derived from trees of the genus Diospyros, prized throughout the ancient world for carving, inlay work, and luxury furnishings. It was not native to Canaan or Mesopotamia and was imported from sub-Saharan Africa and southern India via Arabia, making it a marker of long-distance trade and aristocratic wealth in the ancient Near East.

Archaeological finds from Egyptian royal tombs and Mesopotamian palace sites confirm ebony's high value in antiquity — it appeared alongside ivory, gold, and lapis lazuli as emblematic of luxury trade goods. In the context of Ezekiel's lament over Tyre, the mention of ebony underscores the city's position at the center of international commerce, making the prophecy of its destruction (Ezekiel 26–27) all the more dramatic.