Ivory

Ivory (Hebrew shen, tooth, and shenhabbim, teeth of elephants) was one of the most prized luxury materials in the ancient Near East, imported to Israel and Judah via long-distance trade. Solomon's trading fleet brought ivory along with gold, silver, apes, and peacocks from Ophir (1 Kings 10:22), and his famous throne was made of ivory overlaid with gold (1 Kings 10:18; 2 Chronicles 9:17). The house Ahab built in Samaria was called the "ivory house" (1 Kings 22:39), and the excavation of Samaria by archaeologists in the twentieth century recovered hundreds of ivory carvings confirming the biblical account of ivory luxury in the northern palace.

The prophets condemned ivory as emblematic of oppressive wealth: Amos 6:4 denounces those who "lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches" while careless of the ruin of Joseph. The Psalms use ivory as imagery for beauty (Psalm 45:8). In Revelation 18:12, ivory is listed among the luxury goods of Babylon whose trade is destroyed by divine judgment — a catalog that situates ivory alongside fine linen, gold, and silk as markers of imperial excess. Ivory came primarily from African and Indian elephants; the extinction of Syrian elephants (a subspecies mentioned in ancient Near Eastern records) may partly explain the increasing rarity and value of ivory in the later biblical period.