Fossil Ivory Ornament

Ceremonial piece

Predmost type, Czech Republic

Eastern Gravettian or Pavlovian,
35 000 to 25 000 years

Commentary : 

Some 29 000 years ago, during the Gravettian, fossil mammoth ivory is abundantly available in Eastern Europe.

It could be found in buried loess deposits exposed by erosion. After being weathered in the frozen ground over long periods of time, fossil ivory becomes much easier to work and polish, compared to fresh ivory. The tusks recovered from the innumerable heaps of mammoth carcasses are used to manufacture exceptional personal ornaments.

These ceremonial pieces decorated with deep concentric grooves, form part of prestigious body ornaments, diadems and pectorals, that are only known from these regions.

The inexhaustible reserves of fossil ivory, conjure the permanence of the mammoth herds that crisscrossed the windswept plains of Central Europe, for millennia.