Part VII. Chemical Investigations on Ivory

This research project of Roger Moseley, a fourth-year undergraduate student in Princeton University arose out of conversations between Sir Hugh Taylor, Dean of the Graduate College, Princeton, and Dr. A. J. B. Wace of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society in April 1954 in Philadelphia. The questions were directed to the properties of ivory when subjected to the conditions obtaining in houses destroyed by fire as, for example, in the houses excavated by Wace in Mycenae, where, in one case, many fragments of ivory which had obviously been in the fire were discovered.Samples of old ivories were subsequently provided by Wace and others for examination. These included:(1) Ivory fragments from Mycenae from houses destroyed by fire. Date: thirteenth century B.C.(2) Ivory fragments from Syria in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Pratt Gift. Date: twelfth century B.C.(3) Ivory fragments from Nimrud, Mesopotamia. Date: ninth and eighth centuries B.C.An experimental programme on ‘modern’ ivory was put into effect to provide data against which the properties of the ancient ivories could be examined.