Terrible Beauty : Elephant – Human- Ivory

The Controversy of Ivory: Between Cruel Exploitation and Captivating Art

A cultural history of ivory, from piano keys to poachers.

Piano keys. Chess pieces. Jewelry. Ivory has been in high demand for centuries and across cultures—but at great cost to the elephants from which it comes. What sort of material is ivory? How has it been used in the past and the present? And what can we do today to protect the world’s largest land mammals from poachers? This lavishly illustrated volume traces the cultural history of ivory as a decorative object and the cause of elephants’ decades-long place on the endangered species list. The book approaches its subject critically and asks what exactly our responsibility is when dealing with ivory as a beautiful material with cruel origins. Terrible Beauty is edited by the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, which is the owner of and operator of the Humboldt Forum, and will accompany the first exhibition of the newly opened museum. This volume contains contributions from archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, and biologists.