North America, Alaska, Late Pleistocene epoch (Ice Age), ca. 35,000 to 10,000 years ago. Wow! What a gorgeous example of the fossilized tip of a mammoth tusk, creamy white and brown with hints of a bluish grey along its length. The very tip is a dark brown color. Imagine encountering this animal on an Ice Age steppe, towering up to 13 feet at the shoulder and weighing up to 12 tons, with this tusk and its partner rising in an upward curve from their jaw. Imagine the strength the animal's neck must have had just to hold up these massive teeth! Size: 24.25" L x 17.25" H (61.6 cm x 43.8 cm); 18" H (45.7 cm) on included custom stand.
Also imagine walking in a modern Arctic or sub-Arctic landscape like Alaska, northern Canada, or Siberia and finding a tusk like this rising from the ground - the name mammoth comes from a Siberian word used to describe the tusks found there by native people, like the Khanty of the Irtysh River basin, and traded to Europe and China. Their occasional finds of massive tusks and even preserved mammoth bodies in the permafrost - often eroding out of the sides of river banks - led to their folkloric belief that mammoths were like huge rodents, dwelling underground, dying when they accidentally surfaced. With the invention of science as a discipline, massive tusks like this one continued to capture imaginations all over the world - for example, Thomas Jefferson, who was fascinated by paleontology, is credited with introducing the use of the word mammoth as an adjective to describe something very large.
Please note that fossilized ivory tusks from any species cannot be shipped to the US States of California, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington State.
Provenance: private Hagar collection, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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#127523
Condition
This is the tip of a tusk rather than a complete specimen. Polished.