IVORY

Ivory has been prized for thousands of years for its rich, creamy colour, its fine texture, and its ease of carving. Until quite recently it was a popular material for both jewellery and ornaments, but international restrictions on trading now help to protect the animals from which ivory can be taken. The teeth or tusks of mammals all have ivory as a constituent. Fossil ivory - from prehistoric animals such as mammoths, mastodons, or dinosaurs - can also be carved.

The use of ivory simulants - bone, horn, jasper, vegetable ivory, plastic, and resin - has been strongly encouraged in order to protect ivory-bearing animals. Vegetable Ivory: the "ivory nut" or, more correctly, the doom palm, contains a hard, creamy white substance used to imitate elephant and other ivories.

Hardness: 2 1/2.

Protects one’s physical body from injury.