The production of ivory objects had an old tradition in the Levant with a high point in the Late Bronze Age and reaching its peak in the 9th - 8th centuries BCE. These small works of art are of extraordinary workmanship, carved in a variety of techniques often finished with colorful glass inlays and/or gold overlays. Their imagery is indebted to the Late Bronze Age and linked to royal ideology. The high value of ivory carvings as objects of prestige and royal emblems is corroborated by the Bible, albeit in a mainly negative way, and also by Assyrian royal inscriptions reporting ivory objects among the booty and tribute from various Levantine kingdoms. In addition, storehouses filled with actual objects were discovered at Nimrud, ancient Kalhu, capital of the expanding Assyrian empire in the 9th - 8th centuries BCE. In fact, the vast majority of early first millennium BCE Levantine ivory carvings were found in Assyrian rather than Levantine cities. The Samaria ivories form the largest assemblage unearthed in a Levantine capital before its incorporation into the Assyrian empire. Assyrian military policies, especially the deportation and relocation of royal families together with large numbers of the working population, brought an end to the Levantine production.
