ABSTRACT
Oliphants are ivory horns made from an elephant’s tusk, which may be lightly faceted or carved with figurative motifs. Some eighty surviving oliphants decorated in a variety of styles (‘Islamic’, ‘Byzantine’ and ‘Latin’) can be attributed to southern Italy, and possibly other European centres, in the late 11th to the late 12th centuries. However, a decade ago a hypothesis was advanced arguing that some of these objects — the so-called ‘Saracenic’ group — were conceived and carved in Fatimid Egypt. This hypothesis has never been critiqued, and is now appearing in Islamic art scholarship. This article presents a detailed consideration of the Cairene origin theory, and argues for a reassessment of the oliphants by considering the ‘Saracenic’ group as one small subset of a much wider, European cultural phenomenon, which includes horns in materials other than ivory. By examining stylistic connections with the art of southern Italy under Norman hegemony, and the cultural conditions in which such horns were used and preserved, it aims to redirect the focus of future studies of these objects away from the Islamic world.
