ABSTRACT
Toothpicks, like the ones displayed in Ivoryton, were never the primary products of Ivoryton's ivory-cutting firms. Ivoryton, named for the tons of ivory' shipped here during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is full of elephants too. Demographic increases, agricultural development, tourism, and the high black market value of ivory combine to make the elephant's place in contemporary East Africa at once significant and contentious. Most of the toothpicks in the Ivoryton assemblage are sample pieces, etched with the various lengths and thicknesses available for purchase. Like many of the goods produced in Ivoryton, machine-cut ivory toothpicks were part of a new category of material culture mobilised by a rapidly forming Victorian middle class. The ivory objects in the Ivoryton assemblage are seductive. There are large cross-sections of polished tusk, chess pieces, grommets, fragile containers with Oriental motifs, intricate floral earrings, and brooches.
