Institut für Sinologie Elephants in Bronze Age Central China – Megafauna-Human relationships as seen through material culture

Elephant ivory in the form of unmodified tusks, partial tusks and ivory carvings as well as elephant iconography in bronze artifact forms and decorations reflect a set of engagements with this charismatic megafauna taxon during the Bronze Age in China. Examples of these material remains include the large numbers of complete elephant tusks buried in ritual contexts at Sanxingdui, in Sichuan, complete and fragmentary tusk remains from the Sichuan site of Jinsha, other isolated tusk remains from sites in other parts of China, ivory artifacts, including elaborated inlaid ivory cups from the site of Yinxu in Anyang, Henan, and bronzes in the forms of elephants and with elephant iconography from both northern and southern China from the second half of the second millennium BCE. This paper presents various examples of elephant ivory and elephant iconography and suggests that the materiality and materialization of megafauna provides an important window on human – non-human animal relations throughout human history.