Ivory Diptych Essay

A Diptych which comes from Greek language di (two) and ptyché (fold) is an object that includes two flat panels attach with joints. Diptychs are known as photographic storytelling because they show religious/ Biblical or daily life stories on their surfaces. From antiquity to today, diptych form have been used with several materials such as wood and ivory. During the ancient periods, diptychs were used as a notebook and school boys’ and girls’ education books which consist of a pair of plates having filled with wax. Wooden frames were used also to fix the panels and letters were scratched on the wax surface with a writing tools, stylus. After the necessity of the notes was disappeared, diptychs having made with wax could not be preferred. Although

The ivory forms most of the animals’ teeth and tusks. They has been used for millennia as a material for carving sculpture as decorative art such as on religious objects, illuminated manuscripts, boxes, and most commonly ivory diptychs. The art of ivory diptychs has become the part of the cultures of several civilizations that includes Egypt, Ancient Greece, Rome, Japan, Russia, India, and China. In addition, the production of the ivory diptychs has been an integral element of Islamic art and also the Medieval Period as well as during the Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods. The ivory was traded from the rich places about elephants, mammoths and hippopotamus such as Africa, from Ethiopia, and also India (Cutler 1994). Since their reindeer horn and tusks were the most commonly usage types of ivory, after the animals were killed, these most important limbs were traded to European, Asian and Mesopotamian civilizations. From 1th to 12th century, ivory trading continues to the territories of Rome, early Christian, and Byzantine civilizations. However, ivory carving and its usage as diptychs certainly start with 3th century. Asia and Western Europe can be the centers of production of ivory diptychs, carving artists and technique of the carved