• Categorized under Objects | Difference Between Ivory and Bone

Ivory vs Bone

There are many products and handicrafts available which are made from ivory and bone. These are at times a bit costly owing to the base material and intricate designs. But there are hoax products as well. The hoax products are made on cheap quality plastics or other materials which resemble ivory and bone. So you must be able to identify the fake from the original as well as ivory from bone.

Ivory is dead matter like the nails and hair. It comes from the teeth and tusks of mammals. The most popular ivory is the tusk of the elephants. The teeth of seals also are considered as good ivory. Other real ivories come from hippopotamus, mammoth, wild boar, and mastodon. The ivory obtained from the Asiatic elephants are much white denser and whiter than the African elephant tusks. The Asiatic ivory is much softer and hence carvings can be made intricately on these.

Bone will always have minute pores on the surface and these pores appear as black or brown. The pores are the result of the minute blood vessels which once ran through these bones. These may not be visible to the naked eye. You will have to use a magnifying glass for the purpose. If you are looking at ivory, you will notice that instead of pores, there will be lines on the material. The lines can be cross hatched or even in circular rings.

Fake ivory will have bone or powdered ivory on it. The hot pin test can be used to identify fake and synthetic ivory. In this test, a person will heat a pin to red hot and try to pierce it into the ivory. If it is not real, the pin will pierce through the ivory. So using this simple test you can identify real ivory. While if you expose bone to excess heat it will smoke out.

Ivory is harder than bone and hence it is not that easy to make a scratch on a piece of ivory as you can make on bone. Ivory, if broken can be glued together easily. But if it scatters to pieces, gluing back may not be possible. It is easy to glue broken ivory because of the smooth and shiny texture. But bone is very dry and coarse looking. So it is not possible to glue broken bones and the grooves and ridges can be noticed very easily.

Summary:

1.Ivory comes from the teeth and tusks of mammals while bones are the components of the skeletal systems.

2.Bones have minute pores due the presence of minute blood vessels when it was in the body of the animal. Ivory has lines or circular rings.

3.Bones are very dry and coarse textured. Ivory is smooth and has a shiny texture.

4.Ivory is harder than bone and cannot be broken that easily.