What are the difference between Mammoth Ivory and Elephant Ivory

Besides natural ivory color, Mammoth ivory are occasionally display intrusive brownish, blue-green, or grey colored because it has been burial under the ground for over 10,000 years, the material absorbed the soil, oil or other minerals which change the material to these kind of colors. Most of mammoth ivory raw materials are having brownish or blue-green fossil barks at the material surface while the color of the material inside is still in ivory color, the fossil bark formed also because it has absorbed the minerals from the surrounding soil during 10,000 over burial.

Elephant ivory are only in ivory color. It will not have brownish, blue-green or grey colors. Therefore, if you find a carving which has fossil bark or in brown, blue or green colors it must be mammoth ivory not elephant ivory.

For the mammoth ivory carvings in natural ivory color, we must use the angles of schreger lines to distinguish them from elephant ivory. Please find the photos of the cross section of mammoth ivory and elephant ivory as below: