Elephant ivory, a prestigious and valuable raw material in the post-Roman West and
Byzantium between the 5th and 7th centuries AD, may originate from various sources.
While both written and art historical evidence suggests that in the case of early
medieval artefacts, African provenance is more likely than Asian, no data at hand
is conclusive. The present paper investigates, with the help of FTIR and Raman spectroscopy,
carbon and nitrogen concentration and nitrogen isotope (δ 15 N) analyses, the material
resources of elephant ivory artefacts discovered in 6th- and 7th-century AD archaeological
context in the Carpathian Basin to contribute to our understanding of late antique
long-distance trade networks and economic relations.