Archaeologists find out world’s largest ivory factory in Bhanbhore

Director Sindh heritage Muhammad Shah Bukhari talked to media that “Technical experts of archaeology from Italy and Pakistan have come to the conclusion that Bhanbhore was a trade and industrial city where a big factory of elephant ivory existed”.

Archaeologists find out world’s largest ivory factory in BhanbhoreBhanbhore is an ancient city located about 65 kilometers east of Karachi. It provided a gateway to arab conquerors who arrived in South Asia hundreds of years ago and dominated the region.

A session held at the Shamseer ul Hyderi Auditorium of the National Museum of Pakistan in which the archaeologists shared their findings with the participants of the technical seminar.

Sindh Culture, Antiquities and Archives Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah, Italian Consul General Anna Ruffino, archaeologists, heritage experts and students from Bahria University, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Sindh University, Jamshoro, and Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur attended the session.

Italian archaeologist Dr. Simone Mantellini said while sharing the findings that the antiquities recovered from Bhanbhore included 6,675 ivories, the largest such recovery anywhere in the world.

He further said “Nowhere else in the world have ivories been found in such a large quantity. Ivories were found in Iraq but those were small in number”.

He added that such a huge recovery proved there was a factory for the commodity in the city.

Mantelini stated that the mission done with the support of university students, had carried out excavations on the north side of Bhanbhore discovering thousands of historical artefacts, including beads, coins, bronze, copper, glass, iron, moulds, shells, wood, fired bricks and mud bricks.