the.com/ivory
the most expensive piano key that costs an elephant its life
means A hard, creamy-white material from the tusks of elephants and some other animals, prized for carving and once used for piano keys, dice, and ornaments.
from From Latin 'ebur,' meaning ivory or elephant, which passed through Old French as 'ivurie' before settling into English. The Latin itself is thought to be borrowed, possibly from an Egyptian or African source — fitting, since the elephants were too. The phrase 'ivory tower' came much later, from a 19th-century French critic describing a poet's lofty detachment.
- true material
- dentin, the same stuff inside your own teeth
- global ban
- international trade outlawed in 1989
- crush squads
- countries publicly pulverize seized tusks into dust
- tuskless evolution
- poaching is breeding elephants born without tusks
- piano legacy
- keys went synthetic decades before the ban
ivory coast — west african country, world's largest cocoa producer, renamed from french colonial name in 1985
african elephant tusks — east africa, over 100,000 killed annually in 1980s, driving species toward extinction
mammoth tusk trade — siberia, 46,000-year-old tusks still excavated and sold illegally for $1000+ per kg