I just bought a book by Schilling about photography and hunting in africa in the late 1800's. This photo of an amazing tusk is in the book. Does this pair of tusks still exist and if so where?

I think is from the world record elephant, now both tusk are in British museum.

Natural history museum in London rather than the British museum.

Assuming it is the same pair and IIRC, they're now on public display but back in the 90s when they were in storage at the NHM, I was lucky enough to get to handle them...... and they're truly breathtaking.

INCREDIBLE!!!
Thanks for posting

Roland

Posting this while watching Tony Makris and Johan Calitz take the last legal buffalo in the Okavango, Under Wild Skies:
With one broadside shot in the vitals at about 50 yards, and one Texas Heart Shot going away, he went about 40 yards, then stone cold dead, Tony said.
Well done, even if it was with a Blaser.
My 2001 Okavango buffalo was a budget hunt that will be hard to buy at any price now. Priceless memories, great investment.
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As you were: More old files from the internet ...



Image: Kilimanjaro Tusks (1898)


John Frederick Walker functions as a "memorist," with his soul rooted in centuries past, as he begins his tour de force examination of the history of ivory, humankind's lust for this exquisite treasure, and the demise of the elephant and human decency in the process of this unholy quest. Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of the Elephants opens with what amounts to a past life regression as Walker performs a hypnotic literary feat, transporting the reader to stand with a hunter at sunset on the slopes of Kilimanjaro as the stalker aims his rifle at an old bull elephant with a "withered hide." He aims and his mark is true.

The old one would have sunk back on his hindquarters as his head dropped, burying the tusk points in the earth and assuming the posture of a sphinx; the heavy brow would have been propped high by the ivory posts, the trunk flopped lifelessly between.
The undisputable testimony to the authenticity of this incident rests in a photograph of the "Kilimanjaro Tusks." They remain the largest tusks ever recorded and framed the entrance to the American compound in Zanzibar known as the "Ivory House," or Nyumba Pembi. Over the years a virtual who's who of the exploiters of Africa walked under these tusks -- slavers, smugglers, colonialists, explorers, actors and actresses on safari -- an archway leading to the beginning of the end of the elephant. In 1898, when the photo was taken, Walker says:

None foresaw that less than a century later the appetite of uncontrolled commerce would threaten to consume the bulk of the remaining sub-Saharan herds that supplied it; back then, elephants in the yet to be exhausted interior were said to be as thick as flies.



World's Record Pair of Tusks (235 lbs. and 226 lbs.)

It seems that there are mixed stories on the provenance of this world's record pair of Elephant tusks...

A person from Holland and Holland claims that the tusks had been found, since there was no record of whether the bull had been killed or had died from natural death. The person writing for the museum stated that the ivory was taken by a hunter, it is said that they came from an Elephant killed near Kilimanjaro by an Arab hunter after he had been trailing it for several weeks. Another person claims that the bull was killed on the mountain but not by whom. It is also said that the body size of the tusker was not large and that the Elephant was shot by a native hunter who used an old muzzleloader rifle. A book by a Spanish professional hunter and writer claims that there were also two separate Elephants, the biggest a single tusker, killed by an Arab hunter, whose tooth weighed 235 lbs. when taken in 1899 and a pair of tusks now in the British Museum, which weighed 235 and 226 lbs. fresh. According to the Spaniard, the tusker was taken by an Arab hunter named Senoussi who worked for the slave trader Tippoo Tib, also on Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Mr. Humble, the dealer himself, supplied this photograph of the tusks when they were still together in Zanzibar in 1899.

The known history of the ivories themselves is well documented after their original sale. After the tusks were cut out, they were caravanned to east Zanzibar. An American firm bought them and shipped them to Landsberger, Humble & Company in England where they were seperated. The larger tusk was purchased by the British Museum at an unmentioned date for 350 British pounds, quite a bargain. The smaller tusk was sold to the famous cutlery firm of Joseph Rodgers and Sons, Ltd., in Sheffield, England.

After many years the tusks were at last reunited, acquired by the British Museum through Rowland Ward. The ivory was on public display until about 1973 when it was removed to the security storage area in the museum's basement where it is still to be found. The Natural History Museum is apparently most cooperative in arranging a showing for interested sportsmen.


BEARD Peter,Magritte Rammé with world record African ivories, London


Tippu Tip
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tippu Tip or Tib (1837 – June 14, 1905), real name Hamad bin Muḥammad bin Jumah bin Rajab bin Muḥammad bin Sa‘īd al-Murghabī, (Arabic: حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي‎), was a Swahili-Zanzibari trader. He was famously known by the natives of East Africa as Tippu Tib after the sounds that his many guns made. A notorious slave trader, plantation owner and governor, who worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa, involving the slave trade and ivory trade. He constructed profitable trading posts that reached deep into Central Africa.
He built himself a trading empire that he then translated into clove plantations on Zanzibar. Abdul Sheriff reported that when he left for his twelve years of "empire building" on the mainland, he had no plantations of his own. However, by 1895, he had acquired "seven shambas [plantations] and 10,000 slaves."[1]
His mother, Bint Habib bin Bushir, was a Muscat Arab of the ruling class. His father and paternal grandfather were coastal Swahili who had taken part in the earliest trading expeditions to the interior. His paternal great-grandmother, wife of Rajab bin Mohammed bin Said el Murgebi was the daughter of Juma bin Mohammed el Nebhani, a member of a respected Muscat (Oman) family, and an African woman from the village of Mbwa Maji, a small village south of what would later become the German capital of Dar es Salaam.[2]
He met and helped several famous western explorers of the African continent, including Henry Morton Stanley. Between 1884 and 1887, El Murgebi claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan of Zanzibar, Bargash bin Said el Busaidi. In spite of his position as protector of Zanzibar's interests in Congo, he managed to maintain good relations with the Europeans. When, in August 1886, fighting broke out between the Swahili and the representatives of King Leopold II of Belgium at Stanley Falls, El Murgebi went to the Belgian consul at Zanzibar to assure him of his "good intentions." Although he was still a force in Central African politics, he could see by 1886 that power in the region was shifting. In early 1887, Stanley arrived in Zanzibar and proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor of the Stanley Falls District in the Congo Free State. Both Leopold and Sultan Barghash bin Said agreed and on February 24, 1887, Hamed bin Mohammed el Murgebi accepted.[3]
Around 1890/91, he returned to Zanzibar where he retired. He wrote his autobiography, which is the first example of this literary genre in Swahili. El Murgebi wrote his autobiography in Swahili in Arabic script. Dr. Heinrich Brode, who knew him in Zanzibar, transcribed the manuscript into Roman script and translated it into German. It was subsequently translated into English and published in Britain in 1907.
He died June 13, 1905, of malaria (according to Brode) in his home in Stone Town, the main town on the island of Zanzibar.

Museum of Natural History in London,England. 94kg(left tusk)3.11 metres x 89kg 3.18 metres.

If you are an elephant fan and have a layover at Heathrow it will take you apx.2 hours by tube to see these and get back to the airport. Well worth the effort IMHO.

The ironic drama in Botswana! The principal players are ignorant of the ruin that the rest of the world sees coming.
Despite past elephant hunting and lack of any elephant control plan for decades by the gayvernment of Botsguano:
"The (2012) elephant population was estimated at 207,545 with a 297% rise between 1992 and last year."
http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa...g-in-botswanas-parks

Thanks for that very interesting post. These truly are wonderful beasts. What amazing tusks.
Thanks again for a very informative return to my question.

quote:

Originally posted by AilsaWheels:
If you are an elephant fan and have a layover at Heathrow it will take you apx.2 hours by tube to see these and get back to the airport. Well worth the effort IMHO.

that sounds perfect. i have a 10 hour layover in Oct. usually i take the express train to Paddington Station, then just walk around through Hyde Park and over to B'ham Palace. tis time i will take the express train, then cab over to the NHM- something different and i appreciate the advice!! also i just bought the book mentioned and downloaded it to my kindle. looks like a good read..

quote:

Originally posted by lorefuma:
I think is from the world record elephant, now both tusk are in British museum.

+1 british museum of natural history

oops sorry should have read further down

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:

quote:

Originally posted by AilsaWheels:
If you are an elephant fan and have a layover at Heathrow it will take you apx.2 hours by tube to see these and get back to the airport. Well worth the effort IMHO.

that sounds perfect. i have a 10 hour layover in Oct. usually i take the express train to Paddington Station, then just walk around through Hyde Park and over to B'ham Palace. tis time i will take the express train, then cab over to the NHM- something different and i appreciate the advice!! also i just bought the book mentioned and downloaded it to my kindle. looks like a good read..

The blue line will probably be faster than the express and a taxi. Apx. 30-40 minutes. Get off at Gloucester Rd station, walk a block or two north to Cromwell and you can see the museum. Apx 5 minute walk. No tube transfers are needed. All the best.

Just for information. I have a book in my library called Great Tuskers of Africa which have some impressive bulls in it. I also ordered the book you mentioned Ivory's Ghosts. Thanks for the heads up.

quote:

Originally posted by AilsaWheels:

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:

quote:

Originally posted by AilsaWheels:
If you are an elephant fan and have a layover at Heathrow it will take you apx.2 hours by tube to see these and get back to the airport. Well worth the effort IMHO.

that sounds perfect. i have a 10 hour layover in Oct. usually i take the express train to Paddington Station, then just walk around through Hyde Park and over to B'ham Palace. tis time i will take the express train, then cab over to the NHM- something different and i appreciate the advice!! also i just bought the book mentioned and downloaded it to my kindle. looks like a good read..

The blue line will probably be faster than the express and a taxi. Apx. 30-40 minutes. Get off at Gloucester Rd station, walk a block or two north to Cromwell and you can see the museum. Apx 5 minute walk. No tube transfers are needed. All the best.

thanks a lot for the good advice!! damn you gotta love it when folks here share their collective wisdom