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- Ivory carving in China has been divided into three historical groups:
1) Neolithic (5000 BCE to about 2nd century BCE) when tusks were likely obtained from the elephants indigenous to much of China;
2) 2nd century BCE to the end of the Tang dynasty or 10th century CE, when elephants in China were probably only found in the Guangdong to Yunnan area. Supplies dwindled and the bulk of the ivory used for carving was likely imported from present day Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and India; and
3) 10th century until the 20th century when Arab merchants and later European traders brought raw ivory from both other parts of Asia and Africa. It was during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties that ivory carving in China would reach its greatest flowering.
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