23.06.2020

Mammoth tusks are priceless finds. “Black archaeologists” in search of mammoth tusks Where to look for mammoth tusks

We all know very well that one of the most striking symbols of our republic is the mammoth. Many have seen his images in pictures, books and other printed publications. Well, and, of course, each of us knows the famous carved crafts made from mammoth ivory. These are figurines, key rings, knife handles, chess sets and many other original little things created by the skillful hands and rich imagination of bone carvers. But, looking at this beauty, have any of us ever wondered how the tusks of long-extinct giants are found? After all, they don’t lie on the road and don’t grow in the forest like mushrooms. This is what I decided to make my report about. But let me make a reservation right away: I will not talk about large teams of search engines engaged in professional tusk extraction. We will talk about a small group consisting of two people. There are a great many such people in our republic and they all have one goal - to find mammoth tusks that have thawed from the permafrost in the vastness of the Yakut land. Introduction. I have known for a long time that my two comrades, Sergei and Alexander, are searching for tusks. I often listened to their stories about interesting finds and beautiful places where they visited. I also really wanted to go with them and write an article about it. This year, from the beginning of summer, I had been asking for a trip and was looking forward to the day when I could hit the road. But somehow things didn’t work out for reasons beyond our control. And the weather this summer constantly presented surprises in the form of rain, wind and even snow. But three days ago Sergei called me at home and said: “Get ready, we’re going this weekend.” The water in the river had just subsided after the rains, the banks were bare, we urgently needed to go in search before others got ahead of us. The weather is expected to be good for the weekend. So be ready on Friday, after work we’ll hit the road straight away. And I happily began to look forward to the weekend. The first day. Friday. On Friday evening, we gathered our things, launched the boat and, pushing off from the shore, set off. I immediately started questioning: “Let’s talk right away about the legality of this enterprise.” - Yes, everything is legal. Finding and donating tusks is not prohibited by law. We don’t violate the environment, we don’t dig the ground with bulldozers, whatever the river washes away is ours! There are people and organizations that have a license to accept tusks, you hand over what you find to them, pay taxes, and everything is fine, there are no complaints against you. - Well, okay, then a few words about where we are going. - There are several places in our area where tusks are often found. Today we are going to the Zyryanka River, which is located 15 kilometers from the village down the Kolyma River. This is a mountain river, the water in it constantly changes its level and channel. The banks are washed away naturally, and everything that was in the permafrost is washed out onto the spits. The main thing here is to detect all this and take it on time. We are not the only fortune hunters! - And what does it bring to the spits? - Yes, different things... there are a lot of bones of all kinds, mammoth teeth are often found, and, of course, tusks. Although finding a whole and well-preserved tusk is very rare. Many people dream about this. Mostly pieces and chips come across. But there are also respectable specimens. - What are the wood chips for? What can you do with it? - Various medallions and keychains are made. A friend of mine from Yakutsk recently brought a keychain, thin, carved, beautiful. So they make it from wood chips. We have enough craftsmen in Yakutia. While talking, we quietly drove up to the mouth of the Zyryanka River and, turning from the Kolyma, headed up against the current. In the evening light of the sun, the forest on the banks of the river looked amazing. Ducks flew in pairs, and hares ran on the islands among the willow grass. I took out the camera and clicked. “This is still not the same,” said Sergei. - Now we’ll approach the cliffs, the view there is really wonderful! Soon steep and steep yellow banks appeared. Permafrost was visible everywhere, from which melt water ran down in streams. I sniffed. - What's that strange smell? It smells like rotten meat. “It’s the mammoths that are rotting,” Sergei laughed. “There’s always such a smell here, apparently the layers of the earth smell like that.” Who knows what they are made of. This is where our conversations ended. Sergei and Alexander, driving at low speed along the coast, carefully examined everything around them. Coherence and experience in the search were visible. Friends since childhood, Sergei is a cheerful fellow and a joker, Alexander is calm and taciturn, they complemented each other perfectly, and during our entire trip I did not hear any arguments between them. Each understood the other perfectly. Suddenly Alexander turned the steering wheel sharply. - Look, what lies there? Sergei took out binoculars and began to look at the shore. - It looks like a piece of tusk, come over. The boat poked its nose into the shore, and Alexander took out a stick with a steel wire tied at the end. - What is this? - I asked. - Dipstick. You never know, maybe there is something else lying there under the layer of earth. So I'll check with them. He climbed up a steep slope, picked up something and began to carefully pierce the ground with a probe. From the outside it looked like a sapper looking for mines. - There is nothing. Let's move on. I looked at what he brought. It was the tip of a yellow-brown tusk, split in half lengthwise. Here is the first find. After exploring two shores along the cliffs for two hours, we drove up to a two-kilometer long spit. Not far from here in the forest there was an old hunting hut where we were going to spend the night. After wandering around the spit and not finding anything significant except small fragments of bones, we drank tea and went to bed. Second day. Saturday. In the morning I woke up before everyone else. It was stupid to lie around doing nothing, and while the others were sleeping, I went for a walk on the spit. After wandering for half an hour, I discovered a mammoth tooth covered in sand among the stones. Rejoicing at the find and taking a photograph, I took the tooth and walked towards the forest, to where a small channel had recently flowed. My feet sank into the mud and silt, and I walked and looked at the rubble of trees piled up everywhere. And then, among the old branches, I discovered a decent piece of light-colored tusk. That's luck! Lucky! Having shouldered the find, I went back to the hut to show off the trophy. Having pushed my comrades aside, I proudly presented them with the tusk. Everyone woke up at once and, after drinking tea, went together to comb the spit. On the way, Sergei explained to me: “The mammoth had only four teeth, two on top and two on the bottom.” Do you see how huge they are? He ground food with them like millstones. We found entire jaws that looked like a collar. - Exactly! - Alexander confirmed - And I found the jaw of a baby mammoth. So small, with small teeth. When we get home, remind me to show you. If anyone thinks that wandering along the spits in search of tusks is like a walk, he is deeply mistaken. Moving from spit to spit, we walked on gravel and water, often through viscous and sticky mud, which then did not want to be washed off. By lunchtime my legs were buzzing and aching from fatigue. And the result of our search was only a few small pieces of tusk, a pair of teeth and wood chips. Sitting down on the shore to drink tea, I asked about future plans. - There is a stream not far from here. We were on it on our last trip. There, a piece of the bank collapsed, and in this rubble we found bones and wood chips. Perhaps there are tusks under the rubble. We need to take it apart before the water washes it away. - So what, you have to dig the ground manually? - I asked. - Why? We have a motor pump, it’s blocked and we’ll wash it off. One thing is bad, there is a lot of water in the stream, you will have to trudge along the bank, and there is an impassable windbreak! When there is little water, you go straight along the riverbed and there are no problems, but now you have to sweat. While we drank tea, I listened to the sounds of nature around us. There was a constant background here, consisting of the noise of a fast river running over the rocks, often disturbed by the splash of pieces of earth falling from the cliffs into the water. “Sometimes it all gets boring,” said Sergei. “In nature, you want silence, but here it’s constantly noisy and noisy.” After lunch, we hit the road. By the way, this day was the most difficult of all. The weather changed several times a day. The sun was shining, then the clouds came, it was raining and the sun was shining again. Mosquitoes hovered around us in clouds, and no ointment could save us from the bites. Wet, dirty, we, loaded with backpacks and a motor pump, climbed along the logs along the stream, falling and stumbling at every step. I involuntarily remembered a song from my distant childhood: “Gullies, rivers, crayfish, hands - take care of your feet!” The only thing that decorated this nightmare was the abundance of blue bells growing everywhere. Finally we reached our goal and reached the place. Having installed a motor pump, they began to wash away pieces of earth from the rubble with a powerful stream of water. The remains of a mammoth were constantly washed out from under the mud. Either huge leg bones, then a tooth, some tubular pieces, ribs and wood chips. But we did not find the main goal of our work, the tusk. I won’t describe in detail how the day went, everything was quite monotonous, but in the evening God rewarded us for our efforts, and what we had been waiting for appeared from the pile of earth. It was a fairly decent and heavy, well-preserved piece of dark orange tusk. After all, the day was not in vain!!! Having picked up a huge rib from the ground, Alexander told me: “Do you see how big it is?” I once brought this home, and my mother-in-law’s potatoes were stolen from her garden. So she, armed with this rib, waylaid the thief and hit him on the back. The whole yard then laughed, but she found something to defend herself with, a mammoth rib. But the potatoes were no longer stolen... It came to night. After washing a little more and using up the remaining gasoline, we returned to the boat and went to spend the night in the hut. “Before, they didn’t look for tusks like that,” says Alexander, “And they were lying around on their braids, unnecessary to anyone.” But now everything has been combed everywhere, taken out, and during the day with fire you won’t find such a picture. I remember, on one river, a piece of tusk stuck straight out of the rock. We tied the boat to him so that it wouldn’t float away. Then we went there, but there was no tusk. They turned it up to the very root. These are the things... There is nothing more pleasant in the forest than, after a hard day, stretching out on a bunk, drinking tea and having intimate conversations about life. Which is exactly what we were doing. Day three. Resurrection. The next day we woke up late. Fatigue from work the day before took its toll. My arms and legs hurt, as if after playing sports. The weather was cloudy, but there was no rain. “Today we’ll go up the river,” said Sergei. “As long as the water hasn’t dropped too much, we can drive through without any problems.” Otherwise, there are large rifts, and if there is little water, it is difficult to pass, it is very shallow. Let's walk along the braids there. True, the local spit is usually the richest, but we also found tusks at the top. Driving past one of the cliffs, we noticed something white sticking out of the permafrost. Turning around, we sent the boat straight down the cliff. To be honest, I felt creepy from such an extreme. A multi-ton block of earth hung above us, ready to fall off at any second. - Is it necessary to take such risks? - I asked. - So what to do? We came here for the tusk, not to relax. Suddenly, a good whole tusk thaws out of the permafrost. - What if it collapses? - So, no luck! - Sergei laughed. As he walked, he broke off a piece from the wall and, driving out from under the cliff, examined it in the light. - Tusk. Only very bad. It has exfoliated and is already turning into chalk. Waste of time. Let's move on. We climbed up with difficulty. The motor constantly clung to the bottom, but still we drove around several spits and thoroughly searched them. At one of them, Sergei called me. - Go take a photo. It lies very beautifully. I walked up and saw a bright orange piece of tusk lying right at the bottom of the stream. It really looks good. Almost the whole day passed like this. We wandered along spits and cliffs. We rested, drank tea and wandered around again. By evening we were getting ready to go home. - So how is it? Are you happy with your findings? - I asked. - But not very. Of course, I would like to find something more substantial. And so... an average result. It used to be much better. When we returned home, the weather improved again. It was warm and cozy. Wow, as she met, so she sees off! Almost at the very exit to the mouth, Sergei looked through binoculars at the spit. “Look there,” he said to Alexander. “What is that curved thing lying there on the shore?” Wooden or not? Alexander looked through his binoculars and jumped on the spot. - Of course! Wooden piece! No, it's more like luck! We drove up to the shore and ran to look at the find. On the stones lay a whole, beautifully curved and perfectly preserved tusk. Luck indeed. The mood immediately lifted, and I said: “Let’s all take a souvenir photo together with this handsome man.” And we took pictures. Conclusion. Now, sitting at home, I certainly remember more romantic moments on this trip than the inconveniences and hardships that we endured in our search. But still, I now know for sure that the search for tusks is, first of all, not romance, but work, and quite hard work. And a lot depends on how luck smiles. Thanks to my comrades for this unforgettable trip

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Smugglers earn about a billion rubles from selling the remains of mammoths found in Yakutia. In the Arctic territories, according to officials, about 500 thousand tons of bones of ancient animals can be found. So far, their production is poorly controlled: at least a quarter of the turnover comes from the shadow market. Because of this, the budget, the residents of the North, and scientists are losing money.

Illegals are in a hurry

The rules for collecting mammoth remains must be spelled out in legislation as soon as possible, Nikolai Nikolaev, head of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources, Property and Land Relations, said on June 26. The draft bill was developed in Yakutia, where over 80% of the so-called mammoth fauna. The document is now being studied by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Rosnedra.

Parliamentarians of the Far Eastern republic propose to regulate the extraction of mammoth remains not within the framework of the law “On Subsoil”, as is happening now, but to create a separate document - “On the rational use of resources of the mammoth fauna - special natural resource Russia." “I agree with my colleagues that it is necessary to provide commercial collection areas mammoth bone“said the chairman of the relevant State Duma committee.

He added that it is necessary to centralize all sales and establish an examination of the extracted remains so that exhibits of scientific value do not go to the market. Nikolaev hastened the adoption of the bill, the discussion of which has been dragging on for at least a dozen years: “They (black diggers. - Approx..

About 100 tons of mammoth ivory are mined annually in Yakutia. About 30%, according to regional authorities, comes from the shadow market. According to other estimates, the share of smuggling reaches 50%. And the business is quite profitable: 50 kg of mammoth ivory on the official market costs about $15 thousand, on the black market its price can double.

The former head of Yakutia, Yegor Borisov, emphasized that this area is becoming increasingly criminal. “Mammoth fauna has become a fairly traded industry, because in world practice a moratorium on ivory mining has been declared,” he explained. It's about on a partial ban on the ivory trade due to declining elephant populations in Asia and Africa, which the UN introduced in 2002.

The Yakut parliament also paid attention to another problem. With a twofold increase in the issuance of licenses for the industrial collection of mammoth tusks, the regional budget does not receive any taxes from this activity.

Tusk under the jacket

According to Yakut scientists, every year illegal mining of bones of ancient animals brings businessmen over 1 billion rubles. Over the past decade, searchers have destroyed seven cemeteries containing the remains of ancient animals. “The scale of vandalism shown in relation to the nature of the Arctic, its unique monuments - paleontological, geological, archaeological - by participants in illegal amateur mining of mammoth tusks is enormous,” said Vladimir Pitulko, an archaeologist, head of the Yana-Indigirka expedition of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with TASS .

In February, a Yakut company, using forged documents, tried to take out of Russia (presumably to China, where most of the remains go) over 4.5 tons of mammoth tusks - this is a record batch detained by the FSB border department in the Primorsky Territory. The containers contained more than 650 fragments of remains, 14 of which were museum-level valuables. The total amount of smuggled cargo was estimated at more than 340 million rubles.

In March last year, a resident of the Amur region tried to hide under outerwear a fragment of mammoth bone weighing 10 kg and worth over 400 thousand rubles. The attacker was caught, and the court sentenced him to three years probation.

The most big story happened in 2010. Then two Russians established the largest channel for exporting tusks bought from black diggers from Russia. Over the course of several years, the men sold over 100 tons of remains abroad, earning about $50 million. They were caught at a customs checkpoint near Vyborg when they were transporting a shipment of 2.8 tons worth $1 million. Ultimately, they were sentenced to eight years on 72 counts of smuggling conditionally.

Smugglers in search of profit cause serious harm to the environment Arctic territory. To quickly find the remains, they use heat and water cannons, which destroys not only the shores, but also the permafrost. In addition to the fact that illegal fishing harms nature, it also deprives scientists of the most valuable specimens of the remains of ancient animals for studying. “The Republic is losing its monopoly on Scientific research unique fossil objects and income from exhibiting them at commercial exhibitions,” said First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Yakutia Mikhail Prisyazhny.

The head of the department for the study of mammoth fauna of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic, Albert Protopopov, estimates financial losses from smuggling at 1.5 billion rubles annually, scientific losses are incalculable in money. “Tusk hunters throw away bones, skeletons and other scientifically valuable artifacts. How much could be done scientific discoveries, if these data were studied,” the scientist complains.

Mammoths = oil

From 1991 to 2002, the industrial collection of tusks in the Arctic territory of Yakutia was not licensed. Before this, the entire industry was tied to the National Mammoth Fund, which regulated both the collection and processing of these resources. Licenses began to be issued in 2003. Tribal communities can receive it, individual entrepreneurs And legal entities. Initially, they were issued for a year, but from 2016 the period was increased to five years. The only condition is that you can only collect those remains that are on the surface. The relevant authorities of the region together with the branch are responsible for issuing licenses Federal agency on subsoil use.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Geology of the Republic, at the end of 2017, 509 licenses were in force, of which only two were for the collection of remains for scientific purposes, the rest for the sale of goods. A boom in obtaining licenses occurred in 2016, when their validity period was increased. Then more than 430 of them were issued (for comparison, last year - 78). To obtain a license, you need to pay a state fee of 7.5 thousand rubles - in comparison with the amounts that can be earned from selling tusks, these are ridiculous figures. However, fines for illegal mining are even less - 3 thousand rubles.

Yakut authorities, social activists and scientists have been saying for more than ten years that a separate the federal law. The regional one was not enough; the republic already had such experience: in 2005, the President of Yakutia Vyacheslav Shtyrov signed a law regulating the industry, but two years later its effect was suspended by the prosecutor’s office.

Five years ago, a deputy from the republic, Fedot Tumusov, submitted to the State Duma a bill recognizing the remains of mammoths as a mineral along with oil and gas. The parliamentarian essentially proposed recognizing cemeteries of remains as deposits and levying a mining tax on collectors. The relevant State Duma committee found contradictions with the Constitution in the bill and sent it for revision.

In the near future, another bill regulating the extraction of remains will be considered by the lower house of parliament. On the commercial side, regional authorities have already begun to act to restore order. At the beginning of the year, Yakutia Minister of Investment Development and Entrepreneurship Anton Safronov said that officials had agreed with Chinese partners to create a single operator for the collection, processing and export of mammoth tusks.

One of the options is to build a logistics and production complex within the Yakut priority development territory (TOR) Kangalassy. Its cost is estimated at 1.3 billion rubles. According to Safronov, the creation of a single operator will help establish order in pricing. “Now the price is at a minimum. There are a huge number of sellers on the market, including from shadow businesses, which leads to dumping of the cost of exported goods,” he explained.

Family business

The Russian-Chinese project, according to the minister, will increase the volume of extraction of the remains of ancient animals, and therefore create at least 2 thousand seasonal jobs. Entire villages are now engaged in mining mammoth bones. In the North, where there are few jobs and prices are many times higher than in the capital due to logistical difficulties, collecting remains is the most quick way earn money.

“The entire coast of the Laptev Sea in northern Yakutia has long been divided between communities that have been collecting mammoth tusks for several decades, and it is simply impossible to get there. You need to have connections,” says mammoth tusk hunter Alexander Popov. “People work in whole teams of 15–20 people.”

Preparing such an expedition requires large financial investments - at least half a million rubles. To do this, local residents sometimes have to mortgage all their hard-earned property, including real estate. It is impossible to predict success: it may also happen that the seekers leave with nothing after two months of hiking in difficult conditions.

Majority local residents works without licenses. Supervisory authorities primarily fight against resellers who establish illegal channels for exporting tusks abroad. On average, smugglers export from Russia at least 60 tons of valuable goods per year - in other words, they already have their work cut out for them.

A couple of months ago I was in Perm and visited there, and so, they told a lot and showed mammoth bones and tusks, and there I heard for the first time that there is a whole illegal industry - the search for mammoth tusks.

American photographer Amos Chapple spent three weeks in the company of “black archaeologists” who are searching for the remains of mammoths in the Siberian forests. These people spend the whole summer in forests and swamps, trying to find the remains of ancient animals and, most importantly, find their tusks. This activity is illegal, so diggers have to avoid encounters with police and environmental services, as well as put up with difficult living conditions in the forest. But all this is compensated by the high cost of tusks. On the black market, a 65-kilogram mammoth ivory can fetch $34,000. There have been cases where groups of diggers managed to earn about $100,000 in a week of searching.

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Let's see what it looks like:

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The tusks of ancient mammoths are extremely valuable for scientists and archaeologists, but for the most part, they disappear without a trace on the black market.
No one knows how many mammoths are imprisoned in the land of Siberia. As a rule, every discovery of the remains of an ancient animal causes a sensation in scientific circles. Scientists to this day have not given up hope of cloning an amazing animal, but, alas, the state of the biomaterial of the found “mineral resource” does not meet the standards required for such a procedure.

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Every year in Siberia, illegal miners pull several tons of tusks from captivity in permafrost. Despite the hard physical labor and the illegality of the process, the game is worth the candle - for a kilogram of mammoth tusk you can earn somewhere between 20-25 thousand rubles. Wherein average weight one tusk - about 50 kilograms.

Mammoth bone is so expensive because good qualities, far superior to the quality of ivory. Previously, carvers used found tusks to create combs, boxes, and sculptures. The material is very plastic, beautiful and durable. In China, sculptures carved from the bone of an ancient animal are highly valued. Usually, tusks from the black market are sent there.

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Since every year the tusks are gradually removed from the ground, there are fewer and fewer of them, and the work of the miners becomes more and more difficult. They can be located at the bottom of a swamp or river, or very deep underground and in ice. In addition, due to ancient superstitions, the indigenous peoples of the North have to sacrifice something to the local spirits in order to take the find without any consequences.

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There is a law on criminal liability for "black archaeologists". For illegal seizure of archaeological objects and evasion of the mandatory transfer of discovered artifacts to the state, they face up to six years in prison.

“The law “On Subsoil” says that it is forbidden (to dig), but “black archaeologists” - there is already such a term in science - “bomb”, especially in the north. There was no order with archeology either, the responsibility was minimal, responsibility for paleontology no at all. Even during the construction of objects, archaeological conclusions are mandatory, but paleontological ones are not, everything is at the discretion of the owner.

There are a lot of cases of looting in Siberia. There is a sales market, it is established. You can go to the Internet, enter “I’ll buy a treasury sword”, “I’ll buy mammoth tusks” - and a bunch of offers will come up. And nine out of 10 it will be without any documents. Products and skeletons are very expensive. And even then they make documents, legalize them, and sell them to museums.

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A banal example is the Krasnoyarsk Kurya in the Teguldetsky district Tomsk region. There, for several years in a row, there was an intensified robbery by “black paleontologists” of the location of mammoths, which, as it later turned out, was combined with archaeological finds.

There are hundreds of thousands square meters were dug up to extract mammoth bones. They dug even in winter. What came across in parallel - evidence of the Paleolithic era (stones, processed bones) - was destroyed and lost. And it seems like, according to the descriptions of the local population, there were hearths with charcoal of ancient people. Everything is destroyed irrevocably. This is a typical example of a large scale.

Therefore, the same tightening of the law must be introduced in relation to paleontology. Many archaeological sites contain animal bones, and vice versa. Paleontological and archaeological objects need to be “combined.”

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But what I still don’t understand is how they know where to wash, and especially into the depths of the slope. They burnt and wash away all the slopes along the river, especially since the tusks are often in the depths.

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sources

Mammoth ivory is in demand all over the world. Russia has a fairly large reserve of this material. It numbers about several hundred tons. Despite such a huge number, archaeologists do not stop, but continue to look for where to find

Are there frequent cases of successful excavations aimed at finding mammoth bones?

Every year the warehouse is replenished by approximately several tens of tons. A wide variety of finds were found. Of these, the largest can be distinguished: their length is 4-4.5 meters, diameter 1.8-1.9 decimeters.

A mammoth tusk can weigh 0.1-0.11 tons. In Africa, researchers found this part of an elephant skeleton, which weighed 0.095 tons.

Mammoth bone rests near bodies of water

Where does the extraction of mammoth tusks take place? As a rule, they are dug up near former reservoirs, because the animals were drawn to sources of moisture. You can also stumble upon a mammoth tusk somewhere in a ravine or deep on a river bottom.

The Siberian region is extremely rich in this artifact, because the North is a very favorable habitat for the animal, where it did not feel hot in a thick and dense fur coat. Siberia bestows the scientific light of archeology with thousands of mammoth tusks. More precisely, about 20,000-35,000 kilograms are found annually.

Russia - home of mammoths

Studying the statistics, you can catch yourself thinking that on the lands of today’s Russia, mammoths really liked it, and it was more than comfortable, because the number of finds is simply amazing in its abundance. Moreover, not only the northern part of Siberia was their home, as it might seem at first glance.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries were rich in mammoth ivory. The overwhelming number of successful excavations took place in the Ob region and Yakutia. Thus, it is clear why the Yakuts and Tobolsk people held products made from mammoth ivory in such esteem.

Craftsmen created small sculptures, boxes, watch stands, and combs. These things were made entirely of bone. Everyone wanted to decorate their neck with such a thing as an amulet made from mammoth ivory.

The land on which the glorious city of Arkhangelsk now stands is also famous for its fertility of archaeological values. They also made jewelry and objects that were used in everyday life from mammoth ivory. They were performed by skilled Kholmogory craftsmen.

Extraction of a valuable artifact

Getting mammoth ivory is interesting and profitable occupation, however, not easy. The river bottom is the most frequent place location of this material. Either it is a swamp or tundra. In a word, you won’t be able to get away with it in the literal sense of the word. And you will have to get your hands dirty, but for what purpose! Extraction is only half the battle. When an artifact seeker is happy with a find, he is faced with the following task: now these raw materials also need to be delivered to a processing point. During construction and archaeological excavations, and also when geological surveys are carried out, you can really stumble upon a mammoth tusk. The photo gives an idea of ​​what sizes and shapes they have.

This often happens in Chukotka, northern Yakutia, and Tyumen lands. Since bone carving was a folk art and was popular in the northern part of Russia, which is part of Europe, and in Siberia until the twentieth century, many examples of masterful processing of mammoth ivory have accumulated.

What bones are suitable for work?

There are no special requirements or strict conditions that would limit the freedom in choosing a material that will later be turned into a beautiful product. The bone can be chosen at your discretion.

The following types of materials were mainly used:

  1. moose, cows and deer are quite suitable for processing. They are durable and products made from them last a long time. You can take the horn of any ungulate animal.
  2. Not only horns are suitable for these purposes. Camels, cows and horses have good tubular tibias that can be safely used. The main condition is that the animal must be large and have ungulates.
  3. Mammoths and elephants are excellent “suppliers” of tusks for further artistic processing.
  4. The sperm whale is also a potential “supplier” of bone, and to be precise, its tooth is valuable.
  5. Walruses can give considerable competition with their tusks.
  6. The rhinoceros is an animal that can truly be proud of what gapes on its forehead. In the same way, every craftsman is proud when he gets the horn of this strong animal into his hands for processing.
  7. Narwhal is another individual whose bone is ideal for making beautiful and useful products.

What are the restrictions?

There are regulations, the text of which includes restrictions or even prohibits the sale of horns of animals such as narwhal and rhinoceros. The sale of sperm whale teeth is also limited.

Since 2002, the UN has partially banned the trade in elephant ivory. What then is legal? Mammoth tusks can be sold, and the sale of artiodactyl horns is also permitted. These bans are introduced in order to prevent the brutal killing of animals for profit, so this does not apply to the long-extinct mammoths, because they have not been among them for 10 thousand years existing species fauna representatives. Their bone can be safely used and exported. The only, but important detail: it is necessary to draw up a document permitting production and export abroad.

But still, working with a mammoth tusk is much easier than with ivory or walrus tusk. These are justified restrictions that prevent damage to nature and insure animal world from poaching. Fortunately, there are still many rivers in Siberia, in the soil of which mammoth bones rest, so that living elephants can calmly nibble grass at a watering hole and not worry too much.

Benefits of mammoth tusks

They are deservedly valued above all other similar substitutes. This material is plastic and beautiful. But you have to pay for it, so it is rated higher. It is not so easy to process, but it serves conscientiously and for a long time.

This material is continuous, there is very little void in it, the mass can be considered almost homogeneous. Since the dimensions can be very large, there is the possibility of carving a large sculpture. In order to process a mammoth tusk, you need a chisel. When cut, the sculptor will see a pattern made of a beautiful mesh. Appearance The product is very effective, whatever the processing method. The artifact is painted, polished and engraved. We know about the hardness of amber, pearls and coral. So, mammoth bone is in no way inferior to them.

Analogues and substitutes

If we talk about the tarsus, it has a tubular structure. And here the sculptor has less scope for the scope of his imagination. Some carvers prefer it because it costs less. Russians most often use the tarsus of a cow, while Asians borrow this material from camels. There are also craftsmen who, thanks to their skill, pass off a cheap substitute as mammoth tusk. Although a trained eye will notice the difference in no time.

It has a yellowish or brown heterogeneous color. One-year-old rings can be seen on the tusk. You may have seen something similar on a cross-section of a wooden trunk. So be extremely careful when buying products made from mammoth ivory. To protect yourself from purchasing a counterfeit, consult with professionals. This will avoid wasting money.

In chapter

Dmitry Medvedev instructed Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeev to look into the situation with the extraction of fossil mammoth bones. He, in turn, gathered officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Rosnedra, as well as market participants, for a meeting. It’s even strange that the government did not worry about the “mammoth” problem earlier, because the mammoth ivory market is now completely opaque.

Russia may not be the birthplace of elephants, but it is certainly their last refuge. Scientists have reliably established that the last herds of mammoths lived on Wrangel Island about three and a half thousand years ago. Today, mammoth bone cemeteries are found everywhere - in France, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. But only where the earth has been in a state of permafrost for thousands of years is the mammoth tusk preserved in its original form.

Today it is the only highly valuable bone material permitted for extraction and use. Elephant tusks have long been transferred to the category of forbidden materials, similar decisions were made regarding the sperm whale tooth (due to the complete abandonment of whale hunting) and walrus tusk (harvested northern peoples in small quantities). That’s why mammoth bone is so valuable. One of the largest mammoth burial grounds in the world is Yakutia (80% of the world reserve). According to experts, in the North Yakutsk bone-bearing province, potential reserves of mammoth ivory could be about 500 thousand tons, their value exceeds $1.5 billion. Today in Russia it is impossible to mine mammoth ivory: it can only be collected where it comes to the surface on its own. This activity is regulated by the Law “On Subsoil” (collection of mineralogical collections). Licenses issued by regional authorities are a kind of ticket to a multimillion-dollar market. They allow you to legalize any volume of illegally extracted bone - if only there was a sale.

For 20 years the government of Yakutia has been convincing federal center give the region control and supervisory powers in the area of ​​mammoth ivory turnover. At the same time, the Yakuts are trying to monopolize the buying market. The motivation is good - “black digging” is flourishing, taxes are not paid, products are exported duty-free to China. However, in reality, Yakut clans are fighting each other for access to “first-class” products - the most valuable specimens of tusks.

Prices and varieties

The most valuable is considered to be a completely preserved mammoth tusk that has no external damage. As a rule, collectible tusks are rarely used for bone carving; they are very beautiful in themselves, and are either given to museums or used as interior decoration. Paired tusks of one animal are especially valued.

Only “first grade” is suitable for sculptural carving. It includes whole tusks, as well as perfectly preserved fragments of tusks that do not have cracks or other visible defects inside. Mammoth bone sculptures are especially prized in China. By the way, Prime Minister Medvedev also likes products made from mammoth bone, and they are present in his office. There are only a few real cutting masters in Russia; orders are not placed with them. last people. Complex sculptures can cost from a million rubles.

The so-called wood chips (small bones and fragments of large bones) are sold to resellers for pennies - 25 rubles per kilogram. For example, you can make various crafts from it. More liquid material – well-preserved tusks, individual large bones – is valued much more expensively. Here the price can vary from 2 thousand rubles to infinity, it all depends on the quality of the material.

It is noteworthy that the mammoth had only four teeth: two at the top and two on the lower jaw. The upper (chewing) part of the tooth is a kind of grater, with which he ground grass, small branches and leaves. Previously, mammoth teeth were practically not used for bone carving, since they are difficult to process and crumble. Today, mammoth teeth, after certain processing, are widely used by knifemakers in the Scandinavian countries.

"Black paleontologists"

These people spend the entire summer in forests and swamps, trying to find the remains of ancient animals and, most importantly, find their tusks. This activity is illegal, so diggers have to avoid encounters with police and environmental services, as well as put up with difficult living conditions in the forest. But all this is compensated by the high cost of tusks. On our black market, a 65-kilogram mammoth tusk somehow fetched $34,000. There were cases when groups of diggers managed to earn about 100 thousand dollars in a week of searching.

The tusks of ancient mammoths are extremely valuable for scientists and archaeologists, but most of them disappear without a trace on the black market. The tusks, carefully packed in plastic film, fly to Yakutsk, from where they are sent to China.

The cargo, of course, is unofficial. On the Chinese black market, the price for such bones starts from 35 thousand dollars for each tusk. But only 20–30% of “black paleontologists” will succeed. For most diggers, a whole summer of hellish work in the dirt will only be a waste of time and money (often they take out enslaving loans). Many people only get ordinary dice, which are worth nothing.

In general, the extraction of mammoth bones is very destructive for environment. Both licensees and “black paleontologists” mercilessly erode the banks of Yakut rivers with the help of motor pumps. But it is not only the environment that is being barbarously destroyed. Thus, on the territory of the Tomsk region, a huge cemetery of mammoths (more than 5 thousand square meters) and sites of ancient people were recently found. As a result, “black paleontologists” organized a whole pilgrimage here. Thousands of square meters of soil were dug up to extract mammoth bones. They dug even in winter. What came across in parallel - evidence of the Paleolithic era (stones and bones processed by ancient people) - was destroyed and lost. According to descriptions of the local population, there were hearths with charcoal of ancient people. Everything is destroyed irrevocably. Such barbarity, of course, requires punishment to the fullest extent of the law. But the laws are not written.

Licensing issues

It is interesting that Fyodor Shidlovsky, the founder of Nash LLC, was present at the meeting with Alexey Gordeev glacial period"and the largest trader of VIP products made from mammoth ivory in Moscow. He and other major players are not against legally mining bone at depths of over 6 meters. This will make it possible to increase its annual exports by 10 times - up to 1 thousand tons per year, increasing income by 12-13 billion rubles. Fortunately, China due to the trade ban elephant tusk ready to absorb the entire volume of mammoth bone from Yakutia.

However, it is almost impossible to estimate the actual reserves of mammoth ivory in the bowels of Russia. It is also impossible to estimate the starting amount of payment for the use of subsoil for the purpose of extracting mammoth ivory. Because the price of the final product depends more on the skill of the carver than on the quality of the raw materials.

At a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeev, “they discussed the possibility of legislatively classifying subsoil plots containing mammoth ivory as subsoil plots of local importance, providing them for use through auctions, establishing regular payments for this type of subsoil use and ensuring the sale of mammoth ivory and products made from it at organized auctions,” noted Gordeev’s representative.

“A significant part of the locations of mammoth tusks is located in the coastal, including underwater, zone of the seas of the North Arctic Ocean, as well as on islands classified as shelf zone Russian Federation. However, currently mammoth bone an independent species is not a mineral resource and calculation of reserves and assessment of predicted resources are not carried out,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.

In a word, some kind of legislative dead end. The problem with the extraction of mammoth bones can age, like the mammoth tusks themselves, but remain unresolved? The meeting participants conceptually supported the possibility of establishing in the subsoil legislation a new type of subsoil use - the collection of mineralogical, paleontological and other geological materials as ornamental raw materials for commercial purposes. However, such a fee may be paid.

Gordeev also gave instructions to speed up the formation of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation working group, which will develop solutions to improve legislation in the field of extraction and circulation of fossil mammoth ivory. Perhaps this group will finally come up with something worthwhile.



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