The royal palace of the Israelite king was originally constructed in Samaria by King Omri. However, his son and successor Ahab constructed additional buildings and rooms, including what the book of Kings describes as “the ivory house.” During excavations of the 9th century BC Samaria palace of Omri and Ahab, a room or house north of the main palace section was discovered which contained over 12,000 intricately carved ivory objects (or fragments of objects). This led the archaeologists to conclude that this room was almost certainly the ivory house of Ahab.
Many of the ivory pieces were used to decorate luxury furniture, while it appears that others were, themselves, art objects, thus characterizing the entire “house” with an ivory motif. So, what were the art objects? The pieces were not merely geometric designs or interwoven vines; they included images of animals and featured pagan iconography, such as the winged sphinxes and depictions of pagan gods and goddesses. This clearly violated the Law of Moses, but is very much in keeping with the influence of Queen Jezebel, the former princess of Sidon, the wife of King Ahab.
The iconography is very similar to ivory objects that have been found in Phoenicia, reinforcing the notion of the Phoenician influence of Jezebel. Furthermore, closer analysis of some of the ivory objects reveals lettering in Hebrew script, demonstrating that Israelite artisans were involved in building not only the furniture but possibly the ivory pieces as well.
