One highly distinctive ancient Egyptian product is the hippopotamus tusk section, incised with series of divine forms to protect mother and child. Here the "birth tusks" are explored in five movements: linear description of Petrie Museum examples; contexts from pre-2000 excavations; corpus of pre-1973 acquisitions; comparison with late Middle Kingdom iconography, and then with material of other periods. Closing reflections on wider research horizons address the problems posed by the narrow chronological and social distribution of an object type.