Abstract: Of the many beautiful objects associated with Madinat al-Zahra and the Cordoban Umayyad caliphate, perhaps none are as celebrated as a series of ivory pyxides and caskets produced for members of the royal family. Several of them were made for royal mothers, formerly enslaved concubines who earned their freedom by bearing the caliph's children. Caliphal concubines arrived in Cordoba after being captured in Christian kingdoms or through diplomatic exchange. These ivory objects then ended up surviving in Christian contexts, frequently used as containers for relics in northern cathedrals. The mechanisms of exchange that brought women to the caliph's court and ivory objects to the Christian north are ultimately unknowable, but a close reading of the objects and their long lives offers insight into the transcultural connections among Islamic and Christian kingdoms in the Middle Ages.