North African elephant

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Roman representation of an elephant on a mosaic from Ostia Antica

The North African elephants were a population of relatively small African elephants ( genus Loxodonta ), the exact taxonomic position of which is unclear. In antiquity , they were mainly used by the Carthaginians as war elephants , and by the Romans also in the context of animal baiting and animal fights in the amphitheater . They are mentioned by various ancient authors ( Herodotus , Hanno , Hermippos , Polybios , Strabo , Pliny the Elder , Themistios , Isidore of Seville ), specifying their areas of distribution, without, however, apart from their smaller size and fighting power, based on clear criteria of Indian elephants or African savanna elephants to be demarcated. In addition, there are pictorial representations ( round sculptures , surface art , or relief , decorated ceramics , gems , coins , mosaics and other visual media). “In northern Africa there are [...] numerous rock carvings of elephants. In Morocco , such representations appear throughout the country, with the exception of the northern part between the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts and the Atlas Mountains . They can also be found in central North Africa, in the Hoggar and Tibesti Mountains, and in northern Algeria . ”The evaluation of bone fragments has also led to the result that“ elephants in the Holocene in the entire northern Sahara from Mauritania to the Sudan and Egypt ”existed. While elephants were widespread along the North African coast up to around 2000 BC, their occurrence during antiquity as a result of the increasing aridity of the region was already in the Atlas Mountains, Mauritania (after Pliny, Nat. Hist. V 1, 15; V 1, 18 ; VIII 11, 32), the wooded coasts of the Red Sea and the highlands of Eritrea . The existence of the form probably declined soon after the Roman conquest of North Africa, after their final victory over the Carthaginians, and the area of ​​distribution was reduced further and further. Themistios (approx. 317–388) describes them as an endangered species. Isidore (approx. 560–636) reports that they are now extinct in Africa ( Apud solam Africam et Indiam elephanti prius nascebantur; nunc sola eos India gignit. ) And in the province of Mauretania Tingitana ( Olim etiam et elephantis plena fuit [scil. Mauretania Tingitana], quos sola nunc India parturit. ). Elephants are now only found in India. Possible reasons for this are, in addition to excessive hunting, the decline in forest habitats . The scientific discussion about the original range and the distribution of the subspecies continues, especially since evidence of the former occurrence of the African savannah elephant in North Africa has recently been made.

history

In ancient India , the Persian Empire, and the Hellenistic Empire , Indian elephants were used as war elephants. Ptolemy II began to use the smaller North African elephants. In the Battle of Raphia , they are said to have refused to fight the larger Indian elephants. The Carthaginian war elephants were also predominantly African elephants, as were the animals with which Hannibal crossed the Alps during the Second Punic War , with the exception of his own elephant named Surus ( "the Syrian" ), which is probably an Indian elephant acted.

Taxonomy

Since there is no reliable knowledge about the North African elephant other than its small size, its taxonomic position is controversial. The Ceylonese scientist Paul Deraniyagala established a separate subspecies Loxodonta africana pharaohensis for the North African elephant in 1948 . Type locality is the excavation site of the ancient hunting base of Ptolemais Theron on the coast of the Red Sea. Larry Laursen and Marc Bekoff assigned this subspecies to the cyclotis department, i.e. the forest elephant . Later authors have suggested that the range of the forest elephant might have extended to the coasts of the Red Sea or along the Atlantic coast to North Africa, or that the North African elephants might have been a subspecies of the steppe elephant ( Loxodonta africana ). In the standard work Mammal Species of the World is pharaohensis with africana synonymised .

literature

  • Robert Sturm: The elephant in ancient sculptures. On the importance of the pachyderm in ancient surface art, sculpture and numismatics. Logos, Berlin 2018 ISBN 978-3-8325-4754-7 .
  • Michael B. Charles: Elephant Size in Antiquity: DNA Evidence and the Battle of Raphia. IN: Historia 65, 2016, pp. 53-69.
  • Arun Banerjee, Will Dindorf, Abdeslam Mikdad, Thomas Reischmann, Thomas X. Schumacher: The ivory finds from Kehf-el-Baroud (Ziaïda, Ben Slimane, Morocco) and the question of the North African elephant . In: Madrider Mitteilungen 52, 2011, pp. 113–138.
  • Murray E. Fowler, Susan K. Mikota: Biology, Medicine, and Surgery of Elephants . Blackwell Publishing, Ames, Iowa 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-34411-8 , pp. 16-17 (English).
  • HH Scullard: The Elefant in the Greek and Roman World , Cambridge 1974.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arun Banerjee et al., The ivory finds from Kehf-el-Baroud (Ziaïda, Ben Slimane, Morocco) and the question of the North African elephant pp. 125–126, the two quotations p. 126.
  2. ↑ oratio 10 (orationes 10, ed. Glanville Downey. Teubner, Leipzig 1965), 212, 16-17.
  3. ^ Isidore, etym. XII 2, 16: Elephants once thrived in Africa and India alone; today it only produces India.
  4. ^ Isidore, etym. XIV 5, 12: Once upon a time, Mauritania was also full of elephants, which today only India produces.
  5. ↑ Cf. Arun Banerjee et al., The ivory finds from Kehf-el-Baroud (Ziaïda, Ben Slimane, Morocco) and the question of the North African elephant, pp. 118–126.
  6. ↑ Larry Laursen, Marc Bekoff: Loxodonta africana . In: Mammalian Species . tape 92 , 1978, pp. 1–8 (English, full text [PDF]). Full text (English) ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.science.smith.edu
  7. ↑ Jehezekel Shoshani: Order Proboscidea. In: Don E. Wilson & Dee Ann M. Reeder: Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, Vol 12. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. p.90