I have heard this for a long time, and always wondered how they trained African elephants.
There's a reason that you see working elephants all over East Asia, but not in Africa.
African elephants are pretty badass. I have not heard of them being successfully trained, but then, it's never really been a subject I studied.
Also, as we are learning, more and more, when it comes to war, big is not necessarily better. Big targets. These days, a speedboat with a missile, could take out an aircraft carrier.
There's some debate over the type of elephant Hannibal's forces used. They were likely not the African elephants we know today, but North African elephants[1]. This was a physically smaller subspecies that was later extirpated by the Romans. Perhaps analysis of the bone in this story will help settle the debate.
It's also worth noting that, despite the insane effort it must have taken to get elephants over the alps, all but one of Hannibal's elephants died during the first winter in Italy. They made for a great story and were a propaganda coup for the Carthaginians, but didn't wind up making much of a military impact. They were only present for the first couple of battles Hannibal fought.
> A second-century Roman mosaic of a war elephant in Tunisia
It is quite interesting to see that the depicted elephant has wrong proportions. This makes one wonder whether the artist who created that mosaic, ever saw an elephant himself.
Pure speculation, of course, but I would say so. The hump in the back; the small, high, tail; dominant forehead — those are all things missed by people who mis-draw elephants. I think this artist got them right, which is hard to do from description alone.
I’m very tempted to agree with you: people who draw from description draw unicorns after being told about rhinoceroses. We have a lot of medieval monks’ drawings of elephants by description and theirs look like tapir with a trumpet stuck in their nose. This is not a photo, of course but it mainly highlights the head, like any one would if they didn’t measured proportions carefully.
There has also been debate about which species of elephant Hannibal's forces used. Elsewhere, Hellenistic Greek forces used Asian elephants, but many believe Hannibal used North African elephants, a sub-species that was extirpated by the Romans. Their proportions might have been a little different than living elephants. It will be interesting to see if the bone can help settle this debate.
The main thing I see wrong is that the back legs bend the wrong way. But I only know that because of the trivia question, "what is the only animal with four knees?"
It's interesting because they don't monotonically get better over time. Some of the oldest depictions are pretty good, and there's some zaniness in the middle of the timeline
Might be a limitation of the medium. Mosaics are complicated.
This famous "skeleton" mosaic has the proportions wrong as well, even though the artist almost certainly saw some actual human skeletons, and definitely some living humans with their longer arms and smaller heads than depicted :)
The mosque-turned-cathedral is an interesting (and huge) piece of medieval architecture.
The Roman bridge is fascinating as well.
Plus, if you arrive in summer, you will learn what heat is. Córdoba is hot even for the standards of Spanish summers. Hence, interesting night life. Not just drunkards, normal families and everyone who barely survived the day and now has the opportunity to live and socialize outside.
It’s incredible that we’re still finding chemical or biological signatures from a logistics operation that happened over 2,000 years ago.
Whether it’s stable isotope analysis of the soil or unique pollen counts, the 'data' is still there in the ground. It really puts our modern digital 'archaeology' (trying to recover a file from a 10-year-old server) into perspective.
There's a reason that you see working elephants all over East Asia, but not in Africa.
African elephants are pretty badass. I have not heard of them being successfully trained, but then, it's never really been a subject I studied.
Also, as we are learning, more and more, when it comes to war, big is not necessarily better. Big targets. These days, a speedboat with a missile, could take out an aircraft carrier.
It's also worth noting that, despite the insane effort it must have taken to get elephants over the alps, all but one of Hannibal's elephants died during the first winter in Italy. They made for a great story and were a propaganda coup for the Carthaginians, but didn't wind up making much of a military impact. They were only present for the first couple of battles Hannibal fought.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_elephant
It is quite interesting to see that the depicted elephant has wrong proportions. This makes one wonder whether the artist who created that mosaic, ever saw an elephant himself.
It's interesting because they don't monotonically get better over time. Some of the oldest depictions are pretty good, and there's some zaniness in the middle of the timeline
This famous "skeleton" mosaic has the proportions wrong as well, even though the artist almost certainly saw some actual human skeletons, and definitely some living humans with their longer arms and smaller heads than depicted :)
https://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Ha...
The Roman bridge is fascinating as well.
Plus, if you arrive in summer, you will learn what heat is. Córdoba is hot even for the standards of Spanish summers. Hence, interesting night life. Not just drunkards, normal families and everyone who barely survived the day and now has the opportunity to live and socialize outside.
https://columbiagemhouse.com/pages/anthill-garnet
https://myeldesign.com/blogs/journal/the-fabulous-story-of-a...
Whether it’s stable isotope analysis of the soil or unique pollen counts, the 'data' is still there in the ground. It really puts our modern digital 'archaeology' (trying to recover a file from a 10-year-old server) into perspective.