Search Results: Elephant

Elephants were used in the ancient Indian army, irrespective of regions, dynasties, or points in time; their importance was never denied and continued well into the medieval period as well. The ready availability in the subcontinent of the...

Elephants were thought of as fierce and frightful monsters in antiquity, very real though rarely seen until the Hellenistic period. They were deployed on the battlefield to strike terror into the enemy, however, since fear was considered...

A photograph showing civilians sheltering in the Elephant and Castle station of the London Underground during the London Blitz of 1940-1. (Imperial War Museums)

Black-and-white mosaic with an elephant in the Piazzale delle Corporazioni (Square of the Corporations) at Ostia Antica, Italy. The inscription as well as the elephant show that merchants from Sabrata (Libya) traded in wild animals and/or...

Two coins issued by Ptolemy I: 1) A portrait of the deified Alexander the Great wearing an elephant scalp on his head, with a ram’s horn over his temple, and an aegis (sacred fleece) over his shoulder; on the reverse Athena Alcidemus, the...

A limestone relief depicting an elephant. Tra Kieu, Quang Nam province, Vietnam. 10th century CE. (Musée Guimet, Paris)

An elephant and a griffon attack warriors with so-called Celtic shields, a common theme on Hellenistic faience ware. The image is based on a faience shard perhaps from Memphis, c. 3rd century BCE, now in the collection of the Allard Pierson...

One of the capitals of the 120 columns on the Lower Temenos of the Great Temple of Petra (Jordan). They were all decorated with heads of Asian elephants and are dated to the 1st century BCE or early 1st century CE.

In the search for ever more impressive and lethal weapons to shock the enemy and bring total victory the armies of ancient Greece, Carthage, and even sometimes Rome turned to the elephant. Huge, exotic, and frightening the life out of an...

The Battle of Zama (202 BCE). Roman right wing charges and routs the Carthaginian cavalry, followed by the Roman left wing routing the Carthaginian right wing. Remaining elephants are lured through the lanes and killed.