Feel Good Story! Follow-Up on 2010 Miracle Elephant Birth at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia

I was doing something totally unrelated (sort of - elephants are ALWAYS related to chess because of the game's ancient origins, both in one of the pieces (the Elephant, which became the Rook in some places in modern Indian chess and evolved into the Bishop in western chess), and the fact that early gaming pieces were often carved out of elephant tusks, when I came across this 2010 blog entry.

It was what started out as a tragic story of a 22-months long pregnancy that ended in a dead baby elephant, trapped inside its mother's womb and birth canal because it was a "feet first" delivery.  The veterinarians had determined there was no way for them to be able to turn the baby to try to deliver it, and a Caesarian section birth was determined to be too risky to the mother elephant.  But lo and behold, two days after the death of the fetus had been announced as determined by an ultrasound that did not detect a fetal heart beat, very early in the morning one of the zoo keepers doing a routine check on the elephants discovered that the mother elephant, Porntip, had not only been delivered after six days of hard labor, but the calf was alive!

See the second story listed, containing  citations to several articles about the declared death of the unborn baby elephant and its subsequent miracle birth, under "Isis Interregnum" posted in 2010.  You can find some early photos of the miracle baby elephant from later in March, 2010 at Zoo Borns. 

So happy to report that the little male "calf that could," whom zookeepers named "Mr. Shuffles" after he was born because he had a little trouble getting his gait straight at first, was named Pathi Harn (meaning "Miracle") after a naming contest and is now 9 years old!  

He's led a very interesting life thus far.  In October 2012 when he was just 2 1/2 years old, he pinned a female zoo keeper against a post, severely injuring her.  Interestingly, the injured zoo keeper explained in a later interview what had happened and it appears that she did not blame the "challenge" to any malice or bad behavior on the part of Pathi Harn.  Crushed Taronga Zoo Elephant Keeper Reveals Her Ordeal (November 23, 2012).  

In 2014, Pathi Harn along with his mother, Porntip, her sister elephant, Thong Dee, and Pathi Harn's bosom buddy, Luk Chai, another young male Asian elephant born a few months before he was, were transferred to a sister zoo in Dubbo from Taronga Zoo in Sydney.  The article disclosed that after the crushing incident of the zookeeper in 2012, tests done on Pathi Harn revealed an unusually high level of testosterone in his system. Taronga Zoo to relocate Four Asian Elephants to Dubbo to Ease Overcrowding (July 24, 2014).  

Senior elephant keeper Lucy Melo pictured back at work with Pathi Harn, the young male that pinned her to a pole. Picture: Jo Clow

Asian male elephants typically don't enter puberty until between 8 and 13 years of age according to this article from the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute:

Male elephants typically leave the herd when they reach puberty, between the ages of 8 and 13. This is often a gradual process, driven by the males' competitive and independent nature and the females' lack of tolerance for their aggressive behavior. Young males tend to form loose bachelor herds, sometimes following female herds or foraging alone. As males age, they typically become more competitive and spend more time alone.

Reproduction and Development

Wild males and females reach sexual maturity between 8 and 13 years of age. Females usually have their first birth in their mid-teens. Behavioral studies tell us that males are unlikely to father a calf until they are in their 30s, when they are best able to compete with older, larger males. By about the age of 30, most healthy males begin to experience a regular period of heightened sexual and aggressive activity called musth.

Musth is a massive rush of testosterone that makes males aggressive and competitive. It also makes them especially attractive to females in estrus. 

Now that is interesting.  It so happens that on the day the female zookeeper's authority was "challenged" by Pathi Horn, he had had an encounter with an older female elephant who happened to be in estrus.  It seems difficult to believe that at only 2 1/2 years of age he would be going into puberty, but what else explains the rush of testosterone in his system that led to his challenging and aggressive behavior toward both the older female elephant and his female zookeeper?  

Porntip, Pathi Harn's mom, gave birth to her second calf, a female, in June 2018:  "Elephant Calf Birth Heralds Future Breeding Success." 

I expect at some point, if I remember to check, I'll be reading a story about Pathi Horn fathering his first calf!  

Elephant Kills Poacher

Good.  Fricking jerks need to be castrated, their balls shoved down their throats to slowly choke on, strung up on a high pole in the village square until the vultures pick out their eyeballs and livers, and then drawn, quartered, and their carcases dragged through every village within 25 miles.  Ha!  Guess you can tell I'm somewhat passionate on the subject of the slaughter of these magnificent animals for profit -- just to provide powdered ivory for some fat cat Chinese asshole who thinks it will increase his erection.  Send the schmucks Viagra, geez! 

Elephant Tramples Poacher in Zimbabwe

Megan Gannon, News Editor

Date: 13 May 2013 Time: 02:30 PM ET

In a grim karmic twist, a suspected poacher illegally hunting African elephants was trampled to death by his prey, according to news reports.

The bloodied remains of Solomon Manjoro were found by rangers in Charara National Park near Lake Kariba in northwestern Zimbabwe, the country's Sunday Mail reported. Authorities say Manjoro and his accomplice, Noluck Tafuruka, 29, went into the park with two rifles looking for elephants when one of the animals apparently attacked. Tafuruka and another man, Godfrey Shonge, 52, were reportedly arrested in connection with the incident.

An international ban on the ivory trade was established in 1989, but poachers still strip elephants of their ivory tusks to sell on lucrative global markets, with a high demand coming from East Asia. The Wildlife Conservation Society estimates that some 25,000 African elephants are killed each year. Last week, a group of armed poachers raided a protected sanctuary in the Central African Republic and killed at least 26 elephants.

Three Rare Elephants Found Dead

This is extremely upsetting to me.  You may wonder why I would give a damn about elephants.  Well, let me tell you.  First, they are a matriarchal society.  Second, they are highly intelligent animals who believe, as Spock once famously said, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."  Third, they are iconic in chess.  Fourth, they are a highly endangered species.  Once they're gone, that's it, dudes, its over for them.  Don't pin any hopes on cloning -- at least, not for a couple hundred more years.  Maybe never.  If we don't give a shit about the animals and environment around us, why do you think for a single second that we - Homo Stupid Fricking Sapiens - will survive as a species?

A wild Sumatran elephant walks in the Ulu Masen forest in western Indonesia.
Three critically-endangered Sumatran elephants have been found
dead in an oil palm plantation in western Indonesia and are
believed to have been poisoned, an NGO said Saturday.
(AFP Photo/Chaideer Mahyuddin)

Three rare elephants found dead in Indonesia
AFP – 7 hrs ago

Three critically-endangered Sumatran elephants have been found dead in an oil palm plantation in western Indonesia and are believed to have been poisoned, an NGO said Saturday.

Villagers found the dead animals on Thursday in a government-owned oil palm plantation in the eastern part of Aceh province. They were estimated to be four and five years old, local environmental group Fakta said.

"We suspected that they died after consuming bars of soap laced with poison we found near the carcass," the group's chief Rabono Wiranata told AFP.  "It seems that the elephants have died around one week," he said.

The animals are usually either killed by villagers, who regard the beasts as pests that destroy their plantations, or by poachers for their tusks.

Early last month, two other Sumatran elephants were found dead in the west of the province.

There are fewer than 3,000 Sumatran elephants remaining in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, marking a 50 percent drop in numbers since 1985.

WWF changed the Sumatran elephant's status from "endangered" to "critically endangered" in January, largely due to severe habitat loss driven by oil palm and paper plantations. Conflicts between humans and animals are increasing as people encroach on wildlife habitats in Indonesia, an archipelago with some of the world's largest remaining tropical forests.

***************************************

Here's an idea.  Let's export some Republicans and Tea Party Nut Cases from the United States to Indonesia.  They'll make sure the "surplus" population of humans in Indonesia die in short order from untreated diseases and starvation.  That's what they're doing here in the USA. 

Demise of Elephants Equals Rise of Modern Humans?

This is a very strange article.  I'm not sure if I should take it seriously.  By the way, elephants did not go extinct in the Middle East 400,000 years ago.  Small pockets of elephants survived into historical times and were hunted in Syria by at least one Egyptian Pharaoh.  I believe the last documented account of hunting elephants -- in an area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- was about 1600 BCE and all elephants has disappeared from the lands between the two rivers by about 1000 BCE, but don't quote me, working from memory which isn't always reliable these days, unfortunately :(

From American Friends/Tel Aviv University
The Disappearance of the Elephant Caused the Rise of Modern ManMonday, December 12, 2011

Dietary change led to the appearance of modern humans in the Middle East 400,000 years ago, say TAU researchers

Elephants have long been known to be part of the Homo erectus diet. But the significance of this specific food source, in relation to both the survival of Homo erectus and the evolution of modern humans, has never been understood — until now.

When Tel Aviv University researchers Dr. Ran Barkai, Miki Ben-Dor, and Prof. Avi Gopher of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies examined the published data describing animal bones associated with Homo erectus at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, they found that elephant bones made up only two to three percent the total. But these low numbers are misleading, they say. While the six-ton animal may have only been represented by a tiny percentage of bones at the site, it actually provided as much as 60 percent of animal-sourced calories.

The elephant, a huge package of food that is easy to hunt, disappeared from the Middle East 400,000 years ago — an event that must have imposed considerable nutritional stress on Homo erectus. Working with Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, the researchers connected this evidence about diet with other cultural and anatomical clues and concluded that the new hominids recently discovered at Qesem Cave in Israel — who had to be more agile and knowledgeable to satisfy their dietary needs with smaller and faster prey — took over the Middle Eastern landscape and eventually replaced Homo erectus.

The findings, which have been reported in the journal PLoS One, suggest that the disappearance of elephants 400,000 years ago was the reason that modern humans first appeared in the Middle East. In Africa, elephants disappeared from archaeological sites and Homo sapiens emerged much later — only 200,000 years ago.

The perfect food package

Unlike other primates, humans' ability to extract energy from plant fiber and convert protein to energy is limited. So in the absence of fire for cooking, the Homo erectus diet could only consist of a finite amount of plant and protein and would have needed to be supplemented by animal fat. For this reason, elephants were the ultimate prize in hunting — slower than other sources of prey and large enough to feed groups, the giant animals had an ideal fat-to-protein ratio that remained constant regardless of the season. In short, says Ben-Dor, they were the ideal food package for Homo erectus.

When elephants began to die out, Homo erectus "needed to hunt many smaller, more evasive animals. Energy requirements increased, but with plant and protein intake limited, the source had to come from fat. He had to become calculated about hunting," Ben-Dor says, noting that this change is evident in the physical appearance of modern humans, lighter than Homo erectus and with larger brains.

To confirm these findings, the researchers compared archaeological evidence from two sites in Israel: Gesher B'not Yaakov, dating back nearly 800,000 years and associated with Homo erectus; and Qesem Cave, dated 400,000 to 200,000 years ago. Gesher B'not Yaakov contains elephant bones, but at Qesem Cave, which is bereft of elephant bones, the researchers discovered signs of post-erectus hominins, with blades and sophisticated behaviors such as food sharing and the habitual use of fire.

Evolution in the Middle East

Modern humans evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago, says Dr. Barkai, and the ruling paradigm is that this was their first worldwide appearance. Archaeological records tell us that elephants in Africa disappeared alongside the Acheulian culture with the emergence of modern humans there. Though elephants can be found today in Africa, few species survived and no evidence of the animal can be found in archaeological sites after 200,000 years ago. The similarity to the circumstances of the Middle East 400,000 years ago is no coincidence, claim the researchers. Not only do their findings on elephants and the Homo erectus diet give a long-awaited explanation for the evolution of modern humans, but they also call what scientists know about the "birth-place" of modern man into question.

Evidence from the Qesem Cave corroborates this revolutionary timeline. Findings from the site dated from as long as 400,000 years ago, clearly indicate the presence of new and innovative human behavior and a new human type. This sets the stage for a new understanding of the human story, says Prof. Gopher.

To read a reprint of the paper that appeared in PLoS One, click here:
http://www.aftau.org/site/DocServer/elephants_paper.pdf?docID=16321

Elephant Attacked by Crocodile!

Incredible photo sequence (with explanatory narrative) that I happened across at the National Geographic online while checking out what appears to be the latest on the Chinese Ming Mummy story (see post below).  The entire sequence of events took approximately 15 seconds!

The Mommy elephant was able to save both herself and her Baby, and I sure hope that nasty croc who tried to bite off way more than he could chew (reminds me of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker) learned his fricking lesson. 

Here's a New Take on Elephants in Ancient Egypt!

I am familiar with art from Rekhmire's tomb but I sure don't recall anything about an pygmy elephant or - what? - a surviving pygmy mastodon in the Bronze Age?

The depiction itself is fascinating, the article is interesting and the discussion is very on point - and hardly an assinine or rude comment in the lot!  That's amazing in and of itself, but perhaps I've just been reading the comments sections at CNN.com and Yahoonews.com too long.   

Elephants are of particular interest to me and I did quite a bit of research back in the early to mid-2000's on the subject of elephants in the Middle East.  The comments about a small surviving herd of elephants in Syria are right on, and they were most likely hunted to extinction in the 10th century BCE.  How sad. 

Anyway - here is a graphic of the "small hairy elephant" in question and a link to the article by Darren Nash and comments.  The elephant is the figure on the left, the bear [suggested by Darren Naish, or lioness, suggested by readers] on the right - with the collar on and leash!  My comments: it's definitely hair or fur on the elephant figure.  The Egyptians were familiar with elephants and would mark their sking with cross-hatching to denote the tough, creased hides. 

To get the timelines correct, Rekhmire was a Vizier of Egypt for two Pharaohs, Tuthmose III and Amenhotep II (c. 1479 to 1401 BCE) during the XVIII dynasty, so the dwarf mastodon(?) in question would have been alive and presented at the Egyptian Court during Rekhmire's lifetime.

Did the ancient Egyptians know of pygmy mammoths? Well, there is that tomb painting.
Category: mammalogy
Posted on: January 19, 2011 8:52 AM, by Darren Naish

New Course at The China Institute, New York

Chinese elephant figurine.  Could it be a game piece?
Chinese chess is called "Xiang Qi" which can be translated as "elephant game."

The chance to take a class like this is only one reason why I wish I lived in New York.  Oh well. Maybe in my next life, when I come back as a Rockefeller heiress. 

Chinese Art and Archaeology

Resident Scholar and Consulting Archaeologist to UNESCEO World Heritage Centre and Discovery Channel’s Ancient Manmade Marvels series, Dr. Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu, will teach a five-week long course introducing Chinese art and archaeology from the Neolithic period to the Bronze Age. This the first in a series of short courses on Chinese art and archaeology to be offered in the next few years in conjunction with our exhibitions.

Dr. Hsu was on the faculty of Brown University (2004-2007) and a research scholar at Stanford University (2008). In 2002, she was the first American graduate student to receive a Mellon Foundation fellowship to conduct research at the Needham Institute at Cambridge University for her work on ancient cartographic science. Dr. Hsu’s publications include “Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early China” in Geography, Ethnography, and Perceptions of the World from Antiquity to the Renaissance (2010), “An Emic Perspective on the Mapmaker’s Art in Western Han China” in Journal of the Royal Society of Asiatic Studies (2007), and The Exceptional Universal Value of the Road Systems in Ancient Empires: A Comparative Study of the Chinese Oasis Route of the Early Silk Road and the Qhapag Ñan, UNESCO (2006).

Tuesdays, January 11, 18, February 1, 8, and 15 ~ 6:30-8:30 PM
$200 member / $250 non-member (5 sessions)
$45 member / $55 non-member (per session)

To register, please click here.

Information on more upcoming courses provided in the August, 2010 China Institute newsletter.

The Elephants and Hannibal

Those poor elephants.  Loyal, faithful, intelligent and generally peace-loving creatures. Incredibly strong - and sensitive. Their pods are ruled by the oldest female.  They would follow the human trainer that they bonded with through hell and high-water.  And, unfortunately for those 37 elephants who accompanied Hannibal on his march through the Alps to conquer Rome, they did just that.

In today's modern era elephants are still herded over the Alps - to raise money for charities. Poor elephants. Who gives a hoot about them?

Not sure how I missed this, but here it is now, from The Times Online:

February 17, 2010
Hannibal’s real Alpine trunk road to Rome is revealed
Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent

. . . What Hannibal, the Carthaginian leader, did in 218BC is well known: “I will use fire and steel to arrest the destiny of Rome,” he had vowed at the start of the campaign. With Rome poised to attack Carthage across the strait from Sicily, he decided the best way to tackle the Romans was head on.

His army of more than 30,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 37 battle elephants from Morocco marched through the autumn from Spain, which he had taken. When they reached the Alps some of Hannibal’s soldiers died of exposure in the bitter cold, while others fell to their death; only about half of them reached northern Italy.

Argument still rages over where the Alpine crossing took place. While there is general agreement that Hannibal moved up the Rhône from Avignon almost to Valence, from there onwards every valley and pass has had a case made for it being the route across the mountains into the plain of the Po near Turin. In 1959 an elephant called Jumbo was taken over the Col du Clapier by the British Alpine Hannibal Expedition to prove the route’s feasibility. This adventure was immortalised in John Hoyte’s book, Trunk Road for Hannibal. In 1988 the cricketer Ian Botham did the same thing, but with three elephants, in aid of leukaemia charities.  . . .

Isis Interregnum

Isis sends the following links to interesting news stories:

1,000-Year-Old Massacre Uncovered in England
By Rossella Lorenzi
Fri Mar 12, 2010 02:31 PM ET
A macabre and forgotten episode from the Dark Ages has been uncovered by British researchers after they examined dozens of beheaded skeletons.

Mystery surrounded the identity of the victims since they were discovered by accident last June near Weymouth, Dorset, England, when workers at a 2012 building site, stumbled across a burial pit.

The grave contained a mass of bones and 51 skulls neatly stacked in a pile.

*********************************************************************

Motherhood Takes a Blessed Turn at the Taronga Zoo (Sydney, Australia)

Things are really crappy out there in the world right now, but this is a great feel good story.  The elephant piece in Chaturanga - Chatrang - Shatranj (and let us not forget Xiang Qi which some call "Elephant Game") is the venerable ancestor of the Bishop in western chess.  Elephants pods are governed by the oldest females - a matriarchal society. Goddesschess holds elephants in very high regard.

It all started out with this sad story:

A mother's heavy burden as baby elephant dies
DEBORAH SMITH
March 9, 2010
PERHAPS the other female elephants could tell that things were going seriously wrong.

Early on Sunday morning, when Taronga Zoo's 18-year-old Asian elephant, Porntip, was in the deepest throes of labour, their behaviour suddenly changed and they lost interest in the birth.

A day later, the keepers and veterinarians providing round-the-clock care to the first-time mother reached the sad conclusion that her baby had died after a difficult and protracted labour.

The zoo's senior vet, Larry Vogelnest, said the calf had presented in an ''upside-down'' position never seen by vets before, which made birth impossible.

Its front feet were coming first, and its heavy head was pulled down by gravity, trapped up against the pelvis.
A caesarean section on a 3000-kilogram elephant was never an option, because of the very high risks.

''And there is very little we can do to manipulate the calf,'' said Dr Vogelnest, adding that the 100-kilogram baby was surrounded by another 150 kilograms of fluid and tissue.

****************************************************************

Elephant mum 'told' herd baby had died
MILES GODFREY
March 9, 2010
It was the dead of night, the baby's heart had stopped and all those present knew it only too well. A low subsonic rumble, entirely inaudible to human ears, drifted out across Sydney Harbour, heralding the tragic news.

Nobody quite knows the exact message communicated.

No one quite knows the emotions it contained.

But it is certain that when an unborn baby elephant at a Sydney zoo died last Sunday, the rest of its herd instantly knew and fully understood what had happened.

Amazingly, the group of six elephants would have heard the baby's heartbeat stop - even though it was still inside its mother, a leading elephant breeding expert says.

The calf's death at Taronga Zoo is a tragic blow to Australia's fledgling breeding and conservation program. But it offers a rare insight into the psychology and physiology of these highly intelligent creatures, some aspects of which we still don't fully understand.

*****************************************************************

Alive and kicking: the 100kg miracle they'll never forget

DEBORAH SMITH, SCIENCE EDITOR
March 11, 2010

HE is set to rewrite the textbooks.

Sydney's ''miracle'' Asian elephant calf, born alive two days after he was declared dead in the womb, is the first elephant known to have survived such a protracted and difficult labour as his mother, Porntip, underwent.

He apparently confounded his keepers and veterinarians - and fellow elephants - by going into a coma during the nine-day ordeal.

The newborn was showing encouraging signs of doing well yesterday, following his surprise arrival at Taronga Zoo at 3.27 am, but was still under round-the-clock intensive care in the heated elephant barn.

****************************************************************

Taronga's 'miracle' elephant 'doing well'
DEBORAH SMITH
March 11, 2010
The "miracle" Asian elephant calf who was born alive after he was believed to have died in his mother’s womb is making good progress today.

The calf, who was monitored by the zoo's keepers throughout the night and today weighed 116 kilograms, has started to suckle from his mother, Porntip, without help and tried to run.

A Place Where Cultures Met

Fascinating article from The New York Times. I don't know what I'm going to do when it goes pay per view next year. I hope the financial model does NOT work and I'll get my free New York Times back. Please.  Does this look like an "imaginary animal" to you?  It looks like an elephant to me, despite the funky toes and truncated body. Identification of graphic: Librado Romero/The New York Times -- A stone carving of an imaginary animal, the Gajasimha, from Thap Mam, Binh Dinh province, in the 12th to 13th century.

Gaja is one of several Sanskrit terms for an elephant.  It's not hard to figure this out by looking at the carving - it has tusks and the an upturned nose/trunk.  Simha - I'm guessing - it's a lion (like "Simba" from The Lion King - demonstrating my total ignorance but brilliant guessing capability???)  The toes and the general shape of the body, along with the long tail curved against the rear flank, suggest an oriental rendering of a lion - such as in Chinese "foo dogs."  So, this figure is a combination of two powerful, totemic animals with ancient religious and mystical significance across several cultures.

Ancient Sphere Where Cultures Mingled
By HOLLAND COTTER
Published: February 4, 2010

In 1988 the art historian Nancy Tingley, then a curator at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, went to Vietnam to talk with museums about borrowing examples of the country’s ancient art for the first major United States exhibition. It was a bold idea. To most Americans, Vietnam still meant little more than the memory of a nightmare war. And who knew it had a great art tradition, never mind museums that preserved it?

The show didn’t happen. The diplomatic situation was volatile; negotiating loans proved impossible. The Asian Art Museum dropped out as a sponsor, and even after new ones signed on, the project remained in limbo. But Ms. Tingley stuck with her original plans, and her persistence, 20 years on, has paid off in “Arts of Ancient Vietnam: From River Plain to Open Sea” at the Asia Society Museum. Is the show worth the wait? It is. It’s fabulous. Perfectly (meaning modestly) scaled, with the kind of Asian art loans — matchless in quality, straight from the source — that we rarely see here anymore.

From the moment you enter the galleries you’re seeing things you won’t find anywhere else and certainly not in this combination: a bronze drum as hefty as a hot tub; a wooden Buddha, tall, dark and Giacometti-thin. Avid-eyed Hindu deities keep company with contortionist dancers. A tiny serpent of beaten gold basks in a spotlight. Ceramic plates and bowls crowd a room just as they had once filled the hold of a ship that went down in the South China Sea.

Once you’ve made your way through the society’s suave installation, you’ve seen treasures from 10 Vietnamese museums. You’ve time-traveled from the first millennium B.C. to the 17th century A.D. And you’ve style-traveled through dozens of cultures both inside and outside Vietnam itself.

Geographically Vietnam was made for trade. A narrow slice of land with a 2,000-mile coastline running from China to Cambodia, it was open to the world whether it wanted to be or not. Where nearby countries like Laos and Thailand are chunky and dense in shape, Vietnam measures at certain points less than 40 miles across. It has virtually no interior, no way to shut its doors and retreat.

As important as accessibility was its location at a nodal point where international shipping routes met. With countless natural harbors — its coastline might have been cut with pinking shears — Vietnam made an ideal layover for sea traffic. It also made a lucrative global marketplace and as such gave as good as it got.

It absorbed early formative influences from China, evident in metalwork (seen in the show’s first gallery) from the prehistoric Dong Son culture that settled in northern Vietnam in the last half of the first millennium B.C. At the time Vietnam itself was valued for its creative vitality. The bronze ritual drums made by Dong Son artists were sought-after collector items, with examples, some weighing close to 400 pounds, turning up not only in China but across Southeast Asia as well.

With the rise of the pre-Angkor state of Fu Nan in the Mekong Delta in the first centuries A.D., Vietnam’s cultural spheres expanded further. We still don’t know much about Fu Nan — there’s a lot of basic archaeological catch-up work to be done — though we do know that its people established harbor cities and experienced a wave of influence from India, which led to adopting Buddhism and Hinduism and their intertwined traditions of religious sculpture.

The tall wooden Buddha, its features time-smoothed almost to invisibility and its figure in profile like a parenthesis, reflects post-Gupta style conventions current on the subcontinent in the sixth century. But it was Hinduism that really caught on, first with the worship of Vishnu. We see him, with the breath-swelled body of a yogi and wearing a princely crown, in a stone figure on loan from the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Museum.

Devotion to Shiva also became in vogue, and soon much of the rest of the Hindu pantheon found its way into Fu Nan and its art: Ganesha, with his elephant’s head and pudgy body; Durga, a blank-faced warrior-goddess stripped down to her skirt for a fight; and Surya, the sun god, in his buttoned-up untropical attire of West Asian tunic and boots.

These immigrant divinities showered Fu Nan with prosperity until the mid-seventh century; then their largesse stopped. For reasons we can only surmise — maybe the appearance of overwhelming commercial competition — a vital state grew moribund and gradually dropped from sight.

Rest of article...

Important Underwater Wreck Revealed Off Coast of Spain

Dates back to the 600s BCE and described as very important: TREASURE FOUND OFF LA MANGA Sally Bengtsson / 2010-01-15 14:50:42 Buried beneath shells, rocks and sand, for 2,600 years, while the construction boom has been completely changing the surrounding landscape, a treasure of incalculable value has lain just off La Manga. Now, 26 centuries later, archaeologists from eleven countries are bringing these antique objects to the light of day once again. The find appears to be the cargo of a commercial ship carrying ivory from African elephants, amber and lots of ceramic objects. The find has been kept secret for the past three years by the team of divers led by the Spaniard Juan Pinedo Reyes and the American Mark Edward Polzer. The recovery project is being financed by National Geographic, who have reached an agreement with the Spanish Minister of Culture, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the University A&M of Texas. The recovery is taking place around Grosa Island and El Farallon Island, just off La Manga. Over the last three years 1,400 objects have been collected. Even some of the wood from the bottom of the ship has survived since the 7th Century before Christ (620 BC), and has been recovered. It is believed the vessel measured approximately 15 metres long. The find has been described as one of the most important of all archaeological discoveries. The Ivory tusks measure between 70 and 150 centimetres, with Phoenician writing inscribed. They have come from a race of elephants which are now believed to be extinct. There are also copper ingots and stones containing silver and lead. Ceramic pots which were used for transporting fish and oil have been found too, as well as plates, bowls, combs, ivory knife handles, bronze needles and chandeliers. It is believed the ship crashed into rocks off the island, which are just a metre and a half below the surface. The ship would have set sail from Cadiz, and was probably heading towards Guardamar to a factory there, or to deliver items to a prince living in the area.

************************************************************************************

I'm curious about the ivory from an "extinct species of elephant" - am wondering if it was the species of elephant that lived between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and were hunted to extinction sometime in the 600s BCE? - am checking National Geographic's website to see if there is more information on this -- Well, that was a bust, didn't find anything at the National Geographic website. I also checked Texas A&M's website and although I did not see any news there about this "dig", I did discover that the University hosts a graduate program in nautical archaeology. I'm interested in the elephant ivory because of elephants' close relationship to the early game of chess, which we at Goddesschess believe dates back much earlier than the 5th century CE. I will keep my eye out for further news on this story.

Bone Carving Confirms Man's Presence 12,000 Years Ago

Ancient carvings of elephants and their ancestors, mammoths and mastodons, fascinate me, probably because of their very old connection to the game of chess. The bishop piece in modern Western chess started out his life as an elephant, after all :) Check out this beautiful carving from Vero Beach, Florida, confirmed to be between 12,000 to 14,000 years old. (Image from Vero Beach 32963 article - see link below). It is a never-ending source of amazement to me how artists (ancient and modern), can catch the living essence of an animal with seemingly a few lines! (Compare to this rock-carved image from the other side of the Atlantic, in Somerset, England, dated to circa 13,000 years ago). University of Florida: Epic carving on fossil bone found in Vero Beach BY SANDRA RAWLS, CORRESPONDENT © 2009, VERO BEACH 32963 In what a top Florida anthropologist is calling “the oldest, most spectacular and rare work of art in the Americas,” an amateur Vero Beach fossil hunter has found an ancient bone etched with a clear image of a walking mammoth or mastodon. According to leading experts from the University of Florida, the remarkable find demonstrates with new and startling certainty that humans coexisted with prehistoric animals more than 12,000 years ago in this fossil- rich region of the state. No similar carved figure has ever been authenticated in the United States, or anywhere in this hemisphere. The brown, mineral-hardened bone bearing the unique carving is a foot-long fragment from a larger bone that belonged to an extinct “mammoth, mastodon or ground sloth” according to Dr. Richard C. Hulbert, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History museum. These animals have been extinct in Florida for at least 10,000 years. Etched into the bone by a highly sharpened stone tool or the tooth of the animal is the clear image of a walking adult mammoth or mastodon. Extensive tests over the past two months have shown that the image was created when the bone was fresh, presumably right after the animal it belonged to was killed or died. Experts who have examined the bone, found at a location which has not been publicly disclosed on the northern side of Vero Beach, concluded the carving and surface are of the same age – 12,000 to 14,000 years old — with no evidence of recent tampering (see accompanying story on tests that have been performed to date). Rest of article.

Friday Night Miscellany

I'm full of "whys" this week; I haven't been sleeping well and I'm depressed. I wonder why? Sarah Palin is in the news. Meet the Alaskan Fifi, the Republican right-wingers' newest and cutest attack dog. She's trainable and has sharp teeth. Why did this 44 year old mother of 4 NOT use birth control when the risks of having a Down Syndrome child are well known for women over 40? Even if she didn't want to use an IUD or a diaphragm or - God forbid - birth control pills for - whatever reasons - there's still self-control (I.E., ABSTINENCE) and the good old fashioned rhythym method. Isn't ABSTINENCE what they preach? Did she not know about the odds of having a Down Syndrome child at her age? Did she know, but not care? Did she think that God wouldn't allow her to HAVE a Down Syndrome child? Did she not think at all, just eat, screw and be merry, for tomorrow al-Qaida may kill us all before we kill them? I have major problems accepting this woman's life-affecting lapse in judgment and her self-indulgent hubris. The same applies to Mr. Fifi's judgment because, after all, it takes two to tango, and as the father of four children and the husband of a middle-aged woman he should have been aware of what the risks were. Do a loving mother and father force a 17 year old girl into a shot-gun wedding because their daughter got knocked up by an 18 year old jock who has nothing going for himself except - well, nothing? Is this the newest and latest morality out of the Republican Party - that bastion of righteousness and family values? Just what family values are being taught here? IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY NOW SAYING IT IS JUST PEACHY KEEN FOR TEENAGE GIRLS TO SCREW AROUND AND GET PREGNANT AND FOR THEIR BOY FRIENDS (OR STATUTORY RAPISTS) TO DO IT? Is their message NOW about forgiveness of sin (for we all know that the flesh is weak no matter how willing the spirit may be) and reconciliation? If Chelsea Clinton was the pregnant, unwed daughter of a Vice-Presidential candidate, would the Republicans THEN be saying "this is a private, family matter"? Ah, Bristol. How does it feel at 17, I wonder, to have the whole rest of your life planned out for you by your parents, depending upon what track your mom's political career takes? Will you try and hold out to not marry the 18 year old dude who got you pregnant until after the election, in the hope that if McCain/Palin loses, you won't have to commit after all? Do you really think you'll be allowed to do this? Well, you know what they say: "If you're old enough to do the crime, you're old enough to do the time."

*******************

Here is another really sad story. And no - I did not hunt it down because it features an elephant, which is the symbol for the Republican Party.

Elephant cured of heroin addiction Four-year-old Asian elephant treated with massive methadone doses Sep 04, 2008 02:04 PM The Associated Press BEIJING – An Asian elephant that became addicted to heroin at the hands of illegal traders will return home after a three-year rehab program, Chinese state media said today. Xiguang, a 4-year-old male Asian elephant, became addicted after he was captured by smugglers along the Chinese-Myanmar border in March 2005. The traders fed the elephant bananas laced with heroin as bait and to pacify the creature, the official Xinhua News Agency said. When Xiguang was found two months later along with six other captured elephants in China's southwest, he was suffering from withdrawal and was sent to a protection center in China's tropical Hainan island. Xiguang received daily methadone injections in doses five times larger than those given to a human and has now fully recovered, Xinhua said. He is expected to return to the Yunnan Wild Animal Park in the capital of Yunnan province, Kunming, on Saturday. The Asian elephant is threatened with extinction, according to the World Wildlife Fund conservation group, with only 25,600 to 32,750 left in the wild of Asia's tropical forests – fewer than a tenth of the number of wild African elephants.

Charlemagne and the Elephant

In the Persian game of chess, 'Chatrang,' from which our modern game of chess descended, the elephant piece sat on the board where the Bishop sits now. The elephant had been used in warfare, with mixed success, since ancient times, the oldest use of which may be Egyptian. It was a small herd in northern Syria, however, that supplied elephants to the ancient Persians for their army, before the animals were hunted to extinction some 3000 years ago, long before the game of 'Chatrang' is reported to have appeared in Persia. It has been recorded that various gifts were made to Charlemagne by Caliph Harun al-Rashid, among which were an elephant and a chess set. The elephant was used by Charlemagne in a few campaigns and struck terror into the heart of the calvary coming up against the creature. There are pieces reputedly from the "Charlemagne chess set" in various museums - but they have all been dated to the 11th century CE - too young to be pieces from the set gifted to Charlemagne by al-Rashid. The chess set gifted to Charlemagne by al-Rashid was a key part of Katherine Neville's best-selling novel "The Eight," which I have written about extensively in this blog. Here is a fascinating history about the gifts of al-Rashid to Charlemagne.