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Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

uliwestphal.de

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Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#31

Post by chrisco255 »

xg15 wrote: post #22

So, I know the meme that the European middle ages were some time of great civilizational downfall ("dark ages") is itself pretty much debunked by now. But there must have been some kind of change between antiquity and middle ages that caused so much knowledge and international exchange to simply vanish. I really wonder what exactly went on there.

Probably a number of things: the Roman empire collapsed so infrastructure fell to ruin and it became much more difficult to travel and trade across long distances. In addition, with the collapse came a lack of protection from an organized military, Rome itself was sacked multiple times but communities would regularly get invaded and raided by bandits and various tribes and gangs. That's perhaps why we see the development of castles in the middle ages, as a defense mechanism for an age in which each community was more or less on their own.

There was also a major volcanic winter in the 500s that triggered global cooling and caused droughts and starvation.

There was also the Justinian plague in the 500s which was supposedly worse than the Bubonic plague.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian

Plagues and droughts have killed off more than a few civilizations, but seeing that these occurred in the wake of the collapse of the Roman empire, it probably accelerated the gradual decline that would have occurred and maybe prevented any sort of recovery.

Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#32

Post by capableweb »

blululu wrote: post #6

Really a cool project. Thinking about how to describe and elephant: like a giant ox but with big ears a long protruding nose and tusks (not not for female Asian elephants). Can easily see how that game of telephone would go sideways.

Assumes the receiver of the description knows what an ox and tusks looks like.

Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#33

Post by burkaman »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #5

I'm curious on the approach taken. Are the arrows based on known derivation/influences, or based on perceived similarity? It's a master's thesis. This here: https://www.uliwestphal.de/elephas-anthropogenus/soloelephan... Does not seem to be an elephant to me. Maybe a vomiting deer, or with a bad case of worms of serpentitis. (:

http://corsair.themorgan.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=257528

> Notes: The text refers to elephants; the miniature may be a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the standard Bestiary image of the elephant battling a dragon.

Seems to be speculation that the artist saw an image like https://64.media.tumblr.com/07d4ec88f9250ff97d244dd316bd5e2e... or had it described to them, and didn't really understand it but knew it was called an elephant.

Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#34

Post by posterboy »

gehwartzen wrote: post #4

Some of these are pretty wild. Makes me wonder if similar mischaracterized/illustrated of animal depictions were the source for the belief in dragons and other monsters

I convinced myself that Mushu on the Ishtar gat must be a horse because horses are said to have come from the north and mare, a Germanic-Celtic isogloss would somewhat match the description if rhotacism was involved. Then I went on about Amazons and Mars just because their origin may be uncertain. So no, here be dragons.

The domestication of the horse keeps being challenged anyhow.

Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#35

Post by koboll »

Little_Fish wrote: post #12

This is like the gif where everyone draws a picture on the back of the person in front and the end result is nothing like the original. Chinese whispers in art form!

You can almost hear the not-quite-accurate descriptions that inspired these. Like the (many) images that are almost accurate, except the tusks grow upward: probably the description called them "horns" and mentioned where on the head they grew from, but not the direction, so the artists simply inferred the horn-growth direction they were familiar with from other large mammals.

Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#36

Post by jonnycomputer »

burkaman wrote: post #33
jonnycomputer wrote: post #5

I'm curious on the approach taken. Are the arrows based on known derivation/influences, or based on perceived similarity? It's a master's thesis. This here: https://www.uliwestphal.de/elephas-anthropogenus/soloelephan... Does not seem to be an elephant to me. Maybe a vomiting deer, or with a bad case of worms of serpentitis. (:

http://corsair.themorgan.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=257528 > Notes: The text refers to elephants; the miniature may be a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the standard Bestiary image of the elephant battling a dragon. Seems to be speculation that the artist saw an image like https://64.media.tumblr.com/07d4ec88f9250ff97d244dd316bd5e2e... or had it described to them, and didn't really understand it but knew i…

Ah! Interesting. The color plate makes it quite clear that the "trunk" is actually another creature (a snake).

I wonder if the motif of elephants battling dragons comes out as a kind of origin story of how the elephant got its trunk.

Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#37

Post by 3minus1 »

xg15 wrote: post #22

So, I know the meme that the European middle ages were some time of great civilizational downfall ("dark ages") is itself pretty much debunked by now. But there must have been some kind of change between antiquity and middle ages that caused so much knowledge and international exchange to simply vanish. I really wonder what exactly went on there.

I remember a college lecture on this topic and the professor mentioned that Catholic clergy always retained knowledge of reading and writing, but there was 1 or 2 generations in France where the aristocracy couldn't read. I think Charlemagne famously learned to read as an adult. And of course slaves/peasants/serfs never really gained the ability to read until public education came around much later.

Re: Evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages

#40

Post by Rebelgecko »

sischoel wrote: post #2

The page is from 2008 - unfortunately a lot of links to the original pictures do not work anymore.

The linkrot is definitely sad to see, especially since (at least some of) these images are line art based upon originals that were a lot more textured
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