Abul-Abbas - WikiHQ

Abul-Abbas ( – 810) was an Asian elephant brought back to the Carolingian emperor Charlemagne by his diplomat Isaac the Jew. The gift was from the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid and symbolizes the beginning of Abbasid–Carolingian relations. The elephant's name and events from his life are recorded in the Carolingian Annales regni Francorum, and he is mentioned in Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni. However, no references to the gift or to interactions with Charlemagne have been found in Abbasid records.

Contemporary accounts

From the Orient to Europe

Abul-Abbas was probably born during the 770s or 780s (based on the average age of Asian elephant maturity) and was brought from Baghdad, the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, by Charlemagne's diplomat Isaac the Jew, who along with two other emissaries, Lantfrid and Sigimund, Charlemagne then ordered a man to Liguria (the province around Genoa) to commission a fleet of ships to carry the elephant and other goods. now in Tunisia) with Abul-Abbas and traveled the remaining distance to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.

At any rate, the strict reading of the historic text Annales regni Francorum is that "Isaac the Jew returned from Africa with the elephant" (Isaac Iudeus de Africa cum elefanto) and landed in Porto Venere (near Genoa) in October 801. Abul Abbas was a full-grown adult elephant. On the tacit assumption that Charlemagne was with Abul-Abbas when the elephant died, some modern commentators venture that the beast had been brought to serve as a war elephant.

Place of death

The location of "Lippeham" is a matter of conjecture, (its confluence with the Rhine), in other words, somewhere near the city of Wesel. The claim dates at least as far back as 1746, (or 1735) and that a colossal bone unearthed from the area, in the possession of their affiliated museum, was plausibly a part of the remains of the elephant Abul-Abbas. Another gigantic bone was found in the Lippe River among a catch of fish in the herrschaft of in early 1750, and it too was claimed to be a piece of Abul-Abbas.

One detractor to the claim is Richard Hodges who places it in Lüneburg Heath, which is nowhere near the Rhine.

Modern embellished accounts

Details of exhibition and death

The Annales regni Francorum contain only short reports about the transport of Abul-Abbas (801), In 1971, Peter Munz wrote a book intended for popular readership which repeated the same "white elephant" claim, but a reviewer flagged this as a "slip" given there was "no evidence" known to him to substantiate it. Mention of "white elephant" also misleadingly occurs in the title of the published catalog from the Aachen exhibition of 2003: Ex oriente : Isaak und der weisse Elefant, however, in this publication is a contributing article by Grewe and Pohle that appends a question mark on it: "Among the famous gifts to Charlemagne was a (white?) elephant".

Abul-Abbas' species

thumb|upright=1.25|The elephant in Paris, BnF lat. 2195

A number of authors assert that Abul-Abbas was an Indian elephant,

Arguments for Abul-Abbas having been an Indian elephant include that Abbasid sources such as al-Jahiz and al-Masudi record a belief that African elephants were not tamable. ("Sed idem Julius nuntiando de Germania insulisque eius unum de elephantibus mentiens falso loquitur dicens, elephantem numquam iacere, dum ille sicut bos certissime iacet, ut populi communiter regni Francorum elephantem in tempore imperatoris Karoli viderunt....") An inhabited initial B from a copy of Cassiodorus' Commentary on the Psalms made at the Abbey of Saint-Denis in the first quarter of the ninth century (now Paris, BnF lat. 2195) incorporates an elephant's head. The realistic portrayal of an Asian elephant suggests that the artist had seen Abul-Abbas.

Evidence put forward for Abul-Abbas having been an African elephant includes the route by which he arrived in Europe, which was via Tunisia. Radio-carbon dating shows that the ivory in the plaque is not of ancient origin.

Notes

Citations

References

Monumenta Germaniae Historica (digital version).