Dwarf Mammoths in Egypt?

I'm in the process of reading the book "The Time Before History" by Colin Tudge. It's an engaging read on the ecological impact of humans beginning back with the Australopithecines. However, it's frustratingly un-referenced, and contains no bibliography. On page 148 (amid a quite good discussion of Elephantids and nanism), he mentions an Egyptian tomb painting that seems to depict a dwarf mammoth (like one of the Wrangel Island mammoths) about the size of a sheep. He points out that although there is no indication of trade between Egypt and Siberia, it is conceivable that a "jewel" of this type might have made it step by step through a series of owners until finally arriving as a gift in pharoah's court.My question is this: has anyone ever heard this story before? If so, do you have any references I can look up that discuss this alleged painting? Especially interesting would be which pharaoh, etc.Thanks

It could have been a pygmy elephant, or the author was just making it up. I'm not sure how much evidence for pygmy elephants there is.Egyptian wall paintings would often draw important people such as pharaohs much larger than everyone else, and they would have lots of little servants and stuff around them. We don't assume the pharaoh was 30 feet tall for that reason, so we shouldn't assume that elephants were small either. It could be that the artist's intention was to highlight some other thing in the painting, rather than the elephant.Egyptians did like animals though, and tried to domesticate all sorts of things - storks, hyenas, baboons, and so on, many with only limited success. The painting, if it exists, could portray a baby elephant. According to Wikipedia, newborn elephants can weigh around 225 pounds. Though bigger than a sheep, that makes things a little more reasonable.This message has been edited by Gary, 11-12-2004 11:24 PM

Well, I have seen paintings of baby elephants in Egyptian Paintings. We also know that by Ptolemy II they were trading as far north as the Artic. He had a polar bear in his zoo but that was much later, around 300BC or so.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I heard about pygmy mammoths on islands in the Mediterranean during the Homo floresiensis hub-bub, much closer to Egypt than Wrangel Island...Here is a link to a lay reference that includes "Pygmy populations derived from elephants or mammoths are known from several locations throughout the world, including the islands of Malta and Sicily in the Mediterranean, several islands in southeast Asia, and Wrangel Island in the Arctic."

Thanks everyone. What I find interesting about the sort-of-passing reference in this book is the description given is NOT of a pygmy elephant like the ones that were found on the Mediterranean islands (variously identified as dwarf Palaeloxodon [Elephas] antiquus or Elephas falconeri). Rather, the description of the painting indicates (domed skull, curved tusks, hairy) a mammoth. The painting also allegedly shows a sheep depicted roughly the same size - IOW, if it was the usual "big pharaoh/little everything else" the distortion in the proboscidean is extreme. Moreover, AFAIK, the only true pygmy mammoth is Mammuthus exilis from the Channel Islands off California (the Wrangel Island version is believed to be simply a smaller (normal) variant of Mammuthus primogenius).Making a long story short, that's why I'm trying to track down the actual reference, with ideally a reproduction of the painting, so that I can see whether the author is talking out his butt... edited to add: I just stumbled across an interesting article that appears to reference the painting, but in this case calling it a pygmy elephant. Masseti, M 2001, Did endemic dwarf elephants survive on Mediterranean islands up to protohistorical times?. If the article is correct, my author is mistaken, and the painting is from the tomb of Rekh-mi-Re, vizier of Thutmosis III, (18th Dynasty). The article also contains a photo of the painting.This message has been edited by Quetzal, 11-13-2004 10:34 AM

Okay, I'm familar with that painting. It's of someone leading a baby elephant and a bear. Here is a link to some more pictures of it. Note the longer than normal legs on the baby elephant. Link to image

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

That picture doesn't work, could you put it on Imageshack or some other form of hosting? It says I don't have access to it.
ImageShack - Best place for all of your image hosting and image sharing needs

here is a link to some coverage on it. The picture is on the left side of the page near the top.IMHO all talk of a mommoth is simply wishful thinking similar to the identification of a fairly common snake pictoglyph as a dinosaur that was posted here not too long ago.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thanks! It looks like a baby elephant to me too. Here is a photo of a baby elephant to compare the painting with. It doesn't look unreasonable for the painting to be of a baby elephant, not an adult. The photo is of an elephant about 4 to 6 months old, so it was probably smaller when it was born, and the artist may not have actually been there to see the elephant when it was given to the pharaoh, and he might not have painted until a long time after the elephant was given away, so the painting might not be completely accurate.

What is now somewhat confusing to me is both Masseti and Tudge reference a Nature article (Rosen, B. 1994 "Mammoths in ancient Egypt?" Nature 369: 364-365) as the original source of the mammoth claim. Although Masseti identifies the proboscidean in the painting as Elephas and Tudge claims Mammuthus, both point out the existence of tusks. Apparently they're referring to the curved lines in front of the figure immediately to the right of the elephant (for lack of a better word). I took those to be decoration on the clothing of this figure, but on closer examination they MAY represent tusks. IF so, then it does appear that the elephant is an adult, and may be a dwarf. What IS clear, assuming those are supposed to represent tusks, is that there is no way the figure represents a mammoth - the tusks are straight, not curved, and that plus the skull is more consistent with Elephas than mammoth.So, my initial question appears answered, regardless of whether the figure is a dwarf adult or baby: Tudge was wrong, basing his claim on Rosen's article, which itself appears flawed.

Hi Q,
Proboscidean taxonomy is, to put it mildly, a mess. It is way over split. Wrangel Island mammoths were not another species and were not dwarfs. Dick Mol of Cerpolex/Mammuthus demonstrated that they were looking at females and the reduction of size is just the typical sexual dimorphism observed in all modern elephants. With regards to other mammoths, Mammuthus columbi is clearly different morphologically from primigenius. So is exilis and so is meridionalis. But sub species, species whatever, within primigenius are really tenuous.
Here is an abstract of Dick Mol's on size variation referring back to some of the species you mentioned.ON REMAINS OF VERY SMALL (FEMALE) WOOLLY MAMMOTH, Mammuthus primigenius, FROM WESTERN EUROPE (L)DickMOL'.JelleW.F. REUMER'.John DEVOS'& PietCLEVERINGA'
1 Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, P.O.Box 23452, 3001 KL Rotterdam, The Netherlands2 Naturalis, NNM, P.O.Box 95 17, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands3 NITG/TNO, P.O.Box 157. 2000 AD Haarlem, The NetherlandsRemains of woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius (BLUMENBACH, 1799) from the remote Wrangel Island (East Siberian Sea) hit the news is 1993. Their geological age was Holocene (Vartanyan et al. 1993). The youngest C 14 datings reached ages of about 3700 yBP! The remains, mostly third molars (Mm3), were ascribed to dwarf rnamnnoths. Garutt et o\. ( 1993) considered these relatively small molars to be of a new subspecies, N\. primigenius vrangeliensis. The estimates of the withers height of these dwarf mammoths from Wrangel Island vary considerably. According to some researchers it was 1.5-2 m, others mentioned 1.8m, still others 2.0m (e.g. Lister & Bahn 1994, Agenbroad 1998). All estimates of the withers height are based on the size of the molars.Postcranial skeletal elements of Holocene age have been found on Wrangel Island in addition to the mentioned molars. These postcranial elements show that we are dealing with characteristically Late Pleistocene woolly mammoths: an average withers height of between 2.5 and 3.0 m. Por example, a femur is known from Wrangel Island with a length of 0.98 m. This can be compared to the famous Berezowska mammoth, which was found at the beginning of the 20th century and that had a withers height of 2.65 m and a femur of 1.03 m. Other postcranial elements from Wrangel Island show that the mammoths had withers heights such as we also know from other localities in Eurasia. In general a strong decrease in body size can be seen in Pleistocene mammoths: /V\. meridionoiis from the Early Pleistocene is the largest (withers height up till 4.2 m), the Middle Pleistocene M. trogontherii reached heights of 3.5 -4.0m, and Late Pleistocene M. pnmigenius is the smallest with heights between 2.5-3.0m. A good example of relatively small animals are the mammoths from Sevsk (Russia). At this locality at least 33 individual animals were excavated of about 13,950 y old. Seven nearly complete skeletons belonged to animals ranging in age from new-born to very old. The largest skeleton, with awithers height of 2.4 m belonged to an adult bull (Lister & Bahn 1994).The Southern Bight of the North Sea between England and the European continent is a rich locality for finding larger mammal remains. As early as 1986, Van Essen (1986) mentioned a remarkably small M3 ofM {)nmigenius (see Fig. I, roughly natural size!) Since, many relatively small molars, characterized by very thin lamellae are found in the North Sea. Similar finds are known from the Dutch continental area. All are of a Late Pleistocene age. The geologically youngest specimens from The Netherlands are from the IJssel Valley (province of Gelderland). A well-preserved skull of an adult female with mandible and complete dentition (second and third molars in function) was dated at Utrecht University to 22,1 60 +/- 260 yBP (UtC-4550). The oldest C14 dated specimens are skeletal remains from the bottom of the North Sea, belonging to adult animals with a withers height of less than 2.2 m (>45,000 yBP, University ofGroningen GrA-I 1640). Also in other European (e.g., England, Germany) and North Amencan (Fairbanks, Alaska) museum collections we have found small third molars ofA4 primigenius from Late Pleistocene deposits. We ascribe such remains of small adult Late Pleistocene mammoths to female animals. The post-cranial material of West-European Early Pleistocene M. meridionalis also contains both very large and very small specimens. There is apparently aconsiderable size range in mammoths. We prefer to consider this remarkable difference in sizes a result of sexual dimorphism. Adult female mammoths were considerably smaller than adult males (bulls).The only true dwarf mammoth of Late-Pleistocene age isM exilis, known from the Channel Islands off the coast of California, U.S.A. They descend from the Columbus mammoth M. columbi, an abundant species in the Late Pleistocene of continental North America. This latter mammoth species reached awithers height of between 3.5 and 4.0 m. Only one fairly complete skeleton ofM exilis is known from Santa Rosa Island (Agenbroad 1998, Agenbroad et a!. 1999): its withers height was 1.6 m. M. exUis, with a withers height between 1.5 and 1 .8 m, is notably smaller than all supposedly dwarfed Late Pleistocene mammoths mentioned in the literature.referencesAgenbroad, L.D., 1998 - Pygmy (Dwarf) Mammoths of the Channel Islands of California - Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, SD Inc., Hot Springs, South Dakota, 27 pp.Agenbroad, L.D., Morns, D. & Roth. L 1999 - Pygmy mammoths Mammuthus exilis from Channel Islands National Park, California (USA) - in: Haynes, G., Klimowicz, J. & Reumer, J.W.F. (eds.) - Mammoths and the Mammoth Fauna: Studies of an Extinct Ecosystem - Deinsea 6: 89-102Garutt, V.E., Avenanov, A.O. & Vartanyan, S.L, 1993 - On the systematic position of Holocene Dwarf Mammoths, Mommuthus {)nmigenius (Blumenbach, 1799) from Wrangel Island (North East Siberia) (in Russian) - Doklady Akademii Nauk332:799-801Lister, A. & Bahn, P., 1994 - Mammoths - Macmillan, USA: 1 68 pp.Van Essen, H., 1986 - Signalementvan een diminutieve M3 sup. van een wolharige mammoet - Cranium 3 (1): 6-7Vartanyan, S.L, Garutt, V.E. & Sher, A.V., 1993 - Holocene dwarf mammoths from Wi-angel Island in the Siberian Arrtir - Nature 362: 337-340

Hi Hairy Extinct One.I remember the "dwarf mammoth" claim had been refuted. Tudge can probably be excused because he published his book in '94, right after the first Wrangel Island discoveries and before the rebuttal. At least this confirms that my memory is correct and the only true "dwarf mammoths" discovered to date are M. exilis from Santa Rosa.Besides, it looks like Tudge really jumped the gun - no matter how you slice it, that proboscidean is NOT a mammoth - unless there were straight tusked variants somewhere.

Maybe Tudge was confused with meridionalis? Mammoths did originate in Africa about 5 mya (along with Loxodonta and Elephas). But not in ancient Egypt and they were identified by their teeth and not by tusks. In any case, mammoths and Asian elephants high tailed it out of Africa fairly quickly and were probably competitively excluded from Africa by Loxodonta.

I don't think so. Tudge appears to be taking Sher's et al description of the "dwarf mammoths of Wrangel Island", mingling it with the tomb painting of a smallish, possibly adult, possibly dwarf proboscidean, then extrapolating that there was at least some tenuous trade link, possibly through multiple intermediaries, to way out in northeastern Siberia. In other words, sheer speculation.OTOH, there is good documentation that Elephas maximus original range included parts of Syria into historic times, including several Egyptian descriptions. In addition, elephantids appear to be very apt at dwarfism when confined to islands (with dwarf Elephas spp being known from all over the Mediterranean, Southeast Asia/Indonesia, etc), most of which went extinct at about the same time humans colonized the areas. So it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the picture in question represents a dwarf elephant, rather than a dwarf mammoth.

elephants were also in GreeceJ Mol Evol. 2002 Sep;55(3):364-74. Related Articles, LinksMolecular phylogeny of the extinct pleistocene dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus falconeri from Tilos Island, Dodekanisa, Greece.Poulakakis N, Theodorou GE, Zouros E, Mylonas M.Natural History Museum of Crete, University of Crete, P.O. Box 2208, GR 71409, Irakleio, Crete, Greece. paleont@nhmc.voc.grA partial sequence of cytochrome b (228 bp) gene of mitochondrial DNA was successfully determined from rib bones of the dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus falconeri BUSK, which were excavated from Charkadio cave of the island of Tilos, Dodekanisa, Greece. This is the first report of DNA sequence of a dwarf elephant. The sequences were used to examine the phylogenetic relationships among Elephantidae. Phylogenetic trees reconstructed by the neighbor-joining and maximum parsimony methods provided identical topologies. The results support the "Palaeoloxodon-Elephas" clade, which is consistent with previous morphological reports according to which Palaeoloxodon is more closely related to Elephas than to Loxodonta or Mammuthus.I have no problem with dwarf elephants, even in Egypt wrt Tudge. Even Loxodonta cyclotis (which do not and have not existed on islands) shows signs of dwarfing. But mammoths? No way. Wrangel Island and now Bering Sea Alaskan Islands were their last recorded stand
Guthrie RD. Related Articles, Links
Radiocarbon evidence of mid-Holocene mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island.
Nature. 2004 Jun 17;429(6993):746-9.And if they survived on the mainland it was probably in the portions of Siberia that were either impossible or tough to get to by humans since humans + megafaunal contact = extinction for the most partProbably the tomb painting was just inacurate or the artist was into drugs