Syrian elephant

The Syrian or Western Asiatic elephant (sometimes given the subspecies designation Elephas maximus asurus) was the westernmost population of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), which went extinct in ancient times, with early human civilizations in the area utilizing the animals for their ivory, and possibly for warfare. Skeletal remains of E. m. asurus have been recorded in the Middle East, notably from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, from periods dating between at least 1800 BC and likely 700 BC. Due to the lack of any Late Pleistocene or early to mid-Holocene records for Asian elephants in the region, there are suggestions that the elephants were anthropogenically introduced, or transported, there during the Bronze Age, though this is disputed.

Ancient Syrian and Assyrian craftsmen used the tusks of E. m. asurus to make ivory carvings. Regionally, the production of ivory items was at its height during the first millennium, BC, when the Arameans crafted splendid ivory inlays for elite furniture.

Description
Syrian elephants were among the largest Asian elephant subspecies to have survived into historic times, measuring 3.5 m or more at the shoulder; on par with the largest reported Indian elephants. Skeletal remains show it did not differ much from the Indian subspecies, except in size. A study of mitochondrial DNA from 3500 year old remains from Gavur Lake Swamp southwest of Kahramanmaraş in Turkey, which represent an apparently wild population, found that they were within extant genetic variation and belonged to the β1 subclade of the major β clade of Asian elephants, β1 being the predominant clade among Indian elephants.

Syrian elephants carried an extremely rare mitochondrial haplotype only previously found in a single modern elephant in Thailand. The origin of the haplotype has been placed between 3,700 and 58,700 years ago, with a mean estimate of 23,500 years ago, suggesting that the population did not descend from Middle Pleistocene Elephas fossils known from the region. If the population was not introduced by humans, it must have arrived in the region as an expansion from the core range of the Asian elephant during the Late Pleistocene or Holocene. The data are inconclusive as to whether the population has an anthropogenic origin.

Distribution and habitat


In Western Asia, the elephants ranged from the mangrove forests of southern Iran, to southern Anatolia, the Syrian steppes and even extended to Palestine. Ashurnasirpal II boasted of killing elephants, along with wild oxen and lions.

Controversy
No remains of the Elephas genus are known from the Middle East after 200,000 years ago until 3,500 years ago. This long hiatus makes some scholars suspect that the Asian elephants were artificial introductions to the Middle East, possibly from India, though this is difficult to prove. The extinction date is suggested to be around 700 BC, based on osteoarchaeological and historical evidence. This was possibly due to climactic shifts and changing land use during the early Iron Age.

Elephants are frequently mentioned in Hellenistic history; the Seleucid kings, who maintained numerous war elephants, reigned in Syria during that period. These elephants are believed to be Indian elephants (E. m. indicus), which had been acquired by the Seleucid kings during their eastern expansions; or they are believed to be a population of Indian elephants in the Middle East. It is attested by ancient sources such as Strabo and Polybius that Seleucid kings Seleucus I Nicator and Antiochus III the Great had large numbers of imported Indian elephants.

Hannibal had a war elephant known as "Surus", which may have meant "the Syrian". It was said by Cato to have been his best and largest elephant. In that case, the elephant may have been of Seleucid stock. If it were in fact of native Syrian stock, or an imported Indian elephant, remains subject to speculation.