History of the Rhinoceros 



87 



Archaeologists are agreed that the rhinoceros (Fig. 4) 1 is represented 

 on the black obelisk of Salmanassar (b.c. 860—824) in company with an 

 elephant, human-looking apes, and long-tailed monkeys. This tribute- 

 picture suggests to I. Kennedy 2 the first certain evidence of Baby- 

 lonian intercourse with India. The 

 animals formed part of the tribute 

 of the Muzri, an Armenian tribe 

 living in the mountains to the 

 north-east of Nineveh. 3 The 

 rhinoceros is called in the inscrip- 

 tion an "ox of the river Sakeya," 

 and Kennedy criticises its repre- 

 sentation as "very ugly and ill- 

 drawn." Indeed, it is no more and 

 no less than a bull, and, as far as 

 natural truth is concerned, much in- 

 ferior to the Chinese sketches. It 

 even has cloven bull-feet, while 

 one of the Chinese drawings has 

 correctly three toes, 4 and the single FlG ' 4 ' 



. . . . , , Rhinoceros from Obelisk of Salmanassar 



clumsy horn rises on its forehead (from . Kel]eri Antike T ierweit,. 



n 



1 After O. Keller, Die antike Tierwelt, Vol. I, p. 386 (Leipzig, 1909). 



2 The Early Commerce of Babylon with India (Journal R. As. Soc, 1898, p. 259). 



3 According to J. Marquart (Untersuchungen zur Geschichte von Eran, II, 

 p. ioi, Leipzig, 1905), who discusses the same passage in the inscription of Salmanas- 

 sar II, Muzri is the name of a country and mountain-range (Muzur Mountains) west 

 of the Euphrates, and comprising also a part of the mountainous region south of the 

 river. Marquart translates "cattle of the river Irkea." Others, like Schrader, 

 Hommel, and W. Max Muller (see B. Meissner, Assyrische Jagden, p. 20, Leipzig, 

 191 1 ) identify Muzri with Egypt. Kennedy does not explain how the rhinoceros 

 could have gotten into that region from India; and it may have been, after all, an 

 African species, although the single horn would rather point to India; the elephant, 

 however, in bis opinion, came over the passes of the Hindu Kush. There is, of course, 

 the possibility that the lower Euphrates region may have harbored the rhinoceros, 

 if we can depend upon the report of the Hou Han shu regarding the country of T'iao- 

 chi (Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, p. 38); and I am in full accord with what 

 Hirth remarks on this point in the preface (pp. x-xn). However this may be, 

 I agree with Kennedy, F. Hommel (Die Namen der Saugetiere bei den siidsemiti- 

 schen Volkern, p. 324), Meissner, and Keller that the animal figured on the black 

 obelisk of Salmanassar is intended for a rhinoceros, and not merely for an ox, for there 

 is no ox with single horn as here represented. The Assyrian name for the rhinoceros 

 is kur-ki-za-an-nu = kurkizannu (F. Delitzsch, Assyrische Tiernamen, p. 56, Leipzig, 

 1874), which, according to Hommel (/. c, p. 328), is a loan-word received from 

 Ethiopic karkand (compare Arabic karkadan, Persian kerk). The trade-relations of 

 India with Babylon are well established (see particularly G. Buhler, Indian Studies 

 III, p. 84). 



4 The ancients did not notice this fact, nor did the Hindu, who classified the rhi- 

 noceros, owing to a confusion with the elephant, among the five-toed animals (M. 

 Chakravarti, Animals in the Inscriptions of Piyadasi, Memoirs As. Soc. Bengal, 



