ELEPHANTS, HISTORICAL 171 



the artist has provided the elephant with a small pair of 

 wings.* 



A work that is altogether sui generis is that written by 

 Gisbertus Cuperus (Gisbert Kuypert, 1644-1716), a native 

 of Hemmerdenn, in the Low Countries, on the coins bearing 

 representations of the elephant, f It was first published at 

 The Hague, in 1719, three years after the author's death, 

 being edited from manuscript that he had left. This 

 splendid folio is embellished with one hundred and twenty- 

 six finely executed cuts of coins and medals with elephant 

 figures, or illustrating these, and also with two large cuts, 

 one showing the sculptured elephant surmounting the 

 Triumphal Column of Emperor Arcadius in Constantinople, 

 and the other representing the Egyptian Obelisk set up by 

 Pope Alexander VII in the Forum Minerva, Rome, the 

 obelisk itself resting on an elephant base. All these are 

 text illustrations, added to which is a folding plate giving 

 the image of a Hindu god with an elephant head, which 

 had been taken by Christians from a Hindu temple. This 

 god is, of course, Ganesa, an embodiment of wisdom in the 

 Hindu pantheon. The text, besides offering as full an ac- 

 count as was possible of the coins themselves, communicates 

 in a discursive manner a great deal of valuable informa- 

 tion as to the introduction of elephants into the Grseco- 

 Roman world, after Alexander's conquests, and also as 

 to their use in the combats of the arena at Rome and else- 

 where, in war, in triumphal processions, etc. The writer, 

 who was a member of the French Academic des Inscrip- 

 tions et Belles-Lettres, shows himself in this work to have 

 been a man of sound judgment and of wide reading. He 



*Col. T. H. Hendley, "Indian Animals, True and False, in Art, Religion," etc., 

 the Journal of Indian Art and Industry, Vol. XVI, N. S., No. 126, April, 1914, PI. I, Fig. a. 



fGisberti Cuperi, "De elephantis in nummis obviis," Hagse Comitnm, 1719, [4] + 142 

 pp. (284 cols.), folio. 



