For scale the cardboard plaque is 2 meters or 6.56 feet tall
and together the tusks weigh 183g or 403.45lbs
and together the tusks weigh 183g or 403.45lbs
In WMD 'karamojo' Bell's 1923 book 'The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' he mentions a tusk in the 'South Kensington Museum'. About ten years later it was later reunited with its twin, and there hangs a tale.
The tale as Bell tells it:
On our arrival at Mani-Mani we were met by one Shundi--a remarkable man. Karirono by birth he had been captured early in life, taken to the coast and sold as a slave. Being a man of great force of character he had soon freed himself by turning Mohammedan. Thence onward fortune had smiled upon him until at last he was, the recognised Tajir (rich man) of all the traders. Having naturally the intelligence to recognise the value of bluff and from his primitive ancestors the nerve to carry it off, he was at this time the greatest of all traders. Just as he had been a leader while slave-raiding was the order of the day, so now he led when ivory had given place to slaves as a commodity. One other thing that makes him conspicuous, at any rate, in my mind, and that he had owned the slave who who had laid low the elephant which bore the enormous tusks, one of which now reposes in the south Kensington museum. these tusks are still, as far as I know, the record. The one we have in London scales 234lb. or thereabouts. According to Shuundi his slave killed it with a muzzle-loader on the slopes of Kilimandjaro.
Kilimanjaro Tusks (1898)
More soonSBW
13 comments:
Anyone ever try to figure how tall this elephant was in order for the tusks not to scrape the ground? Truly he had to be 13 feet tall.How about his weight?
Anon
So far I've drawn a blank in my attempts to get more details from the NHM about this specimen. The trouble is I only ever go there at the weekends and the curators are yet to answer my emails. More news as it comes in
SBW
Hi
There is quite a bit about these in Peter Capstick's books but I can't remember which one
I good excuse to reread them.
GR
Hey Ghostrifle
longtime no see, hope all's well
SBW
Death in the Dark Continent. It was reported to Bell that the body wasnt that big
Incredible!
Narwhal horn is also a tooth, one of the incisors. they can have lengths of 3.1 meters.
narwhal teeth can be 3.1 meters
They should exhibited be in a museum or zoo so all can see how some humans are at times the worst behaved creatures on the planet.
I do hope the chap that brought down the original owner of these tusks died a long slow relentlessly agonising death over several weeks as his family looked on. After being impaled and lightly stomped by another bearer of similar tusks.
HAHA you guys always have such gothic imaginations.
I suspect the slave who shot that elephant did die in a way very similar to the one you wished for.
I read somewhere, I wish I could remember where, that the tusks became too heavy for the elephant to lift. That in it's old age it dragged them half way up Kilamanjaro leaving gouges that could still be seen in the mountain at the time of whatever it was I was reading. 1980s?
Pity that this magnificent tusker was gunned down for this trophy. As majestic as the tusks are, it's undeniable they would have looked far better on the elephant they belonged to, than in the hands of the trophy hunter.
I hope you get flattened by a phant and your head pops😃
Post a Comment