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Abul-Abbas ( – 810) was an Asian elephant brought back to the Carolingian emperor Charlemagne by his diplomat Isaac the Jew. The gift was from the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid and symbolizes the beginning of Abbasid–Carolingian relations. The elephant's name and events from his life are recorded in the Carolingian Annales regni Francorum, Annales regni francorum Anno 801 (, Monumenta Germaniae Historica edition) (Eng. tr. of ARB = Royal Frankish Annals)The Annales regni francorum Anno 802 gives " venit Isaac cum elefanto et ceteris muniberus, quae a rege Persarum missa sunt, et Aquisgrani omnia imperatori detulit; nomen elefanti erat Abul Abaz". Harun al Rashid is referred to as either the king of the Persians (ibid 801:116 "rex Persarum") or of the Saracenes (ibid 810:113 " ubi dum aliquot dies moraretur, elefant ille, quem ei Aaron rex Sarracenorum miserat, subita morte periit" and he is mentioned in Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni.Einhard (tr. ) However, no references to the gift or to interactions with Charlemagne have been found in Abbasid records. (2007). 9780073316697, McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780073316697
Researchers have speculated on Isaac and the elephant's route through Africa: Isaac and the elephant began the trek back by following the coast into Ifriqiya, ruled by Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab who had bought the land from al-Rashid for 40,000 dinars annually. Possibly with the help of Ibrahim in the capital city of Kairouan (now in Tunisia), Isaac set sail from port (possibly Carthage,This reconstructed route (via Carthage) was mapped in (part of an Exhibition catalog), according to , quote: "The motives for Issac's particular route from Baghdad to Carthage, via ship from Carthage to Protovenere (near Genoa, and north via Vercelli and St. Bernard's pass to Aachen, are illuminated (I. D.) |2683" now in Tunisia) with Abul-Abbas and traveled the remaining distance to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.
At any rate, the strict reading of the historic text Annales regni Francorum is that "Isaac the Jew returned from Africa with the elephant" ( Isaac Iudeus de Africa cum elefanto) and landed in Porto Venere (near Genoa) in October 801. The two spent the winter in Vercelli, and in the spring they started the march over the Alps to the Emperor's residence in Aachen, arriving on 20 July 802. Annales regni Francorum Anno 802 (, Monumenta Germaniae Historica edition) Abul Abbas was a full-grown adult elephant.
One detractor to the claim is Richard Hodges who places it in Lüneburg Heath, which is nowhere near the Rhine.
Some added details about the elephant's death, stating he was in his forties and already suffering from rheumatism when he accompanied Charlemagne in the campaign across the Rhine heading to Friesland. According to these sources, in a spell of "cool rainy weather", Abul-Abbas developed a case of pneumonia. His keepers were able to transport the beast as far as Münster, where he collapsed and died.
Arguments for Abul-Abbas having been an Indian elephant include that Abbasid sources such as al-Jahiz and al-Masudi record a belief that African elephants were not tamable. Another clue comes from the Irish monk Dicuil who mentions Abul-Abbas in his description of India in his geographic work De mensura orbis terrae ("Concerning the Measurement of the World") in 825. An inhabited initial B from a copy of Cassiodorus' Commentary on the Psalms made at the Abbey of Saint-Denis in the first quarter of the ninth century (now Paris, BnF lat. 2195) incorporates an elephant's head.Rosamond McKitterick, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 286. The realistic portrayal of an Asian elephant suggests that the artist had seen Abul-Abbas.BnF Expositions, Trésors carolingiens, Cassiodore, Commentaire sur les psaumes I-L, Initiale B ornée zoomorphe.
Evidence put forward for Abul-Abbas having been an African elephant includes the route by which he arrived in Europe, which was via Tunisia. Also, a Carolingian plaque survives which was manufactured from ivory from an African elephant and was from a contemporary source. Ivory was widely used in Carolingian art, but most of this material was re-purposed from Roman sources. This particular plaque, a depiction of the Virgin Mary is too large to have come from the tusk of an Indian elephant, measuring along its longest side. Radio-carbon dating shows that the ivory in the plaque is not of ancient origin. For Carolingian artists to have access to new ivory is so unusual that it makes Abul-Abbas a possible source of the material.
A short story by the German-New Zealand author Norman Franke tells the biography of the elephant from his own point of view.
Death
In the year 810, Charlemagne left his palace and mounted a campaign intending to engage with King Gudfred of Denmark and his fleet that invaded and plundered Friesland. Charlemagne had crossed the Rhine River and tarried at a place called "Lippeham" awaiting troops for three days, when his elephant suddenly died. Annales regni Francorum Anno 810 (, Monumenta Germaniae Historica edition) (Eng. tr. of ARB = Royal Frankish Annals) On the tacit assumption that Abul-Abbas was with Charlemagne when he died, some modern commentators venture that the beast had been brought to serve as a war elephant. (Cf. Dembeck, Mit Tieren leben, 1961), citing Hodges, Richard. (cf. )
Place of death
The location of "Lippeham" is a matter of conjecture, but has been placed at the "mouth of the Lippe River", quote:"den Rhein bei Lippeham (an der Mundung der Lippe?)" (its confluence with the Rhine), in other words, somewhere near the city of Wesel. The claim dates at least as far back as 1746,, after Oettermann, Die Schaulust am Elefanten (1982) p. 98, note 117 (or 1735) when J. H. Nünning (Nunningus) and a colleague had published a notice that "Lippeham" was to be identified with Wesel;, "... os Elephantini femoris, ex inculto ad Rheni ripam agro haud procul Luppiae ostiis, olim Luppemunda, Luppeheim, Lippeham, Lippekant, & Lippia dictis. ubi vetus celebrisque Regum Francorum Carolingicae Stirpis olim fuit curia, hodie VESALIA dicta" ("elephant femur bone unearthed from the field on the banks of the Rhine, at a place not far from the mouth of the Lippe river, aka Luppemunda, Luppeheim, Lippeham, Lippekant, & Lippia, now called Wesel, where the celebrated scions of the Franks kings of the Carolingian dynasty held court." ) and that a colossal bone unearthed from the area, in the possession of their affiliated museum, was plausibly a part of the remains of the elephant Abul-Abbas., Itaque os Musei nostri cum Elephantis fit,.. ad exuvias ABULABAZII Carolo M. ab Aarone Persarum Rege dono submissi" Another gigantic bone was found in the Lippe River among a catch of fish in the herrschaft of in early 1750, and it too was claimed to be a piece of Abul-Abbas., citing Nünning et al.
Modern embellished accounts
Details of exhibition and death
The Annales regni Francorum contain only short reports about the transport of Abul-Abbas (801), his delivery to the Emperor (802) and his death (810). But modern writers have given various embellished accounts. Some indicate that when Abul-Abbas arrived, he was marched through various towns in Germany to the astonishment of onlookers, that he was shown in "Speyer, Strassburg, Verdun, Augsburg, and Paderborn" as ostentatious display of the emperor's might, and was eventually housed in Augsburg in what is now southern Bavaria.
White elephant
Some modern works indicate that Abul-Abbas was albino – literally a white elephant – but the basis for the claim is wanting. An early example claiming that Abul-Abbas was a "white elephant" occurs in a title authored by Willis Mason West (1902). In 1971, Peter Munz wrote a book intended for popular readership which repeated the same "white elephant" claim, but a reviewer flagged this as a "slip" given there was "no evidence" known to him to substantiate it., quote: "I know of no evidence that Harun al-Rashid's present to Charlemagne was literally a 'white' elephant." Mention of "white elephant" also misleadingly occurs in the title of the published catalog from the Aachen exhibition of 2003: Ex oriente : Isaak und der weisse Elefant, however, in this publication is a contributing article by Grewe and Pohle that appends a question mark on it: "Among the famous gifts to Charlemagne was a (white?) elephant".: "Zu den für Karl den Großen bestimmten Geschenken gehörte ein (weißer?) Elefant, "
Abul-Abbas' species
A number of authors assert that Abul-Abbas was an Indian elephant, though others cast this as an open question with the African elephant being a distinct possibility. No primary source identifies his species directly.
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