The elephant was created on the fifth day of creation and since then has been able to exist in every one of earth's vegetation and climate zones (Groning, 1999).
             The taming of the elephant was first achieved in the valley of the Indus River, where around 3500 BC the first highly advanced Oriental civilization began to emerge. There is much uncertainty however on whether the first to tame the elephant were settled farmers or forest hunting people (Groning, 1999).
             At this time these enormous creatures were considered sacred beings and mystical symbols by many natural religions and cults. The elephant was tamed and trained but never domesticated and even in captivity remained a wild animal (Groning, 1999).
             The oldest depiction of tame elephants is small seals found during excavations in the Indus River Valley and what today is Pakistan. The seals were found in the ruined city of Mohenjo-Daro and were usually found carved in soft steatite. Evidence that they were tame is found in that they were often drawn by feeding troughs or carrying saddle blankets (Groning, 1999).
             The elephant was a well-known creature in the kingdom of the pharaohs, however, it was not included in mythology or in everyday life. The great pharaoh Thutmose III of 1400 BC hunted the elephant for its ivory. It was later found on an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph that there was a symbol of an elephant named Abu, which was found to be the explanation of the elephant's tusk. The Romans derived the word "ebur" from this, and from Latin, we have the French word "ivoire" and the English word "ivory" (Groning, 1999).
             Elephants probably lived in the forests by the Yellow River during the Bronze Age and seem to have been tamed and used as work animals during the Shang dynasty. The figure of elephants appears in many relief decorations on early ritual bronzes and also in some three-dimensional representations from the Shang dynasty (Groning, 1999). The Chinese also use...