Lions

[Jona Lendering]

The last lions in Europe were extinguished, I always thought, in the Late Bronze Age. The Mycenaean warriors may still have seen them, but after that, there were no lions in Europe any more. In a sense, Heracles killed the last one at Nemea.

But how is this in Asia? I receive a question from a Dutch "biblioblogger" who asks my advise - but I do not know it either.

What I do know, is that the Jewish Bible refers 127 times to lions. Only in Judges 14.5 and 1 Samuel 17.34-37 are the animals real. There are also lions in 1 Kings 13.24-28 and 20.36, and 2 Kings 17.25-26; yet these are miracle stories, and in the last case it is even made explicit that the lions were sent by the Lord. Finally, 2 Samuel 23.20 = 1 Chronicles 11.22 is an astrological joke (explanation).

All other references are metaphors: brave like a lion, fear-inspiring like a lion, and so on. The nine references in the New Testament are also metaphorical. Only Amos 3.4 appears to be a metaphor based on actual observation. Does anyone know about the archaeological evidence? When did lions vanish from Judah? From the Near East in general?

[Astiryu1]

There are lions still in Iraq I think. I watched a documentary on PBS a while ago that dealt with reed fields inhabited by "RARE" lions. I will try to find it. No luck yet but I have to go. I'll be Back!!! I remember something about marshes in the country.

[Sean Manning]

There are still lots of lion hunts in Neo-Assyrian art (although sometimes the lions are live-trapped and caged to provide enough beasts for the king to kill). I've always assumed they portray a real passtime. I'm not sure how long after that they survived in Southwest Asia.

[Astiryu1]

I can't find anything. Maybe it was in Africa! I could swear that it was somewhere in the middle east though. :?
Here are some interesting things I DID find:
[url:2kcy0nha]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/7974948.stm[/url] - Prehistoric Lions in England.
[url:2kcy0nha]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/south_of_scotland/7618282.stm[/url] - Lion statues stolen in Scotland!
[url:2kcy0nha]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/3110879.stm[/url] - Chinese Lion Dancing Competitions in Europe.
[url:2kcy0nha]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/4155674.stm[/url] - Lions hunt Mini Coopers! :lol:
[url:2kcy0nha]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/3620019.stm[/url] - Separated Greek Lion Heads reunited!

[Condottiero Magno]

Asiatic Lion information Centre

Reproduced from 'Wild Cats - Species Survey and Conservation Action Plan', IUCN Publications

Historical Range: Source is Guggisberg (1961) unless otherwise stated.

a.


Aristotle and Herodotus wrote that lions were found in the Balkans in the middle of the first millennium B.C. When Xerxes advanced through Macedonia in 480 B.C., several of his baggage camels were killed by lions. Lions are believed to have died out within the borders of present-day Greece in A.D. 80-100.

b.


Lions were probably found in the Azerbaijan area up to the 10th century A.D. Their disappearance from the reed thickets and pistachio and juniper forests is primarily associated with an increase in human population and a change in environmental conditions, which in turn led to the decline of ungulates in the region (Hepner and Sludskii 1972).

c.


Lions could still be found in the vicinity of Samaria in the 12th century.

d.


Lions disappeared from the Moroccan coast by the mid-1800's. They may have survived in the High Atlas mountains up to the 1940s.

e.


Last known lion in Algeria killed in 1893 near Batna, 97km south of Constantine.

f.


Last known lion killed in Tunisia in 1891 near Babouch, between Tabarka and Ain-Draham.

g.


Lions were extirpated from Tripolitania as early as 1700.

h.


Last known lion in Turkey killed in 1870 near Birecik on the Eurphrates (Üstay 1990).

i.


Sir Alfred Pease reported that lions still existed west of Aleppo, Syria, in 1891 (Kinnear 1920).

j.


Lions occurred in the vicinity of Mosul, Iraq, in the 1850s. The Turkish governor's bag of two in 1914 is the last report of them from the area (Kinnear 1920).

k.


Lions were reported to be numerous in the reedy swamps bordering the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in the early 1870s. The last known lion in Iraq was killed in 1918 on the lower Tigris (Hatt 1959).

l.


The valley of Dashtiarjan, 57km west of Shiraz in Iran, was famous for its lions in the late 1800s.

m.


The last known report of lion presence in Iran was a 1942 observation of a pair near Dizful, by American engineers building a railway (Heaney 1943).

n.


There are no confirmed records of lion presence in central or eastern Iran, nor Afghanistan or Baluchistan.

o.


The last known lion in Pakistan killed near Kot Deji in Sind province in 1810.

p.


However, a British admiral travelling by train reported seeing a maneless lion near Quetta in 1935, eating a goat: "It was a large lion, very stocky, light tawny in colour, and I may say that no one of us three had the slightest doubt of what we had seen until, on our arrival at Quetta. Many officers expressed doubts as to its identity, or the possibility of there being a lion in the district".

q.


The lion's range may have extended as far east as Bihar and Orissa states: a lion was reportedly killed in the district of Palamau (Bihar) in 1814.

r.


Last lion recorded from the southern end of its Indian range killed at Rhyl in Damoh district, near the Narmada river, in the cold season of 1847-1848 (Kinnear 1920).

s.


Fifty lions were killed in the district of Delhi between 1856-1858. Twenty-five years later Blanford (1891) wrote that "in India the lion is verging on extinction."

[Epictetus]

That is good information. Marcus Aurelius' army threw two lions into the Danube upon direction of an oracle, and I've wondered where they got the lions.

[Timotheus]

The Order of Templars had a rule against hunting that specifically excluded lions (something about being agents of the Devil). There would be no reason for such a rule if there were not lions in the regions of the Middle East that the Templars operated in.

I know its a kind of roundabout proof, but it does give suggestion that lions were around and existed in large enough numbers to be hunted.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

It also depends on the species of lion...

Is it the king of the jungle type like we see in the African Lion, or is it a mountain lion, cougar, or any other feline species...

Were the stories as told in the bible happening in the regions nowadays known as Israël ? Iraq? Syria? Africa?

It is difficult to get a clear picture, apart from the information we can get through depictions of lions.

There is however some evidence that the Romans were responsible for the decimation of a lot of wild animals, and there are theories that some of the species were rooted out of Europe and Africa by the Romans for the sheer joy of entertainment in the theatres.

M.VIB.M.

[Condottiero Magno]

Aside from speculation that the SE European lion might differ slightly from the African and Asiatic versions, like the now extinct Caspian Tiger, the latter in India is surviving example of what was hunted in the Ancient World and depicted as art.