Sivatherium and ancient men

 

Sivatherium and the first men, a strange connection

Sometimes strange discoveries are made and it is not surprising that very interesting and rare creatures will come to live with our ancestors, and that today they lie extinct. 

An example would possibly be the sivatherium, a genus of prehistoric giraffids that extended across Africa to the Indian subcontinent, being some of the largest animals in history; por ejemplo, Sivatherium giganteum, which is, by weight, the largest known giraffid and also possibly the largest ruminant of all time, Other genera in the subfamily Sivatheriinae include Bramatherium, Hydaspitherium, and Indratherium.

The controversy 

It is believed that they became extinct 8,000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial period, But, due to existing archaeological evidence, it is thought that they could have lived until less recently, coexisting with the first civilizations of the Iron Age.

Evidence 

Several artifacts that may represent sivatherios have been discovered in North Africa and the Near East:

These include an 8,000-year-old petroglyph in a Saharan rock shelter

cave paintings in India; 

Syrian and Egyptian figurines currently in the British Museum, the most famous being the Sivatherium of Kish, found in excavations of the Sumerian civilization:

There is evidence of a Russian figurine and tin whistles from Siberia that may represent Bramatherium, a close relative of Sivatherium and a Hittite cylindrical print from Turkey depicting an animal with elk-like antlers, which is strange since the elk does not live near Turkey, (I couldn't find images of the last 2)

 It is even believed that the Sumerian civilization considered this animal as a divine creature, since it is theorized that the sirrush at the gates of Babylon are actually an archaic representation of the sivatherium, as well as other stories from India about creatures similar to enormous oxen that inhabited this area.

It is also theorized that the legends of indian unicorns and chinese quilling arose based on these beings, but until now it has not been possible to verify it, and it is also thought that other animals gave rise to these figures, although no theory has been able to be proven.

Be that as it may, it is intriguing to think about how some creatures that we consider missing today, Before we actually became civilized beings, they survived and were known and even revered by early human societies.