Olifant was the name applied in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 to ivory

Ivory

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

 hunting horns

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

 made from elephants' tusk

Tusk

Tusks are elongated, continuously growing front teeth, usually but not always in pairs, that protrude well beyond the mouth of certain mammal species. They are most commonly canines, as with warthogs, wild boar, and walruses, or, in the case of elephants and narwhals, elongated incisors...

s. One of the most famous olifants belonged to the legendary Frankish knight Roland

Roland

Roland was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons...

, protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

 of The Song of Roland

The Song of Roland

The Song of Roland is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It exists in various manuscript versions which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries...

.

In The Song of Roland, Roland carries his olifant while serving on the rearguard of Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

's army. When they are attacked at the Battle of Roncevaux, Oliver tells Roland to use it to call for aid, but he refuses. Roland finally relents, but the battle is already lost. He tries to destroy the olifant along with his sword Durendal

Durendal

Durendal or Durandal is the sword of Charlemagne's paladin Roland in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France....

, lest they fall into enemy hands. In the end, Roland blows the horn, but the force required bursts his temple, resulting in death. The Karlamagnussaga elaborates (V. c.XIV) that Roland's olifant was a unicorn

Unicorn

The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

's horn, hunted in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Another famous olifant belonged to Gaston IV

Gaston IV of Béarn

Gaston IV was viscount of Béarn from 1090 to 1131. He was called "le Croisé" due to his participation in the First Crusade....

, viscount of Béarn

Béarn

Béarn is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Basque provinces of Soule, Lower Navarre, and Labourd, the principality of Bidache, as well as small parts of Gascony, it forms in the...

, and is now preserved in the Spanish city of Saragosse, which he helped conquer from the Muslims.

Salernan oliphants

The Horn or Oliphant of Ulph, preserved in the treasury of York Minster

York Minster

York Minster is a Gothic cathedral in York, England and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe alongside Cologne Cathedral. The minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the second-highest office of the Church of England, and is the cathedral for the Diocese of York; it is run by...

 is one of a group that were carved in Norman Salerno

Salerno

Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....

 in the second half of the eleventh century. In one of its bands of low-relief carving, addorsed paired griffon

Griffon

Griffon is a type of dog, a collection of breeds of originally hunting dogs. There are three recognized lines of the griffon type Fédération Cynologique Internationale FCI, the griffon vendéens, the wirehaired pointers, and the smousje...

s have tails that terminate in monstrous eared heads.

The horn of Ulph is most likely the very Horn of Tenure given to York Minster by the Viking nobleman Ulph, who resided in Yorkshire before the reign of Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....

; thus the Horn of Ulph cannot be dated later than the first half of the eleventh century

A group of surviving ivory horns carved with bands of low relief have been attributed to the same Salerno workshops as the Oliphant of Ulph: the oliphant of the Chartreuse de Portes, an oliphant in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the horn of Muri Abbey

Muri Abbey

Muri Abbey was a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. It flourished for over eight centuries at Muri, in the Canton of Aargau, near Basle in Switzerland...

 conserved in Vienna, and oliphants from the treasury of the Basilica of St. Sernin, Toulouse, and Saragossa Cathedral

La Seo Cathedral

The Cathedral of the Savior is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Zaragoza, Spain. It is part of the World Heritage Site Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon....

.