This is big if true. My first reaction is, it can't be - African Elephant are not tameable and African Forest Elephant were extinct and Ethiopia isn't its habitat in the first place.

But is it possible for it to be an imported Indian Elephant? In spite of Muslim Sultanates' coastal control?

I have to dig deeper on this. I got Taddesse Tamraat's thesis in pdf, gotta read into it.

Older, Arabic sources describe the "Year of the Elephant" when the Aksumite armies invaded Yemen and attempted to conquer Mecca with the use of war elephants - a particular story involving an elephant refusing to attack the city is well documented in Islamic tradition

"The next day, as they prepared for battle, they discovered that their elephant (called Mahmud, a good Islamic name) refused to approach Mecca. Even worse, birds came from the sea, each of which brought three small stones, which they dropped on the soldiers of Abraha. Everyone hit by these stones was killed. Abraha himself was hit repeatedly and slowly dismembered. By the time he reached Sanua, he had nothing but a miserable stump of a body. His heart burst from his chest, and he died. So the year of the War of the Elephant was a year of death. But it was also a year of life, for in that same year Muhammad was born"

This quote can be found in Gabriel Said Reynold's Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in contemporary perspective - Abraha was the Aksumite king of Yemen

Edit: looking it up for a minute, I think there's actually a Quranic verse about the Year of the Elephant and a line about the specific Elephant in question.


As for the type of elephants employed from what I understand as a casual layman there's a degree of debate as to whether the elephants used by the Aksumites and later Medieval Ethiopian armies were imported Indian Elephants trained by Indian Mahouts; African Elephants tamed in a manner learned from Indian elephant taming traditions or an entirely indigenous Elephant training tradition which was lost in the modern era

Edit 2: From what I understand the elephants used by Ptolemy III at the Battle of Raphia in 217BC were also from Ethiopia; these elephants may have been North African Elephants (a now extinct species/subspecies), African Forest Elephants or Bush elephants from modern day Eritrea. The Battle of Raphia is detailed in Polybius' histories and in the contemporary Raphia decree.

Originally posted by Dimorphodon:

Older, Arabic sources describe the "Year of the Elephant" when the Aksumite armies invaded Yemen and attempted to conquer Mecca with the use of war elephants - a particular story involving an elephant refusing to attack the city is well documented in Islamic tradition

"The next day, as they prepared for battle, they discovered that their elephant (called Mahmud, a good Islamic name) refused to approach Mecca. Even worse, birds came from the sea, each of which brought three small stones, which they dropped on the soldiers of Abraha. Everyone hit by these stones was killed. Abraha himself was hit repeatedly and slowly dismembered. By the time he reached Sanua, he had nothing but a miserable stump of a body. His heart burst from his chest, and he died. So the year of the War of the Elephant was a year of death. But it was also a year of life, for in that same year Muhammad was born"

This quote can be found in Gabriel Said Reynold's Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in contemporary perspective - Abraha was the Aksumite king of Yemen

Edit: looking it up for a minute, I think there's actually a Quranic verse about the Year of the Elephant and a line about the specific Elephant in question.


As for the type of elephants employed from what I understand as a casual layman there's a degree of debate as to whether the elephants used by the Aksumites and later Medieval Ethiopian armies were imported Indian Elephants trained by Indian Mahouts; African Elephants tamed in a manner learned from Indian elephant taming traditions or an entirely indigenous Elephant training tradition which was lost in the modern era

Edit 2: From what I understand the elephants used by Ptolemy III at the Battle of Raphia in 217BC were also from Ethiopia; these elephants may have been North African Elephants (a now extinct species/subspecies), African Forest Elephants or Bush elephants from modern day Eritrea. The Battle of Raphia is detailed in Polybius' histories and in the contemporary Raphia decree.

I haven't forgotten about this, but seems you have read this article too?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/704824
Whats interesting, is that later sources seem to show depictions of Saints riding Indian elephants in a fictional sense than how real African elephants would have been used. I conclude Elephants were ridden in Ethiopia, but never as a one cohesive battle unit - instead, as an elite mount of the ruler. Therefore, if I ever made an elephant unit for Ethiopia, it won't be a separate unit, but a special general bodyguard unit.

I hadn't read thew article, interesting reading, it does definitely seem as though the elephant riding tradition of Ethiopia was on a much smaller scale than in India or Persia. On the other hand it also seems likely that elephant riding was not quite the novelty one offs that appeared in Western Europe (i.e. Abul Abbas, Frederick II's Cremona Elephant).

Perhaps a high tier ivory trading building might allow general units to upgrade to a special elephant guard, or maybe just a special faction leader would be more appropriate (obv. Solomonids aren't a 1212 faction so Amda Seyon himself wouldn't fit the bill).
If not is there any way to award a unit to a faction via the decisions system? If possible this could work for the HRE and Islamic factions too. Maybe receiving an elephant could give a buff to the movement range of the faction leader instead of forming an actual unit (the implication being that the elephant is carrying equipment in the baggage train)