Editing Elephants' graveyard

{{Short description|Place where elephants have died in legend}}
[[File:Laika ac Elephant Skull (9898721464).jpg|thumb|An elephant skull in Tanzania]]
An '''elephants' graveyard''' (also called '''elephant graveyard''', '''elephant's graveyard''', or '''elephants' cemetery''') is a place where, according to legend, old [[African bush elephant|elephant]]s instinctively direct themselves when they reach a certain age.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/11/15/elephant_graveyards_do_they_exist.html |title=Do Elephant Graveyards Exist? |last=Young |first=Rory |date=November 15, 2013 |publisher=Slate |access-date=February 3, 2018 }}</ref> According to this legend, these elephants would then die there alone, far from the group. However, there is no evidence in support of the existence of the elephants' graveyard.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2014-06-01|title=The elephants' graveyard: Protecting Kenya's wildlife|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27633840|access-date=2021-10-02}}</ref>

==Origin==
Several theories have been proposed to explain the origin of this myth. One theory involves people finding groups of elephant skeletons together, or observing old elephants and skeletons in the same habitat.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Armitage | first1 = Kenneth B. | title = The Great Beast&nbsp;— Elephant Life: Fifteen Years of High Population Density | journal = BioScience | volume = 42 | issue = 3 | pages = 196–197 | date = March 1992 | doi = 10.2307/1311827 | publisher = BioScience, Vol. 42, No. 3 | last2 = Buss | first2 = Irven O. | jstor = 1311827| hdl = 1808/10608 | hdl-access = free }}</ref>  Others suggest the term may spring from group die-offs, such as one excavated in [[Saxony-Anhalt]], which had 27 ''[[Straight-tusked Elephant|Palaeoloxodon antiquus]]'' skeletons.<ref>{{cite conference | last1 = Brühl | first1 = Enrico | last2 = Mania | first2 = Dietrich | title = Neumark-Nord: a middle Pleistocene lake shore with synchronous sites of different functional character | book-title = Données récentes sur les modalités de peuplement en Europe au Paléolithique inférieur et moyen | publisher = Université de Rennes | date = 22–25 September 2003 | location = Rennes}}</ref>  In that particular case, the tusks of the skeletons were missing, which indicated either hunters killed a group of elephants in one spot, or else opportunistic scavengers removed the tusks from a natural die-off.{{cn|date=October 2015}} 

Other theories focus on elephant behavior during lean times, suggesting starving or elderly elephants who have worn their teeth down to a point that they can no longer chew tougher foods gather in places where finding food is easier, and subsequently die there.<ref name="Oxford">[http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t227.e47 Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Richard Barnes, Hezy Shoshani, A. Christy Williams, A. J. T. Johnsingh, Robin Beck, Katy Payne "Elephants"  The Encyclopedia of Mammals. Ed. David W. Macdonald. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 28 August 2007]</ref> Prolific elephant hunter [[W. D. M. Bell|Walter "Karamojo" Bell]] discounted the idea of the elephant's graveyard, stating that bones and "tusks were still lying about in the bush where they had lain for years".<ref>{{cite book|last=Bell|first=Walter|title=Karamojo Safari|publisher=Harcourt, Brace|year=1949|isbn=1-57157-358-5|page=26}}</ref>

== Popular culture ==
The idea of an elephant graveyard first appeared in popular culture with [[H. Rider Haggard|Sir Rider Haggard]]'s ''[[The Ivory Child]]'' (1916), the twelfth of the eighteen [[Allan Quatermain]] adventures.

The idea of a graveyard for elephants was popularized in films such as ''[[Trader Horn (1931 film)|Trader Horn]]'' and MGM's [[Tarzan the Ape Man (1932 film)|Tarzan]] films, in which groups of greedy explorers attempt to locate the elephants' graveyard, on the fictional Mutia Escarpment, in search of its riches of ivory.<ref name="Earnheart">{{cite journal | last = Earnhart | first = Brady | title = A Colony of the Imagination: Vicarious Spectatorship in MGM's Early Tarzan Talkies | journal = Quarterly Review of Film and Video | volume = 24 | issue = 4 | pages = 341–352 | date = 1 July 2007 | doi = 10.1080/10509200500526778| s2cid = 194054571 }}</ref>

Disney's 1994 animated musical film ''[[The Lion King]]'' has a reference to this motif, as well as its [[The Lion King (musical)|musical adaptation]], [[The Lion King (video game)|video game adaptation]], and the [[The Lion King (2019 film)|2019 remake of the film]].

In the video game, [[Tarzan: Untamed]], Tantor accidentally leads hunters to the Elephant Graveyard where they are buried after Tarzan beats them

==Derivative meanings==
* In [[geology]], "elephants' graveyard" is an informal term for a hypothetical accumulation of "large blocks of [[country rock (geology)|country rock]] [[Stoping (geology)|stoped]] from the roofs of [[batholith]]s".<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Clarke | first1 = D. Barrie | last2 = Henry |first2 =  Andrew S.|last3 = White |first3 = Mary Anne | title = Exploding xenoliths and the absence of 'elephants' graveyards' in granite batholiths | journal = Journal of Structural Geology | volume = 20 | issue = 9–10 | pages = 1325–1343 | date = 10 September 1998 | doi = 10.1016/S0191-8141(98)00082-0| bibcode = 1998JSG....20.1325C }}</ref>  
*In [[military]] settings, it is sometimes used as a slang term to describe postings or assignments for senior officers for whom there is no potential for further promotion.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}
* In Spain, the [[Spanish Senate]] is often criticised as a ''cementerio de elefantes'' where politicians who have lost their previous positions end up doing no productive work.<ref name="Vanguardia">{{in lang|es}} ''[http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20150707/54433270527/pp-psoe-echan-cara-utilicen-senado-cementerio-elefantes.html PP y PSOE se echan en cara que utilicen el Senado como cementerio de elefantes]'', Juan Carlos Merino,  7 July 2015,  [[La Vanguardia]].</ref>
* It is a term for the offices and a secretary provided to former high-ranking executives of large companies (at least in the United States), who have either retired or resigned. An executive who relinquishes or is relieved of authority becomes a consultant (special adviser) where they continue to receive a salary and an office under their contract but have little or no actual responsibilities  until their [[Non-compete clause|non-compete agreement]] expires.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/magazine/ina-drew-jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-chase.html |title=The Woman Who Took the Fall for JPMorgan Chase |last=Dominus |first=Susan |date=October 3, 2012 |work=New York Times |access-date=May 9, 2016 }}</ref>
Additionally the term "elephants' graveyard" has been deliberately used in a symbolic fashion to refer to specific paleontological sites, such as the elephant-fossil deposit that [[René Jeannel]], professor at the [[National Museum of Natural History, France|French National Museum of Natural History]], discovered during a Kenya & [[Ethiopia]] expedition in 1932.<ref>René Jeannel, ''Mission scientifique de l'Omo. Un cimetière d'éléphants avec 48 planches de photographies et une carte hors texte'', Paris, publisher: [[Friends of the Natural History Museum Paris|Société des Amis du Muséum]], 1934, in-8, sofcover (270 x 185 mm), 159 pp, ASIN B0000DSYFT {{in lang|fr}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Elephant cognition]] and reports of elephant [[elephant cognition#Death ritual|death rituals]].

==References==
{{reflist|40em}}

==External links==
* [http://www.upali.ch/teeth_en.html Teeth, second dentition, tusks] – Contains information about the relevance of elephant teeth to the elephant graveyard myth

{{Urban legends}}{{Elephants}}
[[Category:Animal cemeteries]]
[[Category:Elephants|Graveyard]]
[[Category:Animals in mythology]]
[[Category:Urban legends]]