Portable Rock Art - Elephants

Welcome to our dedicated section on portable rock art and lithic interpretations of elephants, mammoths, and mastodons. Explore the fascinating depictions of these majestic creatures through head profiles, front half profiles, and whole side profiles. Join our community of enthusiasts to share findings, engage in discussions, and immerse yourself in the captivating world of ancient stone art. Discover the symbolism and cultural significance of these remarkable portable rock art pieces. Join us on this exciting journey into the realm of prehistoric figurative artworks and the mesmerizing world of elephants, mammoths, and mastodons.

The combination here, elephant head and strutting ape (face frontal) can also be seen in both the above animated finds, although the ape faces are not so easy to see at the top of the elephants legs.

Well I hope you took the time to fully appreciate the last piece I shared above, could you see at least 6 very well defined highly detailed impressions in this incredible portable rock art find?
Here are two more but they are quite simple, both elephant front half impression.


Here the cortex has been worked to sculpt the flint, notice the wedge eye shape on the right denoting the eye of the elephant. A thumb tip can be seen between the trunk and elephants leg.

Check out this remarkable superb portable rock art discovery found in southern England! It features a possible composite tusk feature within the elephant front half convention and a pigmented and worked eye feature. The intricate craftsmanship suggests that the tusk was separately created and expertly inserted into the rock. If this find indeed represents a depiction of a straight tusked elephant, it could date back as far as 800 thousand years according to when the straight tusked elephants apparently left Africa. , potentially belonging to the Middle or Late Pleistocene period. Share your insights and help us unravel the age and significance of these amazing artifact.

I also thought that it was worth drawing your attention to the obviously worked whole gorilla strut and grabbing hand combination in the ubiquitous ambiguous illusion convention (the other stone above the straight tusked elephant)

Here are some more elephant front half descriptions, strangely both right facing, although it is possible bend ones mind enough to have one of the elephant halves face both ways, note the ochre spot for the eye detailing, and also possible tusk descriptions. A well known ape face profile discovery of mine is also shown facing downwards (same profile as on my chart)

This is another 'eolith' portable rock art find with interpreted elephant front half, its not the best however it demonstrates one of my key discoveries in decoding and understanding these ancient finds - Ambiguous optical illusions, these are the kind of illusions where people cleverly combine two or more images into one shape, these combinations are so common in this kind of ancient artwork they are a kind of topology in this convention in there own right, in other words we can often find the same subjects cleverly combined. Here I suggest a swan like bird depiction is visible when the stone is turned 90 degrees CCW. Beak and eye details are visible, in this glyph combination that I've previously demonstrated in finds from different places around the world. As is also common with my 'eolith' finds a black tar like substance is present along with tiny red ochre detailing.

The elephant front half faces right, Turn the image 90 degrees CCW and a swan bends its head backwards to preen its tail feathers.

Another exceptional portable rock art sculpture of an elephant front half, this could be another depiction of a straight tusk elephant, and the tusk here does look rather like the tusk description in the small grey pebble find above. Traces of ochre are present as is most often the case with my finds. There is a lot more to be seen in this find, just that I've not decided what yet.......

This next one is a good portable rock art double elephant sculpture, as expected an elephant figurative description can be seen both facing both left and right in the usual global front half convention. Just to re-iterate this is one of my exclusive discoveries within portable rock art, yes many now copy my discoveries but without even mentioning the source, but thankfully I have demonstrated my discoveries repeatedly and these are recorded and date and time stamped externally to my webpages in archives as proof of origin. SO I laugh in the face as those labelling me as a knock off, the facts prove otherwise.  some don't allow their webpages to be archived in this way, I wonder why that would be?

Look carefully for deliberate eye features in the two pictures below to see the both left and right facing elephant front half figurative descriptions.

Another portable rock art find in the form of a figure stone from my find site in southern England, again a flint sculpture showing as its most obvious subject the front half of an elephant. The large eye feature is outlined by the absence of the black tar like pigment that covers much of the artifact, with eye pupil detailing. There are many other glyphs, common artistic subjects to be found in this piece. The interpreted creature is that of an African like elephant due to the apparent appearance of a large ear, this would according to popular theory concerning the fossil record and historical climate data make this find at minimum around 100 thousand years in age.  

Looking at some of the previous pictures you may have noticed similarities in the elephant descriptions, details that don't really aid much in describing elephants, but are on more than one of these pieces, similarities in the perceived tusk shapes,  an arch between leg and trunk (probable vulva description) and interpreted beak and eye features near the end of the trunks (swan head turned backward preening feathers glyph), These combinations can help you to understand figure stones and identify genuine examples. The above find even combines a possible hand grab and clearly detailed phallus glyphs, besides more subtle figuration, all of these I've previously demonstrated and discussed, finding these details in your own artifacts is absolute proof of the validity of my research, and my commitment to bringing you the genuine facts on the forefront of portable rock art discovery.

The find below is a little different from my usual materials, I suggest the possibility of incised lines making an unframed whole elephant profile (left facing) Heavily water worn, to the right of this depiction a common face profile can be interpreted (although not out of the realms of pareidolia in this case).

Another find adding credence to the interpreted oval between the trunk and front leg being a 'thing'. This time the oval shape is in the form of a crystal inclusion, probably to give the impression of moisture, unfortunately the interpreted elephant front half here is subtle at best.

I thought I would take another picture of this one, as it is such a brilliant portable rock art depiction of an elephant, nice ape face profile in there too.

Another two elephant front half portable rock art depictions, both potentially 'eoliths' (multi-million ages) with potential vulva symbology and both meeting the criteria for evidence of cognition (signs of workmanship)

Flake removal and a worked eye shape are obvious here, there is even what appears to be a tiny worked swan head depiction at the end of the trunk.


The interpreted eye feature on this one is most likely an iron rich pigment (ochre) or iron pyrite addition, the ear kind of looks like a thumb nail, again that's expect symbology as for palaeolithic visual language phenomena.

A better angel on the first one in the last post demonstrating workmanship and symmetry and potential 'hood' feature.  

Another front half portable rock art sculpture in flint, this time showing a suspected mammoth description, this is potentially another 'eolith' meaning its a humanly worked stone from tertiary layers, dating it to a couple of million years in age plus. Again a black pigment eye feature is visible, which if you think about it is extremely remarkable considering its suspected age, and source location (gravel bed).

This is another portable rock art find of a sculptured elephant front half, this time the subject appears as though its a large eared verity such as the African elephant. The find is again suspected to be in the multi million year range, being a gravel find as is quite heavily water warn.

The last find shared above has a good gorilla face profile facing downwards, best viewed in a small size picture, this is quite a common face profile for me to recognize in portable rock art finds.

These next two are both from my original white stone find site, which has produced the worlds first known archaeological assemblage of obvious and almost standard flint tools with figurative elements. This assemblage covers many known tool types, and even ones that I did not know of (leather working tools). These two are quite simple and show elephant front half iconography and flint thumb or finger iconography combined.

The first figure stone / portable rock art find is a flint blade tool, it has a nail like feature at the bottom, and a worked eye like feature to the right, aiding a simple elephant description. Its blade cutting edge is along the left side.



This second find has no blade like features, but does show black pigment areas and a very well defined pigment eye feature, it also may show  a plesiosaurus description downward facing, it has a fin feature and the trunk tip of the elephant description does give the impression of a plesiosaurus's head, and even possible eye features can be seen here. Unfortunately this image is too subtle in this case.

This gravel find portable rock art piece is subtle, but contains bear figuration and elephant half figuration on both sides of the find. This symmetry on both sides of the stone is powerful evidence of cognition even though actual evidence of flake removal is not apparent. So how? the likely answer is careful selection of the nodule, cortex carving, and water erosion on its surface.

Two more portable rock art finds displaying elephant front half figuration. One is a potential eolith the other a find from my white stone site.

The elephant half in this figure stone is right facing, with traces of the usual black pigment, possible vulva iconography and combined plesiosaurus are both present.



The elephant half here is left facing with a probable baboon face profile right facing, traces of fine application of the common eolith red pigment is visible here, there is likely more to see.

Ergonomic work Stone and art.  

Brett: Looks like its tooling use was rather like a parang, some very plausible elephant iconography detected, and a subtle ape-like strut (head to the left on the leading edge, downward facing)

Here is a comparable flint piece from fairly close to my site here in the U.K,  its ergonomically crafted to fit the palm of the hand and has a Sharpe leading edge to make it rather like an axe, possible phallic and elephant iconography detected.

This portable art tool has been assumed to be a club by 6 of the 7 people that have seen it. The assemblage location and other lap \ leg hone found with it tend to negate the visual assumption of a club or machete of any kind.  The ergonomic design confirms its actual use as a lap \leg hone or grind stone.        

2nd try.
I call the piece on the left my invisible book of elephants.  I really like the short and long trunk displayed on the
cover.  I found the other piece about 50 ft. away.  it has a long trunk on the other side.