The unicorn is a mythical animal referred to by classical authors. It was said to be like a horse but with one straight horn.
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| Pixiebay |
According to legend, the unicorn is the strongest of all animals and can defeat an elephant but is humbled by a virgin maiden.
The recent discovery in Kazakhstan of the skull of an Elasmotherium sibiricum, also known as Siberian unicorn, suggests that humans and some sort of unicorn may have been around at the same time. The one-horned Siberian unicorn, a real unicorn that looked more like a hairy rhinoceros, roamed the Earth as recently as 29,000 years ago.
In the King James Bible, there are six references to unicorns in the Old Testament. One example is in Numbers 23:22; “God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.” Most scholars agree the unicorns mentioned in the Bible were either a type of wild ox – as the Hebrew name suggests – or a one-horned rhinoceros as the Greek suggests.
Unicorns were depicted in art as early as the Mesopotamian era (5000-3500 BC), as well as in ancient Greece, India, and China.
The Indus Valley civilization, at around 3000BC, sealed clay tablets with a unicorn emblem.
Unicorns are not found in Greek mythology, but rather in the accounts of natural history, for Greek writers of natural history believed they were real creatures that lived far away in India.
In ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote of the “very fierce, one-horned monoceros”. According to Pliny, this animal had the body of a horse, the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, and the tail of a lion, with a black horn projecting ‘two cubits’ from the middle of its forehead.
In the Middle Ages a unicorn became seen as a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured or tamed by a virgin. Medieval apothecaries sold “unicorn horn”, also known as “alicorn”, for its medicinal properties.
A unicorn's horn and the substance it's made of was called alicorn, and it was believed that the horn holds magical and medicinal properties. The Danish physician Ole Worm determined in 1638 that the alleged alicorns were the tusks of narwhals.
In the 1980s a US patent was granted for a surgical procedure for growing unicorns.
A unicorn was displayed in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1980s. In 1985 federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. Instead, they were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted.
The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.
The unicorn was used on the Scottish royal coat of arms by William the Lion in the 12th century.
The British royal coat of arms of a lion and a unicorn symbolized the joining of the English lion with the Scottish unicorn in 1707.
Unicorn hunters may obtain a Unicorn Question Licence from Lake Superior University, Michigan.
Source Daily Express
HISTORY
The recent discovery in Kazakhstan of the skull of an Elasmotherium sibiricum, also known as Siberian unicorn, suggests that humans and some sort of unicorn may have been around at the same time. The one-horned Siberian unicorn, a real unicorn that looked more like a hairy rhinoceros, roamed the Earth as recently as 29,000 years ago.
In the King James Bible, there are six references to unicorns in the Old Testament. One example is in Numbers 23:22; “God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.” Most scholars agree the unicorns mentioned in the Bible were either a type of wild ox – as the Hebrew name suggests – or a one-horned rhinoceros as the Greek suggests.
Unicorns were depicted in art as early as the Mesopotamian era (5000-3500 BC), as well as in ancient Greece, India, and China.
The Indus Valley civilization, at around 3000BC, sealed clay tablets with a unicorn emblem.
 |
| Unicorn seal of Indus Valley, Indian Museum By Royroydeb |
Unicorns are not found in Greek mythology, but rather in the accounts of natural history, for Greek writers of natural history believed they were real creatures that lived far away in India.
In ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote of the “very fierce, one-horned monoceros”. According to Pliny, this animal had the body of a horse, the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, and the tail of a lion, with a black horn projecting ‘two cubits’ from the middle of its forehead.
In the Middle Ages a unicorn became seen as a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured or tamed by a virgin. Medieval apothecaries sold “unicorn horn”, also known as “alicorn”, for its medicinal properties.
 |
| Fresco by Domenichino of a maiden taming a unicorn, c. 1604–05 (Palazzo Farnese, Rome) |
A unicorn's horn and the substance it's made of was called alicorn, and it was believed that the horn holds magical and medicinal properties. The Danish physician Ole Worm determined in 1638 that the alleged alicorns were the tusks of narwhals.
In the 1980s a US patent was granted for a surgical procedure for growing unicorns.
A unicorn was displayed in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1980s. In 1985 federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. Instead, they were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted.
FUN UNICORN FACTS
The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.
The unicorn was used on the Scottish royal coat of arms by William the Lion in the 12th century.
The British royal coat of arms of a lion and a unicorn symbolized the joining of the English lion with the Scottish unicorn in 1707.
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| Royal arms of Queen Elizabeth II, as used in England |
Unicorn hunters may obtain a Unicorn Question Licence from Lake Superior University, Michigan.
Source Daily Express
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