Olifant (instrument): Difference between revisions

'''Olifant''' (also known as Oliphant) was the name applied in the [[Middle Ages]] to a type of carved ivory hunting horn created from elephant tusks.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Ebitz |first=David |date=2003 |title=Oliphant |url=https://login.sandiego.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https://www.oxfordartonline.com%2fgroveart%2fview%2f10.1093%2fgao%2f9781884446054.001.0001%2foao-9781884446054-e-7000063433 |access-date=2023-04-22 |website=Gove Art Online |via=Oxford Art Online |doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000063433}}</ref> Olifants were most prominently used in Europe from roughly the tenth to the sixteenth century, although some were created later.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Bassani |first=Ezio |title=Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory |last2=Fagg |first2=William B. |publisher=The Center for African Art; Prestel-Verlag |year=1988 |isbn=978-3791308807 |editor-last=Vogel |editor-first=Susan |pages=90-108, 200-201 |language=English |oclc=18715480}}</ref> The surviving inventories of Renaissance treasuries and armories document that Europeans, especially in France, Germany and England, owned trumpets in a variety of media and were used to signal, both in war and hunting. They were manufactured primarily in Italy (from either African or Indian elephant tusk), but towards the end of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, they were also made in Africa for a European market.<ref name=":3" />. Typically, they were made with relief carvings that showed animal and human combat scenes, hunting scenes, fantastic beasts, and European heraldry.<ref name=":3" /> About seventy-five ivory hunting horns survive and about half can be found in museums and church treasuries, while others are in private collections or their locations remain unknown.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Backa |first=Rachel |url=https://hoaportal.york.ac.uk/hoaportal/yml1414essay.jsp?id=6#:~:text=The%20Horn%20of%20Ulph%20is,a%20medieval%20oliphant%20(1) |title=1414: John Neuton and the Re-Foundation of York Minster Library |year=June 2015 |editor-last=Vorholt |editor-first=Hanna |chapter=A Viking Treasure: The Horn of Ulph |editor-last2=Young |editor-first2=Peter}}</ref>