As it was World Elephant Day on the 12th of August, we belatedly marked the event by recreating the elephant mosaic from Whatley Roman villa, albeit at a smaller scale than the original. The villa, near Nunney in Somerset was discovered in in 1837 and excavated then, in 1848 and in 1958. The evidence for the elephant scene comes from a slightly dodgy lithograph and from a later, oblique and not terribly clear photograph that was recently rediscovered in the archives by Pat Witts. Steve Cosh kindly drew a reinterpretation based on the photo and that was used alongside the lithograph as our guides. You can see them both in the photos. The mouth could do with a tweak perhaps but otherwise we are happy with our ‘cave elephanti’ doormat. Roman mosaic elephants on the continent usually appear more realistic and have the right sized ears whereas British mosaicists seem to have been more conservative in their ear depictions, perhaps because they had never seen an elephant and so couldn’t comprehend an animal having such huge ears in relation to its head.