2,500 years ago in the countryside along the Sudanese Nile, these Kushite workmen have harnessed an elephant’s strength to help them carry logs for construction. This is admittedly a speculative scenario on my part, but there is evidence that the people of Kush kept African elephants in stables, possibly for war or ceremonies, at the archaeological site of Musawwarat es-Sufra. It doesn’t seem far-fetched to imagine them using elephants as beasts of burden the way that Indian and Southeast Asian cultures have traditionally used them. Many centuries later, the Belgian imperialists in the Congo would also use native elephants for this purpose for a brief period.