Around 3700 BC, a king of predynastic Upper Egypt surveys his domain from atop his tame elephant on a rocky precipice. Archaeological excavations at the predynastic site of Nekhen (also known as Hierakonpolis) in southern Egypt have revealed the skeletal remains of numerous animals kept in the local king’s royal menagerie, including an African elephant. It’s tempting for me to imagine that the predynastic Egyptians might have ridden such mighty beasts into battle, much as the people of Kush apparently did during the Meroitic period several millennia later.
Unfortunately, once the Sahara became a desert ~3000 BC, elephants would no longer be found in Egypt for the people to use. Which would have really sucked for them, because those animals would have come in handy for pulling big stones around.