Zarafa (Giraffe), 1824?-1845

LC control no.	no2015123506
Descriptive conventions	rda
Personal name heading	Zarafa (Giraffe), 1824?-1845 *Browse this term in* LC Authorities or the LC Catalog
Variant(s)	Girafe, 1824?-1845 Giraffe, 1824?-1845 Bel animal du roi, 1824?-1845 Dame Girafe, 1824?-1845 Girafe, dame, 1824?-1845 Girafe de Sennaar, 1824?-1845 Girafe envoyée au roi de France par le pacha d'Égypte, 1824?-1845 Girafe offerte à Charles X par Méhémet Ali, 1824?-1845 Girafe parisienne, 1824?-1845 Sennaar, Girafe de, 1824?-1845
Associated place	Sennar (Sudan) Saint-Cloud (France) La Rochelle (France)
Located	Cairo (Egypt) Marseille (France) Paris (France)
Birth date	1824?
Death date	1845-01-12
Place of birth	Sudan
Place of death	Paris (France)
Affiliation	Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes (Paris, France) Muséum d'histoire naturelle et d'ethnographie de La Rochelle
Found in	Jauffret, L.F. Trois fables sur la giraffe, 1827 (poems about the giraffe sent from Africa to Paris, which was then in Marseille; passim: La Giraffe [thus spelled]) Salze, M. "Observations faites sur la girafe envoyée au roi par le pacha d'Égypte et sortie du lazaret de Marseille le 14 novembre 1826," in Mémoires du Muséum d'histoire naturelle, t. 14, 1827, pages 68-84, via Google Books, Sept. 16, 2015: page 72 (the giraffe is a female; left quarantine in Marseille on Nov. 14, 1826, at which time its age was 25 lunar months, or about 2 years) Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Etienne. Sur la girafe, 1827, via Gallica, Sept. 16, 2015: page 2 (the giraffe that was to be presented to the king of France arrived in Marseille, after satisfying quarantine laws, on Nov. 14, 1826; we have succeeded in reconciling several contradictory reports about its age reckoned in lunar months and have established that it was 22 months old in November 1826; to avoid risking its health in the winter months, the journey from Marseille to Paris was not begun until May 20 [1827], and it only reached Lyon on June 5) page 3 (the ancient name for the species, from which the modern "girafe" [French for "giraffe"] was derived, was "Zurapha," but the Romans called it camelo-pardalis, camel-leopard) page 4 (on the journey through the south of France, the giraffe was called "Le bel animal du roi") page 12 (the giraffe arrived in Paris on June 30 [1827], not at all fatigued by its voyage and doubtless in better health than when it left Marseille) Messager boîteux de la Girafe parisienne pour l'an bissextil 1828, 1827?, via Gallica, Sept. 16, 2015: pages 45-46 ("Notice sur la girafe envoyée au roi de France par le pacha d'Égypte"; recounts giraffe's journey from capture at the age of two months in the environs of Sennar, Sudan, from where it was transported to Cairo by caravan and Nile boat; in Cairo, the pasha presented it to the consul of France as a gift for the king; it was shipped to Marseille, where after a 24-day quarantine, it entered the city and remained there for seven and a half months; it then journeyed on foot to Paris by very slow stages, arriving there on June 30 [1827]) La girafe, âgée de 2 ans et demi, haute de 13 pieds, envoyée au roi de France par le pacha d'Egypte [print], 1828, via Gallica, Sept. 16, 2015: caption ("Elle est la première amenée vivante en Europe; elle a été présentée au Roi le 9 juillet 1827, à Saint-Cloud") Salvandy, N.-A. de. Lettre de la Girafe au pacha d'Égypte pour lui rendre compte de son voyage à Saint-Cloud, 1827, via Gallica, Sept. 16, 2015: title page (la girafe) page 22 (letter signed: Girafe de Sennaar [this is a political satire without significant reference to the actual giraffe]) Denise, Louis. Bibliographie historique & iconographique du Jardin des plantes, Jardin royal des plantes médicinales, et Muséum d'historire naturelle, 1903, via Google Books, Sept. 16, 2015: pages 205-210, entries 482-498 (further titles relating to the giraffe sent from Egypt to France in 1826-1827 include: Mémoire sur la girafe; Notice sur la girafe; Nouvelle notice sur la girafe envoyée au roi de France par le pacha d'Egypte et arrivée à Paris le 30 juin 1827; Dame Girafe à Paris, aventures et voyage de cette illustre étrangère racontées par elle-même; Discours de la girafe au chef des six Osages (ou Indiens), prononcé le jour de leur visite au Jardin du roi; La girafe et les Osages; all 1827) Dardaud, Gabriel. Une girafe pour le roi, c1985: page 12 (the Middle East specialist Gaston Wiet asked Dardaud about documents in the archives of Cairo referring to a gift for the king of France as "zerafa," which Wiet could only translate as "girafe"; this was Dardaud's introduction to the story) passim ("la girafe") Dardaud, Gabriel. Une girafe pour le roi / présentée et annotée par Olivier Lebleu, c2007: page 14 (in new introduction by Lebleu: in 1985, Dardaud revived the story of Zarafa, the first giraffe in France) passim (Dardaud's text is unchanged from 1985 edition and refers to the animal only as "la girafe") Allin, Michael. Zarafa : a giraffe's true story, 1998: prologue, pages 1-11 (describes the author's discovery of contemporary accounts of the first giraffe in France) page 5 ("Giraffe, girafe, giraffa (English, French, Italian)--all derive from the Arabic zerafa, a phonetic variant of zarafa, which means 'charming' or 'lovely one.' I named the giraffe Zarafa") passim ("Zarafa") pages 67-68 (Zarafa was born in the fall of 1824 and captured in December, barely 2 months old and still nursing, in the savanna highlands of what is now southeastern Sudan) page 70 (Zarafa was a Masai, the smallest of 3 subspecies of giraffe) pages 195-196 (Zarafa died on Jan. 12, 1845; her remains were mounted and displayed first in the museum of the Jardin des plantes and eventually in Musée La Faille in La Rochelle) French Wikipedia, Sept. 16, 2015 (article title: "Girafe offerte à Charles X par Méhémet Ali"; called "Zarafa" only after the fact, beginning in 1998; born in 1825 by contemporary calculations; presented by Muhammad Ali, viceroy of Egypt, to the king of France; arrived in Marseille on Nov. 14, 1826, and was brought to Paris on foot in the spring of 1827, accompanied by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, director of the Jardin des plantes, arriving on June 30; died on Jan. 12, 1845, of bovine tuberculosis; its remains were mounted and afterwards formed part of the collections of the Muséum d'histoire naturelle of La Rochelle; called "Zarafa," from the Arabic for "giraffe," in the following works: Zarafa: a giraffe's true story, by Michael Allin, 1998; Les avatars de Zarafa, première girafe de France, by Olivier Lebleu, 2006; Zarafa 1845, by Bruno Bonhoure, 2004; Zarafa: the giraffe who walked to the king, by Judith St. George, 2009; and Zarafa, by Adam Jaromir, 2009; source for "Zarafa," an animated film by Rémi Bezançon and Jean-Christophe Lie, 2012) English Wikipedia, Sept. 16, 2015 (article title: "Zarafa (giraffe)"; Zarafa (1825-12 January 1845), a female Nubian giraffe who lived in the Jardin des plantes in Paris for 18 years; a present to Charles X of France from the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha; "The name 'Zarafa' was retrospectively given to her by American author Michael Allin in his 1998 book Zarafa: a giraffe's true story ... the name was derived from the African/Arabic word zarafa, meaning 'giraffe' ... [the name] can be seen to have passed into common usage") Catalan, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish Wikipedia, Sept. 16, 2015 (article title: "Zarafa") Web site of Muséum d'histoire naturelle de La Rochelle, Sept. 16, 2015 (on the first floor "la célèbre girafe Zarafa" receives visitors; video posted on site has title "L'histoire de Zarafa"; her mounted remains were acquired for the museum in 1930) <http://www.museum-larochelle.fr/> Web site of Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (France), Sept. 16, 2015 (lecture, 13.03.2014: "Zarafa, la girafe de Charles X") <http://www.mnhn.fr/fr/visitez/agenda/rendez-vous-museum/conference/zarafa-girafe-charles-x> Web site of Musée de l'Ile-de-France, Sept. 16, 2015 (exhibition title: "Zarafa, première girafe de France!"; materials from a collection donated by Gabriel Dardaud) <http://domaine-de-sceaux.hauts-de-seine.net/les-expositions/archives-des-expositions/zarafa-premiere-girafe-de-france-copie-1/> OCLC, Sept. 16, 2015 (access points for Lettre de la girafe au pacha d'Égypte include: Girafe de Sennaar, pseud.)