London's Elephants - No. 11 in a series

The series had to have an image of Ganesha, the elephant god. This rather unusual dancing Ganesh is in the British Museum and dates from 750 AD. It was pillaged brought back from Uttar Pradesh and can now be seen amongst the entirely wonderful Indian collection.

You may find it interesting to know that Ganesh, one of the favourite Hindu gods is the lord of beginnings and the placer and remover of obstacles. In the myth, he lost his human head when Shiva cut it off in a temper. He swore to replace it with the head of hate first creature he met, which was an elephant,