Zarafa
by Michael Allin
This book tells the story of a giraffe that was brought to Paris in 1826. It had been captured and shipped down the Nile and across the Mediterranean in a boat which had a hatch on the deck that was made especially for the accommodation of the giraffe. I like this book because it is the story of an object from Egypt which, like the Dendera Zodiac, was transformed immediately upon its arrival in France into a popular sensation, a spectacle.
