Like gill slits, which derive ultimately from mammals' fishy ancestors, they betray a watery phase in elephantine evolution.

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In lower Egypt there is the island of Yeb or Elephantine (opposite Syene) which was an important administrative and military center.

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This fits my thesis that the elephantine Saudi reservoirs are long in the tooth and could peak in a few years.

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Possessed of a magnificent vocabulary, an elephantine memory, and a well-honed mind precise in its reasoning, she was engaging, intelligent and enormously well informed.

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But Rwandan-backed rebels did take Kinshasa once before, in 1997, sweeping away the old dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, and installing Mr Kabila's elephantine father, Laurent.

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Aswan started life here, as a garrison town on the tip of Elephantine Island, before spreading on to the east bank, where it faces the sands of the Western Desert.

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