Lions in popular culture

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Main article: Lion

Lion-feeding time at zoos are always popular with the crowds

Lions appear as a theme in cultures across Africa, Asia and Europe.

[edit] Lions in culture

[edit] Lions in religion and mythology

• The Lion is known in many cultures as the king of animals, which is inspired by the book Physiologus.
• Lions can also be found in stone age cave paintings as well as a theme for statues.
• In Ancient Egypt Pharaohs were often depicted as Sphinxes. Bast (cat goddess of protection and the eye of Ra) originally was depicted as a lion. The war goddess Sekhmet was typically depicted as woman with a lion's head. During the New Kingdom the Nubian gods Maahes (god of war and protection, son of Bast) and Dedun (god of incense, hence luxory and wealth) were depicted as lions.
• Heracles' principal attributes are his club and the pelt of the Nemean lion which he killed barehanded.
• Leo is one of the twelve signs of the Zodiac .
• In the Bible the lion is referred 130 times, for example in 1 Peter 5:8 where the Devil is compared to a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. ^[1][2]
• Although lions are not native to China, lions appear in the art of China and the Chinese people believe that lions protect humans from evil spirits, hence the Chinese New Year Lion Dance to scare away demons and ghosts.
• In Hinduism Narasimha ("man-lion") is known as the fourth incarnation of Vishnu.

[edit] Lions in popular culture

• The lion was adopted by the British people as their mascot together with the bulldog.
• The lion is also a popular sport mascot. It was used as the FIFA World Cup mascot held in England in 1966 and the European Football Championships in 1996. The lion again became mascot with Goleo VI for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. A British group, The Lighting Seeds (inspired by the England football team emblem) have written the song Three Lions, which is the team's nickname. The National Football League has the Detroit Lions as one of its teams and the B.C. Lions are a Vancouver-based team of the Canadian Football League. The Macedonian national football team are known as the "Red Lions" among their fans.
• Madonna dances around a lion in her video of Like a Virgin_(song)

[edit] Lions in art

[edit] Lions in sculptury

Monumental Lion guarding Britannia Bridge, Wales

Lion door handle at Burg Hohenzollern

The Lion Monument in Lucerne, Switzerland, commemorates the sacrifice of the Swiss Guards at the Tuileries in 1792.

Lions have been widely used in sculpture and statuary to provide a sense of majesty and awe, especially on public buildings. This usage dates back to the origin of civilization, since there are lions at the entrance of cities or sacred sites since the Mesopotamian cultures.

Some examples are:

• The Great Sphinx of Giza.
• The gates in the walls of the Hittite city of Bogazköy, Turkey.
• The lion door of ancient Mycenae in Greece.
• Lions at the entrance of the medieval cathedrals, such as Modena's cathedral or the door handle on the chapel at Burg Hohenzollern
• Lion as symbol of Venice.
• The Lion Monument of Lucerne, commemorating the sacrifice of 600 Swiss Guards defending Tuileries Palace.
• Nelson's column in London's Trafalgar Square.
• The entrance to the Britannia Bridge crossing of the Menai Strait, Wales.
• Patience and Fortitude, the large stone lions outside the main branch of the New York Public Library, also the mascots of the New York and Brooklyn Public Library system.
• The lions outside of the entrance of The Art Institute of Chicago.
• Chinese lions are frequently used in sculpture in traditional Chinese architecture. For instance, in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, two lion statues are seen in almost every door entrance.
• The entrance to Sigiriya, the Lion-Rock of Sri Lanka, was through the Lion Gate, the mouth of a stone Lion. The paws of the lion can still be seen today. It is one of the 7 world heritage sites in Sri Lanka.
• The Dying Lioness is a relief panel from 650 BCE, Nineveh (modern day Iraq) depicting a half-paralyzed lioness pierced with arrows. This piece currently resides at home.
• The Lion is the animal of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. ^[3]
• Twin lions mark the entrance to the Lions Gate Bridge spanning the Burrard Inlet between Vancouver, Canada and the City of West Vancouver.

[edit] Lions in literature

• Lions (??, shishi) feature prominently in many kabuki plays and other forms of Japanese legend and traditional tales.
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first book from the Narnia series written by C.S. Lewis. Aslan is the eponymous lion who features throughout the stories.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz features the Cowardly Lion, who is particularly ashamed of his cowardice because of his cultural role as the King of the Beasts.^[4]
• In the Harry Potter series of books, the lion is the mascot for Gryffindor.
• In the Animorphs series of books, the lion is the favored morph of traitor David and auxilery Animorph leader James.
• In Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, the lion is used as a metaphore to describe a human who rebels against old knowledge, to make a new morality possible. The morality of the overman.
• The lion is the emblem of House Lannister, one of the principal noble families in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

[edit] Lions in media

Leo the Lion is the mascot for Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) Studios

• There have been five different lions used as the mascot for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios, based on the mascot of Columbia University, MGM publicist Howard Dietz's alma mater. Although the five lions went by the name of Leo the Lion, the first was named Slats. Slats was trained by Volney Phifer to roar on cue, as can be seen at the beginning of MGM movies. Leo died in 1936 and is buried in Gillette, New Jersey.
• In 1966, the live-action picture Born Free appeared, based on the true-life international bestselling book of the same title. It covered the story of the Kenyan lioness Elsa, and the efforts of Joy Adamson and her game-warden husband George in training the lioness for release back into the wild.
• In 1994, Disney made a hugely successful animated feature film called The Lion King, during the height of Disney animation in the mid 90's.
• In the 2005 animated feature film Madagascar by DreamWorks, one of the major characters is a zoo lion called Alex.
• Osamu Tezuka made an manga/anime called The White Lion about a little lion cub who grew up without parents and had to rely on his friends to survive from hunters and other prey.
• The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) is a movie set in 1898. It is based on the true story of two lions in Africa that killed 130 people over a nine month period, during the construction of a railroad bridge across the Tsavo River in what is today Kenya, Africa. The two lions, both males, were given the names 'The Ghost' and 'The Darkness' by the local natives.
• Beast Wars the Second (1997) is a spin off of Transformers where a group of Maximals/Cybertrons are led by a White Lion called Lio Convoy.
• In 2005, the Kenyan lioness Kamuniak captured international attention when she adopted oryx calves, an animal species that is normally preyed upon by lions. She fought off predators and lion prides who attempted to eat her charges. Kamuniak's story was captured in the Animal Planet episode, "Heart of a Lioness".

The Lion of Judah on the municipal emblem of Jerusalem

[edit] Other uses

[edit] Lions in heraldry

Main article: Lion (heraldry)

The lion is a common charge in heraldry, traditionally symbolizing bravery, valor and strength. The following positions of heraldic lions are recognized:

• The lion holds historical significance for English heraldry and symbolism. The Three Lions was a symbol for Richard the Lionheart, and later, for England.

[edit] Lions in Anthropology

• Sinhalese, the term for Sri Lanka's ethnic majority, comes from the Indo-Aryan term Sinhala, meaning the lion people or people with lion blood. The central figure on the national flag of Sri Lanka is a sword wielding lion.
• Singh, derived from the Sanskrit word Simha meaning Lion, is a common name in India used by Sikhs and Hindu martial classes.

[edit] Lion as place names

• Singapore's name is the Anglicised form of the original Sanskrit-derived Malay name Singapura, which means 'Lion City'. Malay mythology describes how the founder-prince of Singapore (then called 'Temasek') sighted a strange red and black beast with a mane when he first set ashore the island. Believing it to be a lion and a good omen (although lions were not known to exist anywhere in Southeast Asia, he renamed the island Singapura. The lion features on the Singapore national coat of arms and is also the nickname of the national football team. 'Lion City' is also a common moniker for the city-state.
• Leeuwarden, Netherlands
• Leiden, Netherlands
• León, Spain
• Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico
• Lviv (Lvov, Lwów), Ukraine
• Lyon, France
• Sierra Leone
• Singaraja, Bali
• Singaparna, Tasikmalaya, West Java
• Singapore
• Zalambessa, Africa
• Sigiriya, Sri Lanka

[edit] See also

• Lion-baiting

[edit] References

1. ^ C.A.W. Guggisberg, Simba
2. ^ Wikisource:Bible (American Standard)/1 Peter#Chapter 5 Verse 8
3. ^ Indiana Sigma Chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon - About
4. ^ L. Frank Baum, Michael Patrick Hearn, The Annotated Wizard of Oz, p 148, ISBN 0-517-500868