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linked Jastrow to article at Penn Libraries library.upenn.edu; linked Lewysohn to article at Jewish Virtual Library jewishvirtuallibrary.org; added legendary "deer" description w/ sources; & Elasm.
The '''Keresh''' is the enormous [[deer]] of ''Be-Ila'i'', and it has but one horn.<ref>See [http://halakhah.com/pdf/kodoshim/Chullin.pdf Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), Seder ''Kodashim'', Tractate ''Chullin'', Folio 59b (''Chullin'' 59b)]. ''scroll down to page'' 192.
The '''Keresh''' is the enormous [[deer]] of ''Be-Ila'i'', and it has but one horn.<ref>See [http://halakhah.com/pdf/kodoshim/Chullin.pdf Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), Seder ''Kodashim'', Tractate ''Chullin'', Folio 59b (''Chullin'' 59b)]. ''scroll down to page'' 192.
</ref> The hide of the deer of ''Be-Ila'i'' is
</ref> The hide of the deer of ''Be-Ila'i'' is
sixteen [[cubit]]s long.<ref>16 cubits = 288 inches, 24 feet, 7.3152 meters (one cubit = 18 inches = 0.4572 meters).</ref> Some of the Sages of the Talmud identify this creature as the legendary [[The Taḥash (legendary animal)|Taḥash]].<ref>[http://halakhah.com/shabbath/shabbath_28.html Babylonian Talmud, Seder ''Mo'ed'', Tractate ''Shabbath,'' Folio 28a PARTb (''Shab.'' 28ab)] —halakhah.com. <br/>"''Since there is the keresh, which is a species of beast, and it has only one horn, one can say that it [the tahash] is a kind of wild beast.''"</ref> It is associated with the Tigris, the giant lion of the same wild habitat. ''Be-Ila'i'' is a forest of this name according to [[Rashi]], and according to [[Yehudi L. B. Lewysohn|Lewysohn]]<ref>Lewysohn, Yehudi Leib Ludwig (1858) [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_12445.html ''Zoologie des Talmuds'',] p. 70. —jewishvirtuallibrary.org</ref>. According to [[Marcus Jastrow|Jastrow]] it refers to the mountains of interior [[Asia]].<ref>Jastrow, Marcus (1926) [http://tyndalearchive.com/tabs/jastrow ''Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Bavli and Midrashic Literature''] p. 520, column a, top. '''טגרס טגרוס''' —tyndalearchive.com —''click on letter'' <big>'''ט'''</big> Tet, ''at top of page image select'' next page ''until page'' 520 ''appears''. —" '''טגרוס ''': <small>m</small> (tigris, v. Sm. Ant. s. v.) ''tiger''. "</ref>
sixteen [[cubit]]s long (24 feet).<ref>16 cubits = 288 inches, 24 feet, 7.3152 meters (one cubit = 18 inches = 0.4572 meters).</ref> Some of the Sages of the Talmud ([http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14240-tannaim-and-amoraim ''Tannaim'' and ''Amoraim'']) identify this creature as the legendary [[The Taḥash (legendary animal)|Taḥash]].<ref>[http://halakhah.com/shabbath/shabbath_28.html Babylonian Talmud, Seder ''Mo'ed'', Tractate ''Shabbath,'' Folio 28a PARTb (''Shab.'' 28ab)] —halakhah.com. <br/>"''Since there is the keresh, which is a species of beast, and it has only one horn, one can say that it [the tahash] is a kind of wild beast.''"</ref> It is associated with the Tigris, the giant lion of the same wild habitat. ''Be-Ila'i'' is a forest of this name according to [[Rashi]], also according to [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_12445.html Lewysohn]<ref>Lewysohn, Yehudi Leib Ludwig (1858) [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_12445.html ''Zoologie des Talmuds'',] p. 70. —jewishvirtuallibrary.org</ref>. According to [http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/cajs/jastrow/01.html Jastrow] it refers to the mountains of interior [[Asia]].<ref>Jastrow, Marcus (1926) [http://tyndalearchive.com/tabs/jastrow ''Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Bavli and Midrashic Literature''] p. 520, column a, top. '''טגרס טגרוס''' —tyndalearchive.com —''click on letter'' <big>'''ט'''</big> Tet, ''at top of page image select'' next page ''until page'' 520 ''appears''. —" '''טגרוס ''': <small>m</small> (tigris, v. Sm. Ant. s. v.) ''tiger''. "</ref>
An awareness of ancient folklore having roots in prehistorical reality may have reasonably suggested to the Sages the actual existence of the enormous ''keresh''. Possible sightings and capture of what may have been a giant one-horned Eurasian rhinoceros (''[[Elasmotherium]]''), once native to the central Asian and European steppes, have been preserved in legends. The animal has anciently been called a "deer-like" beast with one big horn, a "big bull" with one horn on its head, and a giant "unicorn" with five colors.<ref>Five sources:
*Russell, James R. (2009). "From Zoroastrian Cosmology and Armenian heresiology to the Russian novel"
*Allison, Christine; Joristen-Pruschke, Anke; Wendtland, Antje. From Daēnā to Dîn: Religion, Kultur und Sprache in der iranischen Welt; Festschrift für Philip Kezenbroek, zum 60. Geburstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 141–208.
*Glavin, Terry (2007). The Sixth Extinction (First U.S. ed.) New York: Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's Press). pp. 129–130.
*Sinor, Denis (1960) Sur les noms altaiques de la licorne Denis Sinor. Cambridge. Wiener Zeitschrift für der Kunde des Morgenlandes (in French) (56): 168–176. —Rhino Resource Center: The World's Largest Rhino Information Website.
*Ibn Faḍlān, Ahmad; Frye, Richard N. (October 2005). Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia: A Tenth-century Traveller from Baghdad to the Volga River, translated by Richard Nelson Frye, 2005. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-55876-366-1.</ref> However, the ''Elasmotherium'' was not big enough to be the ''keresh'', measuring only about 10 cubits nose to tail, 15–16 feet, and it is supposed to have become extinct over 10,000 years ago.
<ref>Three sources:
*Titov, V.V., Tesakov, A.S. editors, ''Quaternary stratigraphy and paleontology of the Southern Russia: connections between Europe, Africa and Asia: Abstracts of the International INQUA-SEQS Conference'' (June 21–26, 2010) Rostov-on-Don, publisher Russian Academy of Science. Baigusheva, Vera, Titov, Vadim, ''Pleistocene Large Mammal Associations of the Sea of Azov and Adjacent Regions'', pages 24–27]
* V.V. Titov, V.V., Tesakov, A.S. editors, ''Quaternary stratigraphy and paleontology of the Southern Russia: connections between Europe, Africa and Asia: Abstracts of the International INQUA-SEQS Conference'' (June 21–26, 2010) Rostov-on-Don, publisher Russian Academy of Science. Kosintsev, Pavel ''Relict Mammal Species of the Middle Pleistocene in Late Pleistocene Fauna of the Western Siberia South'', pages 78–79.]
*Hagstrum, J. T., Firestone, R. B., West, A., article, "Beringian Megafaunal Extinctions at ~37 ka B.P.: Do Micrometeorites Embedded in Fossil Tusks and Skulls Indicate an Extraterrestial Precursor to the Younger Dryas Event?", journal ''American Geophysical Union'', Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #PP31D-1385, 2009, publisher, The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, volume 31, pages 1385</ref>
== References ==
== References ==