This is the skull of a Barbary lion, Panthera leo leo, one of the magnificent great cats once found across the Atlas Mountains and coastal forests of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Barbary lions were renowned for their powerful bodies and, in adult males, luxuriant dark manes that often swept over the shoulders and beneath the belly. They were lions dressed for drama—and fully aware that subtlety was someone else’s problem.
The animal represented by this skull lived between approximately 1280 and 1385. It was not discovered in Morocco, however, but beneath the old moat surrounding the Tower of London.
In 1937, workmen excavating the filled-in moat uncovered two remarkably well-preserved lion skulls. Radiocarbon dating later revealed that the younger animal lived between 1420 and 1480, while this older skull belonged to a lion kept some 700 years ago. Genetic analysis identified both animals as Barbary lions.
The older specimen is the earliest lion found in Britain since the disappearance of the wild cave lions that inhabited the region during the last Ice Age. Unlike those ancient predators, however, this lion did not reach Britain under its own considerable power. It was almost certainly transported from North Africa as a royal possession.
The menagerie operated a surprisingly long time—from the 1200s until 1835.
Lions occupied a particularly prominent place near the Tower’s entrance, where they served as living symbols of courage, nobility and royal authority.
Nothing says “welcome to the palace” quite like several enormous carnivores watching you approach.
The menagerie also held leopards, elephants, monkeys, bears and even a polar bear, which was reportedly allowed to fish in the River Thames while secured by a chain. These animals must have appeared almost mythical to medieval Londoners, most of whom knew distant wildlife only through travellers’ stories, illustrated manuscripts and some deeply imaginative medieval artwork.
Life inside the Tower was far less splendid for the animals themselves. Many suffered from cramped conditions, inadequate diets and poor health. The lions may have symbolized royal power, but they remained captives far from the landscapes in which their bodies and behaviours had evolved.
That history gives this skull a haunting weight. Its broad muzzle, powerful jaws and deep attachment points for the muscles of the head speak of a formidable predator. Its large canine teeth were built to seize and hold struggling prey, while the blade-like carnassial teeth farther back in the jaw sliced through flesh with the efficiency of biological shears.
Yet none of that strength could return this animal to the Atlas Mountains.
Barbary lions once hunted Barbary deer, gazelles and wild boar across North Africa. Centuries of habitat loss, shrinking prey populations and relentless hunting gradually drove them from the wild.
The last widely cited confirmed wild Barbary lion was killed in Morocco in 1922, although unconfirmed sightings continued for several decades. Lions with possible Barbary ancestry survive in captivity, but the original wild population is gone.
Today, this medieval lion has exchanged one royal residence for another kind of palace. Its skull now holds pride of place in the Treasures Gallery at London’s Natural History Museum, where it tells several stories at once: the evolutionary history of lions, the vanished wildlife of North Africa, the strange extravagance of medieval royalty and humanity’s long, complicated desire to possess the wild things we admire.
It is a magnificent specimen—but also a melancholy one.
Seven centuries after this lion looked out from behind the walls of the Tower, its empty eyes still command our attention. The king who owned it is long gone. The menagerie has vanished. The wild Barbary lions have disappeared.
