In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years or so been depicted as a white horse- or goat-like animal with a long straight horn with spiralling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard.

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could be captured only by a virgin.

A bovine type of unicorn is thought by some scholars to have been depicted in seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization, the interpretation remaining controversial.

An equine form of the unicorn was mentioned by the ancient Greeks in accounts of natural history by various writers, including Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the Younger, Aelian,[2] and Cosmas Indicopleustes.

A creature with a single horn, conventionally called a unicorn, is the most common image on the soapstone stamp seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization ("IVC"), from the centuries around 2000 BC.

Typically, the unicorn faces a vertical object with at least two stages; this is variously described as a "ritual offering stand", an incense burner, or a manger.

The earliest description is from Ctesias, who in his book Indika ("On India") described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn a cubit and a half (700 mm, 28 inches) in length, and colored white, red and black.

[12] Pliny the Elder mentions the oryx and an Indian ox (perhaps a greater one-horned rhinoceros) as one-horned beasts, as well as "a very fierce animal called the monoceros which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead, two cubits [900 mm, 35 inches] in length.

"[13] In On the Nature of Animals (Περὶ Ζῴων Ἰδιότητος, De natura animalium), Aelian, quoting Ctesias, adds that India produces also a one-horned horse (iii.

Cosmas Indicopleustes, a 6th-century Greek traveler who journeyed to India and the Kingdom of Aksum, gives a description of a unicorn based on four bronze figures he saw in the four-towered palace of the King of Ethiopia.

When he finds himself pursued by many hunters and on the point of being caught, he springs up to the top of some precipice whence he throws himself down and in the descent turns a somersault so that the horn sustains all the shock of the fall, and he escapes unhurt.

[19] The predecessor of the medieval bestiary, compiled in Late Antiquity and known as Physiologus (Φυσιολόγος), popularized an elaborate allegory in which a unicorn, trapped by a maiden (representing the Virgin Mary), stood for the Incarnation.

[20]: 305 The unicorn, tamable only by a virgin woman, was well established in medieval lore by the time Marco Polo described them as "scarcely smaller than elephants.

[24] False alicorn powder, made from the tusks of narwhals or horns of various animals, was sold in Europe for medicinal purposes as late as 1741.

In one of his notebooks Leonardo da Vinci wrote: The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go to sleep in her lap, and thus the hunters take it.

In the series, richly dressed noblemen, accompanied by huntsmen and hounds, pursue a unicorn against mille-fleur backgrounds or settings of buildings and gardens.

The unicorn already functioned as a symbol of the Incarnation and whether this meaning is intended in many prima facie secular depictions can be a difficult matter of scholarly interpretation.

There is no such ambiguity in the scenes where the archangel Gabriel is shown blowing a horn, as hounds chase the unicorn into the Virgin's arms, and a little Christ Child descends on rays of light from God the Father.

The Council of Trent finally banned this somewhat over-elaborated, if charming, depiction,[29] partly on the grounds of realism, as no one now believed the unicorn to be a real animal.

In heraldry, a unicorn is often depicted as a horse with a goat's cloven hooves and beard, a lion's tail, and a slender, spiral horn on its forehead[31] (non-equine attributes may be replaced with equine ones).

[37][38] The rainbow flag, created by American artist Gilbert Baker in 1978 as a joyous symbol of the diversity of the queer community, became prominent during the gay rights protests of the 1970s and 1980s.

[37] Alice Fisher, an editor of Observer Design magazine, notes that the values of a unicorn – as rare and magical – have resulted in the word being used with various connotations.

However, it is more accurately described as a hybrid animal that looks less unicorn than chimera, with the body of a deer, the head of a lion, green scales and a long forwardly-curved horn.

In November 2012 the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences, as well as the Korea News Service, reported that the Kiringul had been found, which is associated with a kirin ridden by King Dongmyeong of Goguryeo.

[50] Shanhaijing (117) mentioned the Bo-horse (Chinese: 駮馬; pinyin: bómǎ), a chimera horse with an ox tail, a single horn, a white body, and a sound like a person calling.