Order of the Elephant current form on 1 December 1693 by King Christian V as having only one class consisting of only 30 noble knights in addition to the Grand Master (i.e., the king) and his sons. The statutes of the order were amended in 1958 by a Royal Ordinance so that both men and women could be members of the order. The elephant and castle design derives from an elephant carrying a howdah, the familiar castle replacing the unfamiliar howdah, and finds use elsewhere in European iconography, as discussed at howdah. The Danish monarch is the head of the order. The members of
The Tower of the Elephant newest adaptation, in Dark Horse's "Conan" issues 20-22, was written by Kurt Busiek and illustrated by Cary Nord, Dave Stewart and Mike Kaluta. Two of these have recently appeared in collections released by Dark Horse: the Conan the Barbarian adaptation in "The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The Tower of the Elephant and other stories", and the Dark Horse adaptation in "Conan Volume 3: The Tower of the Elephant and other stories". Episode 3 of the animated series "Conan the Adventurer" is adapted from "Tower of the Elephant", although the character of Taurus is replaced with Jezmine who becomes an ongoing