There were even lions in England at one time, long ago. Living in caves in the mountains.
And, of course, lions still appear on the royal insignia of Great Britain.
Why would you assume that?
Discovery today, prompted by reading this thread: long ago I saw in a museum, a Chinese statuette of a lion – which led me and my companion on that visit (we were acquainted with the facts re lions further west in Asia) to assume that in the distant past, China must also have had lions – long since exterminated. I find, though, via Googling, that there have never been wild lions in China – at any rate, not in times of human, even prehistoric, habitation of that part of the world. The Chinese got to know about lions, through contact with trading partners further west: the species has not been part of China’s own fauna. Ignorance fought !
I suspect this was the beginning of the end for the lions.
They did get some live specimens from Central Asia (in one case, along with an ostrich)
Yeah, Noah wasn’t all that bright. But at least he was open-minded! :D.
Of course, they also had dragon statues.
But such impressive animals can appear in images far from their native range:
As well as the unicorn, which is most likely based distorted tales of the Indian Rhinoceros (which has one horn on its head).
Look at a population density map of India that shows good details. The whole bottom of the country is sparsely populated interspersed with a lot of concentrations - i.e. there are huge hilly regions that have been a challenge for agriculture, people stick to the few valleys, leaving the hills as jungle. This is why tigers have survived fairly well until recently when the population exploded, and also why there would be areas where lions did not impact human settlements significantly.
By contrast, there are not a lot of contiguous large unsettled tracts with low population density in Europe - except the Alps, not conducive to Lion hunting. As for the Middle East, a lot of the more forested regions have dwindled with the climate change since the last ice age; Lebanon in Biblical times was known for its large cedars providing lumber for ships of the Mediterranean; not so much now. Animals forced to hunt in the river valleys where farmers live would face more population pressure, and large animals would be easy to spot for long distances.