Archaeologists find possible first direct evidence of Hannibal's war elephants

The Carthaginian general famously used elephants during the Punic Wars. But until now, archaeologists had never found skeletal remains linking the animals to the conflict

In 2019, archaeologists unearthed a strange bone alongside a trove of ancient catapult projectiles in Córdoba, Spain. According to a study published this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, the bone may be from one of Hannibal’s war elephants, which the Carthaginian general used against Romans in the Second Punic War.

The bone “could prove to be a landmark,” lead author Rafael Martínez Sánchez, an archaeologist at the University of Cordoba, tells Live Science’s Tom Metcalfe. Until now, “there has been no direct archaeological testimony for the use of these animals.”

The dig was conducted ahead of construction for a medical facility on the Colina de los Quemados archaeological site. Archaeologists documented evidence of occupation at the site across hundreds of years beginning around the Late Bronze Age. However, their most intriguing discoveries date to the late Iron Age.

Along with stone artillery and coins, researchers unearthed a “short, cube-shaped bone,” measuring nearly four inches long. Eventually, they determined that the bone likely came from the right leg of an African or Asian elephant.

“It could belong to the period of the Punic Wars,” Martínez Sánchez told El Pais’ Vicente G. Olaya in 2023. “It could be the first of Hannibal’s elephants to be discovered. We can’t know for sure, but it was certainly a sizable beast.”

In the years since, researchers have continued studying the bone. Because it is poorly preserved, DNA and protein analyses have proved inconclusive. The species of elephant also remains unconfirmed. However, after radiocarbon testing, researchers were able to conclude that the elephant died between the fourth and third centuries B.C.E.

The Secret to Controlling Hannibal's War Elephants | Secrets of the Dead on PBS

This timeline aligns with the Second Punic War, which occurred in the third century B.C.E. This conflict was part of the series of wars between Rome and Carthage, an ancient city in modern-day Tunisia.

Study co-author Agustín López Jiménez, an expert at the archaeology company Arqueobética, which excavated the site, told El Pais that researchers found the elephant foot bone beneath some collapsed adobe walls dating to around the third century B.C.E. According to the study, the same area revealed 12 three-pound stone balls, which were “unquestionably artillery projectiles for lithoboloi,” a kind of catapult.

The Second Punic War began after Hannibal attacked Saguntum, a city on the Iberian Peninsula that had allied with Rome. When Carthage refused to withdraw, Rome declared war in 218 B.C.E.

Hannibal led his forces northeast from the Iberian Peninsula, aiming for the Alps. The general planned to enter Italy from the north and attack, forcing the Romans to defend their turf. Hannibal’s army reportedly included some 30,000 soldiers, 15,000 horses and 37 war elephants. The mountain march was brutal, and he lost many of the elephants along the way.

Despite the historical record, archaeologists had never found skeletal remains of elephants connected to the Punic Wars—until the Córdoba bone. The researchers say that this bone didn’t come from “one of the mythical specimens Hannibal took across the Alps.” However, Martínez Sánchez tells IFLScience’s Russell Moul, the discovery “is the first time an elephant bone remnant linked to that chronology has been found in Iberia and, to our knowledge, in Europe.”