Archaeologists working near Seville unearthed a fossilized ivory fragment and a bronze armor fitting, and they found a bone that may have come from Hannibal’s war elephant. Historical accounts show that 37 pachyderms marched with Hannibal and his army across the Iberian Peninsula and over the Pyrenees to southern Gaul.
An archaeologist at the University of Cordoba and lead author of the study told LiveScience: “This bone could be groundbreaking. Until now, there has been no direct archaeological evidence for the use of these animals.”
The bone was discovered during archaeological excavations in a southern Spanish village in a soil layer that was about 2,250 years old. Martinez Sanchez noted that it is currently impossible to determine whether the animal was an Asian elephant.
This was the same species that the Greek king Phyrus of Epirus – known for his ‘Pyrrhic victory’ – captured around 280 BC. against the Romans ten years before the First Punic War when he intervened in southern Italy. Analysis suggests the fragment could belong to an extinct subspecies of African elephant. These animals, favored by the Carthaginians, were beasts and were brought to Spain specifically for that purpose.
