In 2020, archaeologists conducted excavations ahead of the construction of a hospital near the city of Córdoba in Spain and unearthed a rare bone belonging to a war elephant from the Punic Wars. The discovery may provide some more direct evidence that these creatures existed.
The bone is only the size of a baseball, and it came from the ankle on the right foreleg of an elephant. It’s unclear which species the elephant was from.
Researchers think that the elephant was brought to Europe by Hannibal, a Carthaginian general, and fought in the Punic Wars.
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire. They took place from 264 to 146 B.C.E. Ultimately, Carthage was defeated during the Second Punic War and collapsed a century later during the Third Punic War.
Most evidence of elephants being used as war animals by Carthaginian armies during the Punic Wars comes from historical records, artwork, and artifacts.
For example, an elephant sculpture and a coin featuring a man riding an elephant were found in the Roman necropolis of Carmona.
“The use of elephants as ‘war machines’ on European soil during the Punic Wars left a profound mark on Western art, literature and culture—a legacy passed down through classical accounts to later authors,” wrote the researchers.
“For centuries, the image of Hannibal leading his elephants across the Alps became an icon, a recurring motif embraced by musicians, writers, and playwrights alike, and eventually also by the film industry.”
Hannibal was best known for crossing the Alps into Italy in 218 C.E. with an army of more than 30,000 infantrymen, 7,000 cavalrymen, and 37 elephants.
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The elephant’s right carpal bone discovered in 2020 is roughly 2,200 years old, consistent with the period of the Second Punic War.
It was dug up from the Colina de los Quemados site in Córdoba before the construction of part of the Córdoba Provincial Hospital.
The site is believed to have supported an ancient Iberian village since the mid-3rd millennium B.C.E. It was likely abandoned around the time that a Roman military camp was established.
A dozen spherical stones used as ammunition for Carthaginian catapults were also excavated from the site, indicating that a battle was fought in the area.
The elephant appeared to have died in battle. Its right carpal bone was found under a collapsed adobe wall and was in poor condition, preventing researchers from being able to perform DNA analysis.
Therefore, they don’t know whether the bone belongs to the African or Asian elephant species.
“The carpal of the elephant from Colina de los Quemados in Córdoba (Spain) may constitute one of the scarce instances of direct evidence on the use of these animals during Classical Antiquity, not only in the Iberian Peninsula but also in Western Europe,” wrote the study authors.
The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
By Emily Chan
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