‘Landmark’ elephant bone finding in Spain may be from time of Hannibal’s war against Rome
A 2,200-year-old bone discovered in Spain may come from one of Hannibal’s war elephants that was deployed during the Second Punic War, a new study reports.
The baseball-sized bone discovered near the southern Spanish city of Cordoba may be the only direct evidence of the Carthaginian general’s war elephants, according to the study published in the February issue of Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports. Famously, 37 of these warlike pachyderms traveled with Hannibal and his army along the Iberian Peninsula, above the Pyrenees south from Gaul, across the Alps and into Italy to attack Rome.
The bone “could prove to be a landmark”, Rafael Martinez Sanchezarchaeologist at the University of Córdoba and first author of the study, told Live Science. So far, “there is no direct archaeological evidence of the use of these animals,” he said in an email.
The mysterious bone was discovered in 2019 and initially left scientists perplexed because it did not match any native animals. It was recognized years later as the elephant’s right carpal bone – the “ankle” of its right foreleg, which is equivalent to the wrist in humans. Researchers believe this particular elephant was brought there as a war beast by the Carthaginians.
Celtic stronghold
The bone was discovered during archaeological excavations at the site of a fortified Iberian village, in a layer of earth radiocarbon dated about 2,250 years ago — before the Romans took control of the region around 150 BC. The Romans called these fortified villages oppida; they were commonly used by ancient Celts and were often built on hilltops, but it was in the defensible bend of a river.
Carthage, an ancient city-state located on the coast of present-day Tunisia, arose from a Phoenician The colony and its fleet of warships were particularly feared. But its armies were also powerful, and Carthage used war elephants in the first two Punic Wars against the Romans. Roman Republicwhich largely aimed at controlling strategic regions of the Western Mediterranean.
It appears that a Carthaginian army stationed nearby during the Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was involved in a battle at the ancient fortified village near Cordoba – and that the elephant was killed in the fighting, the researchers wrote in the study.
Other signs of military conflict at the site included 12 spherical stones that researchers believe were munitions for Carthaginian catapults.
It appeared that most of the elephant’s skeleton had rotted away, but the carpal bone had been protected by a collapsed wall, the researchers wrote. They do not, however, rule out the possibility that the bone survived because it was taken as a souvenir, as it is small enough to be transported.
Martínez Sánchez said it was currently not possible to determine whether the animal was a Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) — the species the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus (known for his “Pyrrhic Victory”) had used against the Romans about 10 years before the First Punic War – or a now-extinct species of African elephant that the Carthaginians favored for their war beasts.
Hannibal’s March
The Carthaginian general and nobleman Hannibal Barca launched his famous attack on Rome around 218 BC, leading his armies into Italy on a long path across Western Europe. Most of his war elephants died crossing the Alps, but Hannibal’s armies were victorious against the Romans in Italy for many years.
Hannibal was recalled to Carthage in 203 BC to defend against Roman attacks. But the Carthaginians ultimately lost their second war against Rome, as they had the First Punic War more than 20 years earlier. (About 50 years later, Rome staged a third Punic War, which the weakened Carthaginians also lost and which led to their demise.)
The researchers stressed that the dead elephant near Cordoba could not be one of the “legendary specimens” that crossed the Alps with Hannibal. However, the bone is a relic of ancient Punic wars for control of the Mediterranean and represents the passage of the gigantic “tanks of antiquity” across the Mediterranean. [Iberian] peninsula,” the researchers wrote.
Mr. Martínez Sánchez, R. and others (2026). The elephant in the oppidum. Preliminary analysis of a carpal bone from a Punic context at the archaeological site of Colina de los Quemados (Cordoba, Spain). Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports, 69105577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105577
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