A small bone discovered in southern Spain may represent the first direct archaeological evidence of the war elephants used by Hannibal Barca during the Punic Wars.
The find, a 2,200-year-old elephant carpal bone roughly the size of a baseball, was unearthed in 2019 at an ancient fortified settlement near Córdoba.
According to a new study led by archaeologist Rafael Martínez Sánchez of the University of Córdoba, the bone may belong to a war elephant deployed by Carthaginian forces during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC).
Until now, evidence for Hannibal’s elephants has largely relied on ancient texts and indirect traces, such as disturbed soils and track-like features identified at Alpine passes near the modern France–Italy border.
“This bone could be a turning point,” Martínez Sánchez said, noting that no unequivocal physical remains of these animals had previously been identified in an archaeological context.
The bone was initially puzzling because it did not match any local species. Years later, detailed analysis identified it as the right carpal bone—part of the ankle region of an elephant’s front leg. Radiocarbon dating of the soil layer places it around 2,250 years ago, predating the Roman conquest of the region in the mid-second century BC.
The discovery was made at an Iberian fortified village, known to the Romans as an oppidum. While such settlements were often built on hilltops, this one occupied a defensible bend in a river.
Archaeologists believe a Carthaginian force clashed with defenders at the site, during which the elephant was killed. Supporting this interpretation, researchers also recovered a dozen spherical stone projectiles, likely ammunition for Carthaginian catapults.
Most of the elephant’s skeleton appears to have decayed or disappeared, but the carpal bone survived after becoming trapped beneath a collapsed wall. Researchers do not rule out the possibility that the bone could also have been kept as a portable “souvenir” before ending up in the debris.
The species of elephant remains uncertain. It may have been an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), used earlier by Pyrrhus of Epirus, or an extinct North African elephant favoured by Carthage.
Although the animal did not cross the Alps with Hannibal, researchers stress its significance. The bone is a rare relic of the Punic Wars and a tangible reminder of the massive war elephants—described by the team as the “tanks of antiquity”—that once marched across the Iberian Peninsula.
Header Image Credit : Agustín López and Rafael Martínez
Sources : Science Direct – https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105577
