Archaeologists find possible first direct evidence of Hannibal's war elephants | Hacker News Reader

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

smithsonianmag.com

118 pointsbryanrasmussen33 comments

Related: "Single bone in Spain offers first direct evidence of Hannibal's war elephants" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46917005 06-feb-2026 40 comments

I have heard this for a long time, and always wondered how they trained African elephants.

There's a reason that you see working elephants all over East Asia, but not in Africa.

African elephants are pretty badass. I have not heard of them being successfully trained, but then, it's never really been a subject I studied.

Also, as we are learning, more and more, when it comes to war, big is not necessarily better. Big targets. These days, a speedboat with a missile, could take out an aircraft carrier.

There's some debate over the type of elephant Hannibal's forces used. They were likely not the African elephants we know today, but North African elephants[1]. This was a physically smaller subspecies that was later extirpated by the Romans. Perhaps analysis of the bone in this story will help settle the debate.

It's also worth noting that, despite the insane effort it must have taken to get elephants over the alps, all but one of Hannibal's elephants died during the first winter in Italy. They made for a great story and were a propaganda coup for the Carthaginians, but didn't wind up making much of a military impact. They were only present for the first couple of battles Hannibal fought.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_elephant

Hannibal knew the elephants would have minimal impact by themselves, they were mainly an instrument of shock and awe and served their purpose well.

For centuries, Romans had grabbed land and defeated enemies mostly by projecting immense power and using shock and awe tactics. Hannibal of course learnt a lot about Roman tactics from his father, Hamilcar, and the “treachery” with which Rome had taken Sicily off Carthaginians. But he also grew up in Spain, in close proximity to Romans, and studied them and their methods for years.

He knew he needed to have an instrument of shock and awe himself, something the Romans had never seen before, and elephants were perfect for that.

For those interested, the Rest is History podcast did a 4 series on Hannibal last year which is highly engaging and informative

https://therestishistory.com/series/hannibal

Karthago was a highly developed culture. We just don't know much about them because the romans burned everything to the ground after winning the second war. Only a single book of the whole library (about plants) was saved.

There’s no such thing as training elephants. Unfortunately, the process of breaking them is extremely brutal to the point that they lose their will.

It is amazing how much narrative archaeologists construct out of a single poorly preserved bone and radiocarbon dating that happens to conform nicely with a famous historical mystery. One should maintain a healthy skepticism about this sort of claim. There are surely alternative explanations for such "artefacts".

> One should maintain a healthy skepticism about this sort of claim.

Which claim are you referring to that they made? I looked through all the parts where they were quoted and most seemed to have couched language.

"a single poorly preserved bone and radiocarbon dating"

You realize you are giving people the indication that you are knowledgeable on the subject, have read the article, or the underlying research - by framing your statement this way?

"much narrative archaeologists construct"

This comment has it's own narrative, to be skeptical of archaeologists. Be skeptical of the skeptics too.

Anyway you can read about the additional archaeological contexts which are used for evidence of the claim here (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23524...).

At this rate, we're only a few years away from discovering evidence for Herodotus' giant ants.

Peissel claimed that was marmots and totally real, didn't they?

The anthill garnet is mined by ants on a Navajo reservation.

https://columbiagemhouse.com/pages/anthill-garnet

https://myeldesign.com/blogs/journal/the-fabulous-story-of-a...

> A second-century Roman mosaic of a war elephant in Tunisia

It is quite interesting to see that the depicted elephant has wrong proportions. This makes one wonder whether the artist who created that mosaic, ever saw an elephant himself.

Wrong to elephants today

Pure speculation, of course, but I would say so. The hump in the back; the small, high, tail; dominant forehead — those are all things missed by people who mis-draw elephants. I think this artist got them right, which is hard to do from description alone.

I’m very tempted to agree with you: people who draw from description draw unicorns after being told about rhinoceroses. We have a lot of medieval monks’ drawings of elephants by description and theirs look like tapir with a trumpet stuck in their nose. This is not a photo, of course but it mainly highlights the head, like any one would if they didn’t measured proportions carefully.

> tapir with a trumpet stuck in their nose

Oh, that’s hysterical. I’ve seen drawings exactly like that, in illuminated manuscripts, and your description is perfect :D

There has also been debate about which species of elephant Hannibal's forces used. Elsewhere, Hellenistic Greek forces used Asian elephants, but many believe Hannibal used North African elephants, a sub-species that was extirpated by the Romans. Their proportions might have been a little different than living elephants. It will be interesting to see if the bone can help settle this debate.

Might be a limitation of the medium. Mosaics are complicated.

This famous "skeleton" mosaic has the proportions wrong as well, even though the artist almost certainly saw some actual human skeletons, and definitely some living humans with their longer arms and smaller heads than depicted :)

https://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Ha...

This page showed up on HN years ago, someone gathered a bunch of art depicting elephants over time: https://uliwestphal.de/elephas-anthropogenus/

It's interesting because they don't monotonically get better over time. Some of the oldest depictions are pretty good, and there's some zaniness in the middle of the timeline

The main thing I see wrong is that the back legs bend the wrong way. But I only know that because of the trivia question, "what is the only animal with four knees?"

Those elephants are supposedly "Loxodonta africana pharaohensis", an exinct and not yet verified subspecies of the African bush elephant which is smaller than the savanna types. The pharaohensis was supposedly even smaller, and smaller than an Indian elephant, but with ears like an African elephant.

Even experienced artists look at reference. Unless they had an elephant or sketch of one right in front of them, minor issues are understandable.

Even then we're assuming it's not stylized. They clearly wanted a nice tile pattern, and might have made deliberate tweaks to get that.

Everyone should visit Córdoba, Spain once in their life.

why?

The mosque-turned-cathedral is an interesting (and huge) piece of medieval architecture.

The Roman bridge is fascinating as well.

Plus, if you arrive in summer, you will learn what heat is. Córdoba is hot even for the standards of Spanish summers. Hence, interesting night life. Not just drunkards, normal families and everyone who barely survived the day and now has the opportunity to live and socialize outside.

Can you recommend something that most people miss when they go there?

original title: Archaeologists Unearthed a 2,200-Year-Old Bone. They Say It Could Be the First Direct Evidence of Hannibal’s Legendary War Elephants

And also found ammo for lithoboloi!

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