Elephant bone from Cordoba

[Erpingham]

An interesting trivial find which may have Carthaginian connections

[DBS]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr2xl1e41eo

"Proof that Hannibal did take them across the Alps"?

Oh dear lord.  Lovely find, but honestly to talk about Hannibal's elephants as mythical or suggest there is any doubt about their crossing of the Alps...  Also misses the point that any elephant whose bones turn up in southern Spain is nowhere near the Alps, but possibly related to the prior conquest of Iberia.

[RichT]

Yes this story made me wince too.

"It would be the first concrete proof of the legendary Carthaginian General Hannibal's troop of battle elephants, according to academics. Drawings of Hannibal's war against the Romans had long suggested that the beasts were used in fighting, but no hard evidence backed up the theories."

So all the perfectly clear and reliable historical accounts count for nothing? Of course (having not read the original) this likely comes not from the academics but from some clueless junior editor, but it is symptomatic of a sadly common mindset.

[Erpingham]

The last line of the original paper is

"While it would not represent one of the mythical specimens Hannibal took across the Alps, it could potentially embody the first known relic so sought after by European scholars of the Modern Age of the animals used in the Punic-Roman wars for control of the Mediterranean."

Perhaps the journalist didn't read to the end?

I think we can forgive the Spanish authors the slip of confusing "mythical" and "legendary"   

[tadamson]

I suspect that "science reporter" Ms Rannard, has never needed to bone up on classical warfare....

It would be nice if they had compared the bone with forrest and North African examples (I think that Tounai and London natural history museaums have both, but may not have CIII's).

Tom