You may or may not have learned in school about Hannibal, one of the most notable military commanders in human history. Hannibal Barca from Carthage was a general in the Second Punic War of 218-202 BC. In the fall of 218, Hannibal was said to have crossed the Alps into Italy, near Turin.
While the outcome of Hannibal’s attacks against the Romans eventually led to a Carthaginian defeat and Hannibal’s resignation from his post, his daring Alpine expedition (complete, it was rumored, with 37 cargo elephants) has become the stuff of legend.
But did Hannibal actually cross the Alps?
Until quite recently, that question went unanswered. But now researchers have part of an answer—thanks to the 15,000 horses that accompanied Hannibal’s army. An international team led by Bill Mahaney of York University in Toronto uncovered a “mass deposit of animal dung” in a narrow mountain pass near the France-Italy border called the Col de la Traversette. Mahaney determined that they should look for a place like this, peatland swamp, due to its practical implications.
The troops may have stopped there to water cattle and horses (what about those elephants?). Using carbon isotope analysis, the team was able to date the dung to 200 BC. The deposits contained “significant evidence” of Clostridia microbes, common to horse manure.
In the journal Archaeometry, Mahaney and colleagues wrote that “Although we cannot determine conclusively that the evidence pertains to Hannibal, the results are consistent with the passage of large numbers of animals and people.” They said more research was needed at the site, which might hold other clues about Hannibal and his army’s presence. But the “pot of gold” wouldn’t be shields or helmets; Mahaney’s co-author Chris Allen of Queens University in Toronto told The Conversation that would be “an elephant tapeworm egg,” thereby proving that Hannibal really did take those large mammals up the mountains.
By Kathy McCabe
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Photo by Wikipedia
