Archaeology & History

How did Hannibal's army get across the Alps ?

By T.K. Randall
April 6, 2016

Image: African Bush Elephants
Credit: Gorgo / (PD) 2,000 years ago the Carthaginian General Hannibal led an army of over 30,000 men, horses and elephants in a daring surprise attack against the Romans that took them over the rugged, snowy terrain of the Alps - a region that the unsuspecting Roman Army had thought impassable.

How Hannibal managed to traverse the mountains with such a large army has remained a topic of debate for years, but now Professor Bill Mahaney, a geomorphologist at York University in Toronto, believes that he may have finally found physical proof of the route that the Carthaginians took.

The key to the discovery, which was found during an expedition to the region, was a large 2,000-year-old deposit of horse manure that was discovered in the Col de la Traversette mountain pass."This may be the first tangible, if unusual, evidence of human/animal activity at the time of Hannibal's invasion of Italia," the researchers wrote.

"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."

The hunt is now on for evidence of elephant dung at the site which, if found, would significantly improve the likelihood that the pass had been used by Hannibal's army over 2,000 years ago.

Source: Phys.org

Tags: Hannibal, Alps, Romans, Carthaginians