"Elephant bone found in Spain dating to the 2nd Punic War" Topic

Interesting article speculating that the elephant bone found in a dig in Spain may have come from one of Hannibal's elephants.

link

Thank you. Interesting that the BBC thinks historical accounts are "mythical" or "legendary" but bones and carbon-dating are "hard evidence" of an event in which, by the archeologists' own analysis, this particular elephant could not have taken part. Someone should introduce the BBC to, say, the archeology of the southern levant "where it most closely resembles a contact sport" (or early human settlement of the Americas, which is not far behind) and get a different perspective on "hard evidence."

We've known of two thousand years that Carthaginians used elephants for military purposes. A pity no space was devoted to whether Modoc here was African, Asian or the now-extinct Mediterranean, of how tall he would have been. Those are things we don't know.

Probably one of Hamilcar's, Mago's or Hasdrubal's elephants, anyway.

Sorry. I get a little touchy about the BBC. Still glad to read the article.

Remember, Troy was a legend until schulmann found it. I guess WWII will be a legend some day unless they dig up a uxb in London.

And even if they do, mildbill. I mean, clearly "Church Hill" "Rose in the Field" "Steel" and "Noble Wolf" were names invented by a later generation, describing events of which they had no memory or records. The bomb might have been the result of the Battle of Dorking, a description of which survives, or the conquest of Britain alluded to in Saki's "When William Came." And there are accounts of the Irish planting bombs in London. Why make this one part of the folk epic called "World War" and not any of those?