2,200-Year-Old Moat with Artifacts Linked to Hannibal Unearthed in Spain

Spanish university students trying to retrace Hannibal’s war march through northeastern Spain found a huge buried moat with ancient objects in it. The moat may have been meant to protect the ancient Carthaginian warrior-leader’s troops who remained in Iberia. If the moat was defense works for Hannibal’s Iberian troops, it did little good: Romans defeated them after Hannibal departed in 218 BC.

Hannibal left to attack the Roman Empire in Italy with as many as 90,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. He had with his army a famous elephant brigade of 80 or so pachyderms, most of which, scholars think, perished in the harsh mountain terrain between Spain and central Italy.

Hannibal’s route of invading Italy. (Abalg and Pinpin map/CC BY SA 3.0)

Hannibal, who many years later committed suicide because the Romans finally caught up to him, left 11,000 troops near the town of Vilar de Valls to defend Carthaginian interested in Iberia.

The moat measured up to 131 feet (40 meters) across, 16.4 feet (5 meters) deep and extended three-tenths of a mile (.5 kilometer).

The moat’s size surprised the directors of the dig, Jordi López of the Catalan Institute of Classic Archeology and Jaume Noguera of the Prehistory department at the University of Barcelona.