I studied ancient Roman history in university and still find it fascinating now that I have left school. I was always enamoured, as much of the world is, by the tale of Hannibal crossing into Italy with his army to attack Rome with.

Several things always stand out in the story:

1. Hannibal’s army had significant losses during the crossing. This should mean that they are many corpses or at least equipment strewn along the route he took.

2. Histories make a point of saying that the exact route Hannibal took is not known.

I feel like this would be an interesting, if challenging archeological expedition for several reasons:

1. the mountain routes couldn’t have changed that much over time so there must be a finite number of routes to search.

2. yes snows and ice shift which complicates finding the routes but that also presents an opportunity. I attended a lecture of a palaeontologist who was surveying Canada’s arctic for prehistoric animal remains (camels and mammoths mostly) and she told me how during spring new remains would be revealed without them having to dig, they just had to explore the area and would find some bones that weren’t there the year before. Would this not apply to the remains of Hannibal’s army?

3. mountain climate is great for preserving things.

You can look at Everest as an example and the bodies that are still there, or even the remarkable condition that Mallory’s body and equipment was in when he was found.

Or if you want Alp specific, Ötzi the ice man was found preserved in the alps by some tourists as the shifting snow suddenly revealed him. Ötzi was from approx 3300BC which is even older than Hannibal’s feat.

So that is my case for why I think it would be possible to find the remains of some of Hannibal’s alp army.

My question again in case it got jumbled is has there been a serious expedition to find Hannibal’s army, was it successful, and if there hasn’t been an expedition is there a good reason why not?

Has there been any Carthaginian remains found in the alps?