History Channel Portrays Hannibal as Black, White People Cry Foul Over ‘Historical Revisionism’

History Channel‘s newest documentary series, Barbarians Rising, tackles the fall of Rome over the course of 700 years of invasions. However, the most recent episode that aired Monday depicts Hannibal of Carthage as a Black man, and many white history buffs are crying foul over the “historical inaccuracy.” In the series, Hannibal is portrayed by Black British actor Nicholas Pinnock. The famous Carthaginian was a thorn in the empire’s side. He became a general at the age of 26 and managed to unite barbarian tribes to stop Rome’s imperial rise. The military genius was famous for climbing the Alps with war elephants whose sole purpose was to stomp the Roman army. Hannibal ultimately wanted to invade Rome, but he failed to do so. There have been debates over the race of Hannibal. This debate still continues till this day.
atlantablackstar.com... content=buffer76c9f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Not quite sure where to place this thread it could fit in the Ancient and lost Civilization forum, the T.V entertainment forum or even the social Issues forum, or here.

Now I get why some people might think this is P.C and not historical fact, and while I can't say what the actual phenotype is for Hannibal , both sides of the argument are not wrong, the reason being is the very nature of the multi hued multi phenotype of the Carthaginians themselves and their predecessors the Phoenicians, even within the same family, I know many will say but we have Punic coins and statues that showed them to be Eurasian types, which is true but until recently coins and statues showing them looking more stereotypical African were simply not very public, it took nerds to actually reveal them and put them out there and before the internet a text book or an artist was all you have.

The following are Punic bead works.
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To Cont.

Now what about Hannibal?? well we do have representation of him , non of which looked like the other as both Eurasian looking and Africoid looking or a combination of both.

A depiction of a Canaanite by Kemites.

A north Syrian type.




www.beazley.ox.ac.uk...
Hannibal pick your choice.




One of the reasons for the multi depictions is that Hannibal probably never sat for a portraiture and most likely artist based the likeness on what they saw as an average Puni and took it from there, so was Hannibal Black or white?? the choice is up to you.

If Jesus can be white, I guess Hannibal can be black.

Up until recently people thought Roland Deschain was white....

originally posted by: abe froman
If Jesus can be white, I guess Hannibal can be black.

Up until recently people thought Roland Deschain was white....

I had to look-up Roland Deschain , ok I guess, and is it Jesus ? Hesus?? or Hay..Zeus !!!

originally posted by: abe froman
If Jesus can be white, I guess Hannibal can be black.

Up until recently people thought Roland Deschain was white....

I wonder how they Swapped Roland and Parkus, also how does it effect Delta Walker getting Upset that there is a "Honkey Mofo" in her head. Or how she calls him a Spook... Or how in the Hardback copy of the Seventh Book the pictures of Roland are white...

a reply to: Spider879

The carthagininan's followed the Pheonician tradition's with some of there own and so may have originated as a Phoenician colony as if believed or been an earlier site adopted by the pheonician's, they were far more cultured than Rome of the time and there city far more sophisticated and cosmopolitan than Rome which of course later surpassed it, when the Roman's finally defeated it they destroyed it down to it's foundation's and salted the earth but the legend would not die and like Sparta which they did the same thing's to they eventually settled the site with a new Roman city named for it's predecessor.
ngm.nationalgeographic.com...

What little we know is that the Punic (Pheonician) Carthaginian's had a very advanced culture for the time, they had bath's in there home's that we would be comfortable with today but there cruel side was very cruel indeed, they worshiped a goddess whose symbol was an ankh like symbol and sacrificed children to her, thought for a long time to be simply Roman propeganda this was nevertheless proven by archaeological find's, the richer family's would buy slave children just for this very purpose to be offered as a sacrifice to there goddess.
www.ox.ac.uk...

They Carthaginian shipwright's had a technique, each ship was built to a standard design and each piece of wood shaped and numbered by a dedicated craftsman, each piece was individually numbered and they fit together like a kit.
Think about it like the henry ford of there day.

The roman's are thought to have stolen this idea from them and to have reverse engineered the Carthaginian techique which is how they then were able to build there own navy.
Here is an original article from 1972 about the find of such a ship.
news.google.com...,8282598&hl=en
www2.rgzm.de...

As far as race is concerned the North African berber's are the most likely but of course they traded with people in europe, the entire mediteranean including egypt and greece as well as Rome and also africa both with port's on the west coast of africa and perhaps further? and also via interior trade route's though they were essentially a sea power.
www.shsu.edu...

a reply to: Spider879

Does it really matter what color Hanibol was?

He was one of the single greatest strategists of all time!!!

Hence Rome salting Carthage to guarantee they don't rise again.

Robert E Lee, Hanibol, Alexander , Tsun Tzu...


All litteraly the greatest of all time in strategy!!!

a reply to: LABTECH767

For sure they were a very cosmopolitan people and yes they were Egyptophiles , the Beazley collection made this clear and they weren't shy from drawing on traditions near and far they loved themselves some Isis and Bes god which they spread all over the Med, I think it was through them that the Greek adopted Pan as theirs, don't quote me on that, they could have gotten Bes remodeled from elsewhere, they are just my number one pick.www.beazley.ox.ac.uk...

originally posted by: CoBaZ

originally posted by: abe froman
If Jesus can be white, I guess Hannibal can be black.

Up until recently people thought Roland Deschain was white....

I wonder how they Swapped Roland and Parkus, also how does it effect Delta Walker getting Upset that there is a "Honkey Mofo" in her head. Or how she calls him a Spook... Or how in the Hardback copy of the Seventh Book the pictures of Roland are white...

You know your going to watch it anyway...as am I !!
Does this mean Eddie will be black too, have they cast him yet?

Hannibal as Black is totally plausible. Carthage is in northern Africa. It's also been conquered more times than any other place if you believe Coppola. Why would anyone beef about that?

originally posted by: Sargeras
a reply to: Spider879

Does it really matter what color Hanibol was?

He was one of the single greatest strategists of all time!!!

Hence Rome salting Carthage to guarantee they don't rise again.

Robert E Lee, Hanibol, Alexander , Tsun Tzu...


All litteraly the greatest of all time in strategy!!!

In an ideal world it shouldn't ,and in his world it didn't , but unfortunately ethnocentrism and phenotypic bias is the order of the day in our era, misconceptions and stereotypes are generally trotted out as facts especially by folks who couldn't be bothered to look in to history beyond their biased opinions.

originally posted by: abe froman
Up until recently people thought Roland Deschain was white....

He's not white. He's of The White.

to think any north african/middle eastern type would have been white at the time is laughable.
there simply wasn't enough time, from the invasions of alexander to have muddied the gene pool.
the days of letting simple white guys have their safe stereotypes should be over, you'd think.

if anyone gets the chance, carthage is a truly amazing site to visit.

originally posted by: stinkelbaum
from the invasions of alexander to have muddied the gene pool.....

Woof. You're bringing in many other "races" now. I've known many Greeks and they don't consider themselves white. My brother in law is Macedonian and doesn't consider Greece at all. It's complex.

originally posted by: stinkelbaum
to think any north african/middle eastern type would have been white at the time is laughable.
there simply wasn't enough time, from the invasions of alexander to have muddied the gene pool.
the days of letting simple white guys have their safe stereotypes should be over, you'd think.

if anyone gets the chance, carthage is a truly amazing site to visit.

Personally I prefer the term Eurasian as it covers a lot of folks phenotypes for some like Intepid's family member..White Like who?? I also met a Greek girl in Australia not wanting to be classed as such..folks are free to self determine their I.D I guess.

originally posted by: abe froman
If Jesus can be white, I guess Hannibal can be black.

Up until recently people thought Roland Deschain was white....

He is white.
Surely the books are canon!

Some more good argument's, personally I would not be surprised if he was black but would be more suspecting that he was much like modern (not arabic they invaded much later, 7th-8th century) north african's many of whom are actually black and many of whom are more Mediterranean in appearance but with sallow skin but all of whom of course are african's.

There have been many great African leaders and back when european's were living in mud hut's with straw roof's there were palaces and paved street's in some part's of Africa.

Remember also there were many great roman soldiers' and general's, and even a few emperor's whom were from africa such as Caracalla and his father Septimus Severus whom both ruled Rome at it's might.

Septimus Severus seemed to have a love for the British province and rebuilt Hadrien's wall which had fallen into disrepair, he sadly also died here in the city of York probably of Pneumonia but was still one of the greatest roman emperors of the high Roman period, he was only 64 when he died but his legacy ensured that the British province which he had granted semi autonomy had at least another century of Roman Peace.

Today we see a legacy of racism which has flavoured all of our mindset's and is based in tribalism but this racism or tribalism if you like would have been alien to many that lived the much more cosmopolitan Roman empire, in part it is because of victorian idiology and the need to justify the inhumanity dealt to the african's by supposedly Christian power's, so they portrayed the African's as sub human in order to try to say it was ok to slap an innocent person who had been violently kidnapped from there home into chain's and pack them like sardines in condition that would kill nearly half of them before selling them to other people whom treated them just as badly working them to death.

In fact it was one of the reason's that Charles Darwin's idea's were later seized upon and racial stereotyping was born in which african's were then portrayed as not even human but half ape.

Yet go back to Rome, the German's were barbarian's living in mud hut's and straw topped roundhouses, the celt's were had hunters whom sacrificed people to spirits in the nearest bog and the viking's often lived in holes dug out of the side of hill's with no ventillation (this is true though go back 4000 years ago and there were proper houses in part's of souther scandinavia), there were however real but now forgotten civilization in eurasia as well as africa and of course the greatest we still know of is Egypt, a civilization whose people were most definitely african, red skinned to the north and nubian to the south (black african) in there upper and lower kingdom's.

When European's first entered the middle east, the Hittites whose language had almost identical gramma to English and they even called bread - bread they came as mysterious barbaric invaders, there weapon's were more advanced but they brought nothing else with them except a regimented attitude almost like a professional army and conquered ancient mesopotamian civilization destroying thousands of years of history and displacing it, they did however adopt Cuniform form the people they had conquered, hand as it is not a hieroglyphic alphabet but was like our's today a phonetic alphabet which could be used to write in any language.

There are however many thing's about Africa we simply do not know, european powers may have actively destroyed any traces in order to hide the truth but some may have survived and though this may simply be a natural rock formation it is nevertheless very enigmatic and resembles a woman, perhaps an ancient queen of a lost and once fabulous civilization we may never know about, or it could just be a rock.
www.thelivingmoon.com...


Sargeras you make a great point, missed out Julius Cesar though and Shaka Zulu whom independantly reinvented roman style tactic's.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Yeah by phenotype he could be anything at the extreme , and I like the fact that you recognized the lite-skinned population as equally Africans, because that's exactly what their Dna shows , and true on the coast folks tend to be liter, not too far beyond that ppl of the same ethnic back ground do not differ greatly from folks beyond the Sahara itself and this was recognize by foreign observers.

“When tired of each noblest matron, (Gildo) hands her over to the Moors. These Sidonian mothers, married in Carthage City, must needs be mate with barbarians. He thrusts upon me an Ethiopian son-in-law. This hideous hybrid affects the cradle.” Claudian.

And from a Berber of medieval times describing his country men to the Pope leo X:

For all the Negroes or black Moors are descendants of Cush, the son of Ham, who was the son of Noah. But whatever difference there is between the Negroes and the tawny Moors, it is a fact that they are all of the same ancestry. Leo Africanus .

and the list goes on about the diversity of the folks north of the Sahara.

Meeting the Berber clans of the interior with coastal types.
Couple of things though, I am not a fan of Claus Barbie in the link, and those looked to my eyes like rock formation as impressive as they are, White ppl in the caves of Europe?? yeah well everyone had cave dwelling experience, all it is was natural shelter, I wouldn't put any value judgement on that, and Mud huts still dwelling place ie man made cave, no more impressive that a tent , btw much of the population of Kmt right down to modern times lived in adobe or mud huts. interesting find on the Ivory bangled lady which was around the time of Septimus Severus mildly dark with his Spanish wife, and no good brats.



[url=African origin of Roman York's rich lady with the ivory bangled Lady
www.theguardian.com...[/url]


Dread locked Numidians horsemen in the Roman army.

Soldier of high rank Roman army,
The Romans as brutal as they were, was willing to work with who ever said uncle and granted citizenship, however they did not like ppl telling them no.

a reply to: intrepid

Probably Northern African of some type, possibly mixed whatever the Phoenicians looked like.

a reply to: CoBaZ

It seems to be part of the agenda to relativise everything, who cares about the actual specifics of a character or a story. Let's just change things in some vain attempt to challenge norms. It's just tedious relativism and inaccuracy wrapped in a revolutionary blanket.