"So Is THIS What They Really Think Hannibal Looked Like?" Topic

I just came across this picture and its tiny, barely legible text. Looks old, but I can't really tell for sure. Seriously, is this some sort of joke?

So, instead of mixing with their own or with local coastal Mediterranean tribes, did Hannibal's family (Phoenicians/Canaanites from Lebanon) make it a habit to regularly mix with Central African slaves that found their way to the Mediterranean? Or did they constantly travel South, across the Sahara, and intermarry with Central Africans and then brought their mixed offspring back North to Carthage?

Or did Phoenicians physically turn into Sub-Saharan types by virtue of simply living on African soil? Because I don't think European, Middle Eastern, Asian and Indian settlers of today have ever experienced such a miraculous physical transformation when they come in contact with African dirt.

Please tell me this is some sort of Revisionist joke. I almost crossposted this to the Fantasy Discussion Board, but thought I'd first check with the Ancient Discussions crowd.

Dan

Why is this so upsetting to you?

It's sponsored by Budweiser, Dan. Calm down. Drink something else.

Heck. Back in the 70s and 80s, several manufacturers put out Carthaginians with many figures with obvious Negro features. I bought a lot of them myself.
Years later I found out I was WRONG. I lived. Nothing to get upset about.

How old is that ad? Does anyone know?

Jeffreyw3: "Why is this so upsetting to you?"

I'm not even gonna bother asking what you are implying there. But do you realize what the odds are that he would have looked like an almost pure Central (Sub-Saharan) African, meaning equatorial ("Bantu")?

Dan

Or did Phoenicians physically turn into Sub-Saharan types by virtue of simply living on African soil?

Yes, I think that's how it works.

Hannibal was black, just like Cleopatra.

Thought Hannibal only had one eye?

"Thought Hannibal only had one eye?"

He lost the eye later in life, when in Italy, I think.

Dan
PS. He was a Carthaginian general. Never a king. I wonder what else did that ad get completely wrong? Can anyone find a clearer copy of the text?

…And from that point on, he had a mustache like Mario & Luigi.

Beast,

Lol. But was he on Italian soil long enough to transform into an Italian? Or does it only work the other way?

Dan

Charlize Theron claims to be African American. She was born in a South Africa and is now an American citizen.

Winston,

That works for me. I also had a friend in high school, whose Dad was Ukrainian and Mom was a white South African, who would say the exact same thing. :)

Dan

Dan is upset because a campaign run by a beer company contains factual errors.

Ha! I really thought that the Budweiser label in the corner was a completely separate ad, and that the tiny ad just happened to be on the same page as a "historical" article on some magazine. I didn't see it as all of it being part of a campaign* by Bud.

Like I said, I couldn't really read what it says on that page.

Dan
* If anything, it is a really sneaky way of targeting and misleading their prospective demographics.

Hey the beer fixed his ruined eye, the other things must be side effects.

Bashytubits,

Hmm. Would drinking tons of Bud fix my back then? I wonder. :)

Dan
PS. I guess that the Romans who defeated him and then carved this bust of him never got the memo:

Dan,
My guess would be that this came out in February, African American History Month.

Wow, according to this, that Bud ad came out in 1998?

Have I been living under a rock or something all this time? Or did I drink too much and simply black out (padron the pun) that entire year?

Dan
PS. Now I wonder if the ad helped or hurt their sales within that target group that year. Or did people simply drink too much back then, and tuned out the whole thing like I apparently did? Man, this is so weird. And funny.

I doubt if Bud had too many historians on its staff in 1998 (or now, for that matter). I also wouldn't be surprised if their Marketing folks thought that everyone who was from Africa was black.

Hey, you're not alone in not remembering that year (there's a few others I can't remember either… ;-)

Maybe the ad should have a Warning label:

"Drink responsibly. Don't drink and drive elephants."

Boys, you done gone and caught yourself a mutated conundrum!
Take a break and have a shot of old man Meyer's clear tear duct flusher, on me.

Capt. Z.

Z,

You mean Meyer's rum? Come to think of it, I might have some Bacardi somewhere in the house. Will that work? :)

Dan

If it causes your nose to drip and you lift a toast to Hamnnibble Africanus, then its working good, CC.

Mmmm. Actually, guys, the "Black Hannibal" bit goes back more than a century by this time. If I remember correctly, contemporary with W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, and Marcus Garvey. It's a black nationalist thing which sometimes goes mainstream, like the Irish claiming only those Englishmen born in Ireland they find politically convenient. Not as silly as "Aryan" or "Nordic" type racists claiming that any Greek or Roman they found useful was really one of them, with an "Aryan soul." (Surely Aryan Soul is an obscure type of music?)

As I understand it, the rules of the game do not permit Hannibal to become Italian just by being in Italy. He remains part of the "African diaspora." But the rules may be changing again. I sometimes hear the inhabitants of Kenya, Congo and Nigeria called "African-Americans."

(Shall I mention an old D&D campaign where the DM thought that if two half-elves married, the children would be quarter-elves? No wonder they died out.)

I've seen a black Jesus so this isn't much of a stretch.

Dan,

They had the add out and one on Shaka Zulu as well in 1982 when I was in Germany. It was framed and hung on a wall in the copier room in my battalion HQ building.

I'd be willing to bet if you asked the average US citizen who Hannibal was. They'd have no idea or may say he was a cannibal in a movie with Jody Foster.

Budweiser- breakfast of Champions!

But was he on Italian soil long enough to transform into an Italian?

Yes, it's all the Spaghetti-O's they eat there.

HARVEY KEITEL not Vin Deisel

I'll never drink any Budweiser dark!

I remember seeing this on the wall of my junior high school in the early 80s. It was for Black History Month. It was s series that included, among others, Cleopatra and Shaka Zulu. All were shown as being black.

I knew the Hannibal and Cleopatra parts were B.S. then. I didn't know, until now, that Bud was behind these.

budweisers-great-kings-and-queens-of-africa-in-retrospect

Can't find any good, legible images on the web.

Accuracy of history generally should be questioned if revised for PC, etc. purposes … Or surely if it used to sell beer !

So Dan. The ad is 35 years old and sponsored by a company that produces overpriced swill they call "beer". A premium one at that!

Do you feel silly yet?

Now I know it wasn't part of some "historical" article, and that the whole thing was part of an ad. Based in what was visible to me at the time, I think my reaction was appropriate.

Dan
PS. Hmm. Just wondering, if Cleopatra and these other "African" rulers had tons of slaves, should their statues and memorials be taken down too? :)

Legion 4 is right. It's another indicator of the general level of ignorance and endless capacity for self-deception of the public, same as for black Cleopatra.

But that's what I'd expect from Bud, among others.

When "African" becomes taken to only mean ONE type of African, regardless of geography or ethnicity or history, that's what you get. Sadly, this sot of confusion is already establishing itself with "Asian" now lumping together everyone from Chinese to Indians to Polynesians to Semites and Indo-Europeans, cultures and peoples sharing nothing but a geographical connection. This does not make for clarity of discussion.

I'm just sick and tired of the whole "African-American" moniker. heck, sick & tired of all the "something hyphen American" monikers.

Teddy Roosevelt had it right when he said:

"The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself," the colonel continued, "by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to a breed of spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens. If some citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans or Scandinavian-Americans, and every such banding together, every attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a Scandinavian-American alliance, means down at the bottom an effort against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to bring into our nation the bitter Old World rivalries amd jealousies and hatreds."

Just drop the "something". If you are a citizen of these United States, then you are an American, period.

TKindred,

I've always wondered how the whole "hyphen American" thing got started in the first place. I mean it was obviously already happening during Teddy's time.

So how far back did that go? Was that something that was already being done as far back as the ACW?

Dan
PS. And I don't mean just saying that some American person was of XYZ descent, which isn't a divisive label to me. Everyone is obviously from somewhere, even the "Native" Americans. What I mean is the whole "-American" (American as a sub/secondary identity) label, in the modern balkanization of America sense.

Just saw a program on NatGeo today. About Cleo, according to the historians, etc., the statues they found, etc., etc. She was more Greek/Arabic looking. I saw this on other programs on similar subjects, etc.

Remember Alexander conquered Egypt previously and left some of his Generals there to govern. There was a mixing/"melding" of Greek and Egyptian culture, customs, etc.

Not that it really matters save from a standpooint of historical accuracy IMO. Of course none of us were there, AKAIK ? So … she could look like JLow, Janet Jackson, etc. Which if so … I've got no problem with that. Who would !?

And from what we know from ancient times and thru out the historical record. "Interbreeding" between races, ethnicities, cultures, etc., was pretty much a norm. And still is generally, AFAIK. I have no problem with that either.

I wouldn't be surprised if Cleopatra (VII, Cleopatra Philopator) looked a little bit like Caterina Murino, though there's really no way to know that for sure. I know she's officially an Italian citizen, but her family is a "Heinz 57" of everything Mediterranean.

But, whatever our personal wishes may be, contemporary representations (statues, coins, wall paintings and carvings) of her and her immediate Ptolemaic ancestors is what will shed some light on what she really looked like. And the Ptolemies married their own siblings a lot. :)

Dan
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Actually, Legion 4. We don't need to know how they generally did things in Egypt: we can track specifically how they were done in Cleopatra's family tree--which strongly resembles a totem pole. Straight line from Ptolemy I with lots and lots of incestuous marriages. No locals.

Think very, very Greek--back up in the mountains Greek, where they weren't much troubled by the Turks.

Targaryeans, in other words, but not so blonde.

Lol. And without the dragons.

Dan

Very true, regardless, many from around the Med Coast could/do look similar. But again … I was not there ! So I will take your word for it !

By the way, these are Carthaginian coins from before Hannibal's time (shortly before his father's).

Dan
PS. The woman is their Phoenician (Lebanon) goddess Tanit. Not sure about the man, but it apparently predates Hannibal.

In case anyone says that the above were just a stylized form they automatically applied to every coin struck, here's Masinissa (?), King of Numidia and ally of Carthage (struck around 148 BCE. after the destruction of Carthage).

He was a Berber not Carthaginian. Clearly the people who made coins during that time could tell the difference.

Dan

Holy ……
Maybe I did paint my Numidians accurately!
That's a pleasant surprise.

Winston,

Guess what? This is what another Numidian ruler (Micipsa?) might have looked like:

link
link

So maybe the "M" and the face belong to someone else entirely. O maybe I simply have no clue what I'm talking about when it comes to the Numidians and Garamantes of that time. :)

Dan

I've always wondered how the whole "hyphen American" thing got started in the first place. I mean it was obviously already happening during Teddy's time.

So how far back did that go? Was that something that was already being done as far back as the ACW?

Well before that. There were arguments during the FIW on whether German-Americans could be trusted as militia members. Only the Protestant ones, of course – the Catholics were right out.

RMaker,

So did they actually use the "hyphen American" labels back then? It was already part of the writing style back then?

Dan