Netflix Did it Again! Was Hannibal Barca Black?

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Netflix is back at it once again with their politically motivated race swapping of historical characters.
Link to my video on the Carthaginians
   • Who Were The Carthaginians? The Truth Abou...  

So where do the people who present this “truth” of hannibal Barca being black get this idea, what do they base it on? Archaeologically.
All of this stems from one specific finding, This coin. So let's talk about this coin.
What you'll notice is that the people who push this coin as a true representation of Hannibal Barca never tell you where the coin comes from, who made it, what period is from, what the historical context was when it was made. What proof they have that it indeed represents Hannibal's true features, as opposed to what we usually imagine.
Check it. They tell you nothing of this coin's origins, material, constituents, weight. I'll tell you everything there is to know about it, including the weigh, which you'll see is an actually very important aspect to consider, when we try to uncover the real history and truth about this coin.
This coin dates to the Roman era. On the surface of this coin we see the image of an elephant with a golden bell on one side, and the face of what clearly is a black African man on the other.
The coin is usually presented as a Punic coiniage, which would allegedly show the real face of Hannibal. This is pure baseless speculation. The coin is NOT of punic origin at all, as we'll see.
The reality is that this specific coin, of which we have several samples by the way, is not Punic, and most likely does not represent Hannibal Barca. So who does it represent then?
One thing at a time.
This is an Etruscan mint. Also it might not have anything to do with the second punic war either. That's still under debate. I have a lot of interesting information to share today, so make sure to watch until the end, we'll explore several theories and discuss the pros and cons of such theories, you won't regret it I promise.

Let me show you then how I support the claim that the coin is Etruscan. If you disagree with me I'll respect it, it's your right, but at least hear me out and let me present the evidence first.


3 - An Etruscan Coiniage

As we always do the way to validate any historical statement is to cross reference it with other media. Let's start at the literary mentions of the coin. The first reference to this specific coin with the head of a black gentleman with an elephant is in a letter written by the erudite Reginaldo Sellari, dated to the second half of the 8th century. In this letter the place of the original finding is indicated, Here in Italy, in la Val di Chiana, specifically in the fraction between the regions of Umbria and Toscana including the towns of Arezzo, Chiusi, Cortona and lake Trasimeno.

If by the end of the 1700 the numismatist (that's someone who studies coins) Joseph Eckel in his Doctrina numerorum veterum, had generally mentioned, without being fully convinced, that according to some the coiniage were of Punic origin, already “Sellari” had correctly attributed the origin of these coins to the Etruscans. That's thanks to the following letters, written on the coin, in the Etruscan alphabet v,c,m and ś, which appear sometimes under the elephant's stomach. These were initially interpreted as the initials of several hypothetical urban centres, although they are probably just the initials of the makers or their workshop.

The coins, of which today about 40 specimens are known, are made of bronze, and weigh about 5 and a half grams each. The style is homogenous, and even though usually differences in printing may be an indication of different mints, the issuing centre was one.

4 - What did Hannibal Look like?


As we try to frame this coin culturally and contextually to the best of our abilities, we need to see where the image of Hannibal as a light skinned individual comes from instead.
Let's first look at the famous bust of Hannibal, found in Capua. The attribution of this remains still strongly debated. Was it really Hannibal or not? Difficult to say.
There are no extant autobiographies of Hannibal or Carthaginian works on Hannibal, which has resulted in a historiographical bias
However, we can find a strong inkling as we look at the other members of the Barca family, which we do find represented on the Spanish Carthaginian coin issues. At first glance we can see how these representation strongly negates the interpretation of a black or subsaharan Hannibal, as we see faces and heads which are clearly of a different phenotypic variant. Differently from this coin, these are Carthaginian mints. This is Hannibal. This is his brother Hasdrubal. This is Hamilcar, the father. Why should we believe that he looked like this, if the rest of his family looked like that?
#netflix #hanniballshow #denzelwashington