SINthysist
Rural Racist Homophobe
- Joined
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Richard Poe
Aug. 24, 2002
[I just assumed Hannibal was black because I've heard it so many times...]
Black schoolchildren have long admired Hannibal as a racial role model. The African general, who marched on Italy in 218 B.C., hailed from Carthage, in what is now Tunisia. But was Hannibal actually black?
Two films currently in the pipeline offer conflicting answers to that question. A resounding "Yes!" comes from Fox studios, whose upcoming Hannibal epic will star Denzel Washington.
British director Ridley Scott responds with a somewhat less resounding "sort of." His Hannibal epic will star Vin Diesel – an actor who looks Mediterranean, calls himself "multicultural," and is reputed to be part black and part Italian.
Some commentators dismiss the actors’ appearance as irrelevant.
"…though I think that Diesel is phenotypically closer to Hannibal – I'm not sure if he can bring the sort of iron tragic gravity to the story of the ancient Carthaginian that someone like Washington is known for," remarks Razib K, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant with a biochemistry degree who co-edits the popular blog-site Gene Expression, known for its frank discussions of race.
Other critics place more importance on "phenotype" or physical traits.
"That's the stuff, boys. Africa! Cuddly Blacks v. Wicked Anglo-Saxon Romans! Great box-office!" sneers British writer Peter Jones in The Spectator.
Jones says, "black Africans (the so-called Negroid type)… did not inhabit the coastline of north Africa…" Actually, many blacks have lived there, from ancient times to the present.
Jones is correct, however, in saying that the Carthaginians were descended from Phoenician colonists. "The Phoenicians were a Semitic people from along the coast of Lebanon/Syria," he writes. "Expert traders, they established way-stations along the Mediterranean. ... From such beginnings ... Carthage arose."
Wellesley classicist Mary Lefkowitz – whose book "Not Out of Africa" claimed that Western civilization owed little or nothing to Egypt or any other African nation – does acknowledge that "the Phoenician colonists could have intermarried with native African peoples."
However, like Jones, Lefkowitz states that Hannibal was a "Semite" – thereby implying that he probably looked more like Diesel than Washington.
When UPI pundit Steve Sailer put the Diesel-vs.-Washington question to me, I too suggested that Hannibal probably looked more like Diesel. And the odds are he did.
Even so, it is just possible that Hannibal looked more like Washington. Here’s why.
The fact that Phoenicians spoke a Semitic language does not necessarily mean they were Semites. Language and race are two different things. There are, for instance, plenty of Spanish-speakers in the world whose ancestors did not come from Spain.
As noted in my book "Black Spark, White Fire," the Bible clearly indicates that the Phoenicians – a Canaanite people – were not of Semitic descent. The word "Semitic" applies to those peoples who were descended from Noah's son Shem. But, according to Genesis 9-10, the Canaanites were descended from another of Noah's sons, Ham.
Genesis states that there were four Hamitic nations: "Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan." Mizraim is Egypt. Cush is Nubia, or the Sudan. "Put" likely refers to a land the Egyptians called Punt, which probably lay in Ethiopia or Somalia.
Thus, every Hamitic nation, except Canaan, appears to be located in Africa.
Of course, not all readers believe the Bible. But even an atheist must wonder why the biblical scribes believed that Phoenicians and other Canaanites were related to people in Africa. Was it something about their appearance?
The Babylonian Talmud, set to writing in the sixth century A.D., records a Jewish oral tradition that the Canaanites were black. In it, Noah curses his grandson Canaan, saying: "Canaan's children shall be born ugly and black! ... your grandchildren’s hair shall be twisted into kinks. ..."
Regarding the Phoenicians, Italian anthropologist Giuseppe Sergi noted, in 1901, that "the Egyptians have represented them of a brick-red color, like themselves. ..." And, indeed, a tomb painting of the Egyptian pharaoh Seti I portrays four Syro-Palestinians, two with yellow skin, two with reddish-brown skin.
Were the artists trying to depict two distinct physical types – dark-skinned Hamites and lighter-skinned Semites – known to live in Canaan? We can only guess.
The Lebanese descendants of the Phoenicians don't look particularly black today, but that could well be for the same reason that Vin Diesel does not look particularly black: intermarriage.
In 1852, 14 percent of Argentina’s population was black. Virtually no trace of this black population remains, after 150 years of intermarriage. Portugal, too, absorbed its black population – which had reached 10 percent by 1550 – through intermarriage.
None of this proves that Hannibal looked like Denzel Washington. But it does suggest that we should be less quick to dismiss the possibility.
http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2002/8/24/134540
Aug. 24, 2002
[I just assumed Hannibal was black because I've heard it so many times...]
Black schoolchildren have long admired Hannibal as a racial role model. The African general, who marched on Italy in 218 B.C., hailed from Carthage, in what is now Tunisia. But was Hannibal actually black?
Two films currently in the pipeline offer conflicting answers to that question. A resounding "Yes!" comes from Fox studios, whose upcoming Hannibal epic will star Denzel Washington.
British director Ridley Scott responds with a somewhat less resounding "sort of." His Hannibal epic will star Vin Diesel – an actor who looks Mediterranean, calls himself "multicultural," and is reputed to be part black and part Italian.
Some commentators dismiss the actors’ appearance as irrelevant.
"…though I think that Diesel is phenotypically closer to Hannibal – I'm not sure if he can bring the sort of iron tragic gravity to the story of the ancient Carthaginian that someone like Washington is known for," remarks Razib K, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant with a biochemistry degree who co-edits the popular blog-site Gene Expression, known for its frank discussions of race.
Other critics place more importance on "phenotype" or physical traits.
"That's the stuff, boys. Africa! Cuddly Blacks v. Wicked Anglo-Saxon Romans! Great box-office!" sneers British writer Peter Jones in The Spectator.
Jones says, "black Africans (the so-called Negroid type)… did not inhabit the coastline of north Africa…" Actually, many blacks have lived there, from ancient times to the present.
Jones is correct, however, in saying that the Carthaginians were descended from Phoenician colonists. "The Phoenicians were a Semitic people from along the coast of Lebanon/Syria," he writes. "Expert traders, they established way-stations along the Mediterranean. ... From such beginnings ... Carthage arose."
Wellesley classicist Mary Lefkowitz – whose book "Not Out of Africa" claimed that Western civilization owed little or nothing to Egypt or any other African nation – does acknowledge that "the Phoenician colonists could have intermarried with native African peoples."
However, like Jones, Lefkowitz states that Hannibal was a "Semite" – thereby implying that he probably looked more like Diesel than Washington.
When UPI pundit Steve Sailer put the Diesel-vs.-Washington question to me, I too suggested that Hannibal probably looked more like Diesel. And the odds are he did.
Even so, it is just possible that Hannibal looked more like Washington. Here’s why.
The fact that Phoenicians spoke a Semitic language does not necessarily mean they were Semites. Language and race are two different things. There are, for instance, plenty of Spanish-speakers in the world whose ancestors did not come from Spain.
As noted in my book "Black Spark, White Fire," the Bible clearly indicates that the Phoenicians – a Canaanite people – were not of Semitic descent. The word "Semitic" applies to those peoples who were descended from Noah's son Shem. But, according to Genesis 9-10, the Canaanites were descended from another of Noah's sons, Ham.
Genesis states that there were four Hamitic nations: "Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan." Mizraim is Egypt. Cush is Nubia, or the Sudan. "Put" likely refers to a land the Egyptians called Punt, which probably lay in Ethiopia or Somalia.
Thus, every Hamitic nation, except Canaan, appears to be located in Africa.
Of course, not all readers believe the Bible. But even an atheist must wonder why the biblical scribes believed that Phoenicians and other Canaanites were related to people in Africa. Was it something about their appearance?
The Babylonian Talmud, set to writing in the sixth century A.D., records a Jewish oral tradition that the Canaanites were black. In it, Noah curses his grandson Canaan, saying: "Canaan's children shall be born ugly and black! ... your grandchildren’s hair shall be twisted into kinks. ..."
Regarding the Phoenicians, Italian anthropologist Giuseppe Sergi noted, in 1901, that "the Egyptians have represented them of a brick-red color, like themselves. ..." And, indeed, a tomb painting of the Egyptian pharaoh Seti I portrays four Syro-Palestinians, two with yellow skin, two with reddish-brown skin.
Were the artists trying to depict two distinct physical types – dark-skinned Hamites and lighter-skinned Semites – known to live in Canaan? We can only guess.
The Lebanese descendants of the Phoenicians don't look particularly black today, but that could well be for the same reason that Vin Diesel does not look particularly black: intermarriage.
In 1852, 14 percent of Argentina’s population was black. Virtually no trace of this black population remains, after 150 years of intermarriage. Portugal, too, absorbed its black population – which had reached 10 percent by 1550 – through intermarriage.
None of this proves that Hannibal looked like Denzel Washington. But it does suggest that we should be less quick to dismiss the possibility.
http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2002/8/24/134540
