Kudos to the History Channel for accurately portraying Hannibal as who he really was. A Black African.
"Accurately". Far from it. Here is what the most qualified expert has to say about the subject....
"The issue of Hannibal’s
ethnicity and what he looked like are no doubt vital to many but remain contentious matters even to scholars. Let me try to explain why in the following several points.
First, we have no certain contemporary image from his own time to show us what he looked like. The primary source closest to his time is the Greek historian
Polybius who lived almost a century later, and he gives no verbal description. No other ancient sources that have survived do either. We do have the curious information that he was possibly prone to disguising himself at times. There may be a few silver coins from the Punic culture in Spain, most likely minted around the mid-to-late 3rd century bce in what soon became known as Carthago Nova (now
Cartagena), but these coin images are arguable because they may depict his father,
Hamilcar, or other relatives instead. After Hannibal’s life, the Romans likely recalled every silver Punic coin they could find—including any that might have shown Hannibal—and melted them down to make new Roman coins with their own images. So we are left with mostly modern interpretations from long after the
Roman Empire."
"If Africanization was part of Hannibal’s heritage, I and other scholars would be most interested in seeing the evidence, as we should always be ready to learn and change our perceptions when needed."
Hannibal's ethnicity and physical appearance | Hannibal
