We are constantly told in encyclopedias that Carthaginians were Semites. White supremacists like Arthur Kemp claim they were Nordics and looked like Northern Europeans. While the Racial Myths webpage claims they were white Mediterranean. Who are the Carthaginians? The Carthaginians are the inhabitants of Carthage. Carthage started off in the 9th century B.C. as a colony of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre. The Phoenicians were essentially Semitic Orientalid peoples whom were very mixed with Indo-Europeans and other minor stocks. What ever the Phoenicians were before settling in Carthage, they evidently mixed a lot with the indigenous inhabitants of Carthage and its hinterland. While the Carthaginians spoke Punic, which was a language derived from Phoenician, and wrote in the Phoenician script, the actual Carthaginians themselves were mostly a blend of the original Phoenician settlers with the indigenous peoples of Carthage and its vicinity and hinterland.
The next question is who were the indigenous peoples of Carthage? According to Greek and Roman eyewitness accounts, the indigenous peoples of Carthage were peoples called the Afers. The Afers were a Negroid race by all accounts. Virgil in his Moretum speaks of a woman from the Afer [Afar/Afra] race. He says of her:
"Of Afer race, her whole figure bears proof of her country. Her color, very dark (fuscus), her lips thick, her hair tightly-curled"[31.35]
To be noted, Virgil described her whole figure as proof of her country. What was her country? It was Carthage. The Afer peoples dwelt in and around Carthage, which is today Tunis and coastal Tunisia. Virgil was stating that the Afer people, like this woman, were typically very dark, with thick lips, and tightly-curled or woolly, hair. Yet this description has been hailed by classical historians as the best description of the True Negro by a classical author. The term fuscus which is best translated as very dark, was only used on blacks. Egyptians and others of a Mulatto shade were described as sub-fusco or somewhat dark. [Ammianus Marcellinus (xxii, 16)]
Boethicus in his Porphyrium Commen describes Ethiopians as being very dark (fuscus) in color. [5(PL 64.157)] It should be noted Terentius Afer, who was born in Carthage and was an Afer (as the surname suggests) was described as being handsome and very dark Negroid people. Ptolemy II describes the Garamantes people of Tunisia as being moderately black in color. [Geographia 1.8.5(pt. 1, pp21-22)]
Lucan describes the (fuscus) in color. [Suetonius (Vita Terentius ) 5(Loeb II, 460] Another people to inhabit Punic Africa were the Garamantes. The Garamantes were a Negroid or partially Garamantes as sun burnt (perusti) in color. Fromentinus describes fighting a contingent of Carthaginian auxiliary fighters whom were all very black in skin color. [Fromentinus Stratege Mata 1.11.18] This was in 480 B.C. Diodorus mentions a Greek lieutenant named Agathocles, who over comes a people in present-day Tunisia, who were the same hue as Ethiopians. [20.57.5]
As for physical anthropology, they pretty much agree with the ancient eye witness accounts. L. Bertholon and E. Chantre, both white French anthropologists wrote a work called Recherches in which they examine skeletons throughout North Africa in all ages. They are well-noted authorities on North Africa in their time. They note that in ancient North Africa were to be found numerous Negroid remains. More specifically they report finding crania with marked Negroid traits in Carthaginian burials. These were not just limited to commoners, but also were found in a significant number of personages buried in upper class tombs. Stephen Gsell, another white French anthropologist and noted expert on North Africa, also found numerous Negroid remains in North Africa. He found the Carthaginian populous to have African features and members of the upper class to also posses such features. F. Ratzel, another noted anthropologist found a large Ethiopian element amongst the ancient Carthaginian population. Eugene Pittard, a white French anthropologist in his work Race and History notes that the tombs of members of the Carthaginian upper class yielded crania, which were almost entirely dolichocephalic with rather short faces. [p. 411] While Nordic and Mediterranean crania are dolichocephalic, they are long-faced and not short-faced. Dolichocephaly and short face combined are distinctly Negroid characteristics. The Orientalid type, with its brachycephaly and hooked nose, common amongst the Phoenicians, was not found in the upper class Carthaginian remains. Which shows at least a very significant percentage of the indigenous population had black admixture, and were not of the original race. Pittard also notes finding crania in Syracuse, Sicily, dating back to the Punic period. However these crania, as Pittard noted, were dolichocephalic and prognathous, with distinct Negroid affinities. [p. 108] This is also contrary to Racial Myths claim that black blood did not come into Italy through the Carthaginians.
Another issue with the Carthaginians is images. Eurocentrics harp on Caucasoid images on Carthaginian coins and use it as their proof they were white. While at first their claim may seem reasonable. But in light of Carthaginian culture, it does not suffice as proof. The Carthaginians printed their gods and goddesses on all their coins and statues. It was a common practice for Carthaginians to represent themselves in an image of a god. Since the Carthaginian religion originated from the Levant, it ought to be expected that their gods and goddesses would be in the image of Phoenicians. But this does not necessarily mean that the Carthaginians themselves were of the same race as the people of the Mother City in Phoenicia. In Mexico, Catholics depict Jesus, Mary, and their saints, in the image of white Europeans. Even though most Mexicans are of mixed Spanish-Amerindian-African ancestry. The same is also true of the Philippine and Haiti, where they depict their saints in the image of Caucasians. Even their national saint Lorenzo Ruiz, is sometimes depicted in the image of a Spaniard, even though his father was Chinese and his mother a native Filipino woman.
As further evidence of Carthaginians depicting important personages in the image of their deities, is the case of the High Priestess of Tanit, who was a member of the Carthaginian upper class. The image of her on her tomb is that of a Caucasian woman, yet the woman buried inside was a full-blooded black woman. She was described as having Negro features and confirmed as being a member of the African race. [Pittard. Race and History, p. 410] As for Hannibal, the same rule applies. There are no authentic images of him in existence. The Hannibal bust Eurocentrics parade around as him was made by Romans. It has no inscriptions on it, so it could be an image of anyone. It is probably not him. As for the coins of him and his father in Carthage, we should do well to keep in mind, the High Priestess of Tanit, who's image showed her to be Caucasian, but was a black woman of unmixed race. Some coins minted and issued by Hannibal himself, after his victorious crossing of the Alps on elephants, show an elephant on one side, and the head of a Negroid person on the other. The coins can be seen today in both the British Museum and the Museo Kercheriano. Of these coins Ernest Babelon, a numismatist, [a person who studies or collects coins] attested that The Negro [on Hannibal's] coin has a definite characteristic that leaves no doubt of the ethnographic intention of the engraver. He has rings in his ears, flat nose, thick lips, hair arranged in rows of knots of a Moor. I think the effigy on the coin was Hannibal himself. Col. Hennebert, perhaps the leading authority on Hannibal, declares that none of the several differing portraits now exhibited as Hannibal is he, "We do not possess any authentic portrait of Hannibal," he says. [Histoire d'Annibal, Vol. I, p. 495, Paris, 1870] The truth is there are no authentic portraits of Hannibal in existence. Nor do we have his corpse. What we should remember is that the very upper class Hannibal belonged to, has been shown to have a significant Negroid element. So Hannibal would have most likely have had some black ancestry. The coins in the British Museum and Museo Kercheriano, are as good an image of him, as the so-called Hannibal bust, and the other differing images of him presented as belonging to him. As noted above incidentally in ancient text Hannibal was known as 'Hannibal the Afer'.
The Carthaginians were a people of mixed African and Phoenician stock, as has been demonstrated. It was not completely Negroid. But what is evident, based on the works of physical anthropologists is the predominant element of the Carthaginian population was Negroid or had Negroid affinities, and this included members of the upper class. [Keita, S.O.Y. Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa, pp. 36-37] It is ludicrous and foolish to deny the black elements in the Carthaginian population. As we can see the belief Carthaginians were pure white and Nordic or even pure Orientalid, is a myth. And needs to go down in history as such.
A reconstruction of Carthage harbor as it looked in its prime. Based on excavations and descriptions by Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians themselves.
