Hannibal's Dream

Hannibal Barca

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Hi,

my name is Víctor Martínez Hahnmüller

According to the official records, I was born at night the Monday 23rd of August 1982 in the idyllic Majorcan village of Capedera. I consider myself an Archaeologist and a Historian specialized on the short period of time in which the members of Hannibal Barca’s family were the leading actors of Carthage’s History, and, even from much of the Mediterranean one. However, this has not always been the case, mine was a late call.

I remember that when I was a child I wanted to be an inventor, a dream that faded away over the years to be replaced by other fantasies no less awesome and grandiloquent until my passion for reading and my overflowing imagination came together and develop an inner need of writing. The idea of creating fiction works was one of the main reasons why I decided to start a History Degree at the University of the Balearic Islands. The year was 2000, the very moment in which I started to get intrigued by Hannibal Barca’s Life and feats (and the ones of his family members).

Over the years, while the chapters of my novels were being written in my mind, I was delving into the topic, getting used to the documentary record of the Barcid time. Being aware that the best areas from which research on this topic were Archeology and the study of Classical Sources, I decided, together with some friends, to continue and finish the Degree at the Count City of Barcelona since it did not exist a research line at my Alma Mater devoted to the Phoenician and Punic World and, of course, I also wanted to broaden my mind. At the University of Barcelona I formally achieved my specialties on Archeology and Ancient History, but also I made contact with archaeologists and historians whose research and educational activities guided my first steps in research.

My devotion with Hannibal and the time in which he lived and died led me to the Archaeological laboratory of the Pompeu Fabra University which was directed by Prof. María Eugenia Aubet Semmler. Even if I was there only for a couple of months, it was then when I made my first contact with Phoenician and Punic materials. However, urged by my obsession and guided with some advice of the abovementioned researcher, my next steps took me to the outlying University of Almería where I finally met an almost forgotten part of my father’s family and with the Prof. José Luis López Castro, a well-known researcher born in Granada who by that time had already archaeologically intervened at some Western Phoenician sites with Barcid contexts.

With him, I completed my training in the Phoenician and Punic Studies, taking part in his fieldwork and laboratory research on the Phoenician sites of Baria (Villaricos) and Abdera (Adra), both in Almería. Those years allowed me to finish my thesis on the Roman conquest of Baria and its archaeological context associated with the Second Punic War. This work gave me access to my Diploma of Advanced Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid, obtained under the supervision and support from Prof. Fernando López Pardo and Prof. José Luis López Castro.

Under the direction of this last researcher, I also completed, a few years later (in 2011), my Ph.D. Dissertation on the Social and Economic policy developed by the Barcid strategists at the Iberian Peninsula. It has successfully defended before a Thesis tribunal whose members were among the best specialist on this topic. Since then, concurring with the peak of the crisis, I started my private odyssey on Europe, with small postdoctoral fellowships and contracts as the one I held in Paris under the supervision of Prof. Pierre Rouillard, or the one of Marburg, directed by Prof. Felix Teichner. These were the first steps that led me in 2015 to get an Individual Fellowship from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the Horizon 2020 program in Ghent University under the supervision of Prof. Roald Docter, one of the most renowned fellowships in Europe.

Among the commitments made with the dissemination of this project and its results, we assumed the creation and update of this blog in which I will try, as far as possible, to say a few things in layman terms on my research and other topics more or less interlinked with it. But I am not only an Ancient Historian and Archaeologist, I also consider myself a cinemagoer, an addict of literature, an enthusiast on TV shows and I love to lose my increasingly scarce free time playing board and video games. I am also prideful, disorganized and stubborn, but not everything is bad in my character since I am usually cheerful, hard-worker and almost military responsible.

Whether if you enjoy with stories about Archaeology, Ancient History, Computing techniques applied to both of them, whether you simply have spare time to join our elephants in their hard path, you are very welcome to my Hannibal’s Dream.

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Quotes

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam
I shall either find a way or make one
___Latin Proverb attributed to Hannibal___

Quotes

Non omnia nimirum eidem di dedere. Vincere scis, Hannibal; uictoria uti nescis
Assuredly, no one man has been blessed with all God's gifts. You, Hannibal, know how to gain a victory; you do not know how to use it.
___ Maharbal according to Titus Livius XX, 51, 4 ___

Quotes

ὅτι θαυμαστόν ἐστι καὶ μέγιστον σημεῖον γεγονέναι τῇ φύσει τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον ἡγεμονικὸν καὶ πολύ τι διαφέροντα τῶν ἄλλων πρὸς τὸν πραγματικὸν τρόπον: ἑπτακαίδεκα γὰρ ἔτη μείνας ἐν τοῖς ὑπαίθροις πλεῖστά τ᾽ ἔθνη καὶ βάρβαρα διεξελθὼν καὶ πλείστοις ἀνδράσιν ἀλλοφύλοις καὶ ἑτερογλώττοις χρησάμενος συνεργοῖς πρὸς ἀπηλπισμένας καὶ παραδόξους ἐπιβολάς, ὑπ᾽ οὐθενὸς οὔτ᾽ ἐπεβουλεύθη τὸ παράπαν οὔτ᾽ ἐγκατελείφθη τῶν ἅπαξ αὐτῷ κοινωνησάντων καὶ δόντων ἑαυτοὺς εἰς χεῖρας
It is a remarkable and very cogent proof of Hannibal's having been by nature a real leader and far superior to anyone else in statesmanship, that though he spent seventeen years in the field, passed through so many barbarous countries, and employed to aid him in desperate and extraordinary enterprises numbers of men of different nations and languages, no one ever dreamt of conspiring against him, nor was he ever deserted by those who had once joined him or submitted to him.
___ Hannibal Description according to Polybius XXIII, 13,1-2 ___
Posts
All Me, myself and Hannibal Back to the Past The Art of War We are not Alone Who is Who? Somewhere in Time The Neverending Story Close on The Setting of the Pleiades Everything Else

Everything Else

Although I confess myself guilty of an excessive and uncontrollable passion for History and Archaeology and especially, as you will have deduced by now, from the period in which the different members of the Barcid family held the most important positions of power in Carthage, I’m not at all immune to other cultural influences that flood our life day by day. The titles of this blog sections and even some of my publications leave no room for doubt.
As everyone who knows me can tell you, I am of the opinion that growing up is the obligation to give up some of the time that we devoted to some things we like. It isn’t that with the age you completely give up or modify your hobbies or tastes, but because of the overwhelming increase of responsibilities from work or family, the remaining time available to do those things is so reduced that you are somehow forcerd to leave some hobby apart.
Music, nightlife and sport were the first to announce their withdrawal from my life, but others have been joined in oblivion and abandonment. Right now, stealing the maximum hours that one can take from nocturnal rest, only films, trips, books and, to a lesser extent, TV shows and videogames, are the last resistant members that yell the misfortunate and ill-fated shout of "They shall not pass "[1].
Here I will find place to all my vices. Thus, it will be the secret corner of my den where I will remember with some nostalgia movies, TV shows, books, games or trips. It is a perfect complement to know me, without having to read my tragicomic stories that I usually tell when I am not as sober as I should be.

Bring chips and candies, but don’t get too excited and lower your voice because I don’t want to wake my parents.



[1] Unfortunate and fatal for Republicans who tried in vain to defend Madrid from the insurgents during the Spanish Civil War, but also for Gandalf in his confrontation against the Balrog in the Lord of the Rings.

Close on The Setting of the Pleiades

In Antiquity there were so many chronological systems with which the passage of time could be measured that it really should have been a relief for historians and chroniclers to fix the Western calendar definitively with the date on which Jesus of Nazareth was born.

 Before that decisive moment, Olympic Games or other similar religious festivities, foundations of cities, years in which a certain monarch or magistrate remained in power, events of international importance like the fall of Troy or mythological episodes like the Universal Flood had been used to fix the inexorable passage of time.
Even if it’s true that many of these dates could be discussed because there are several traditions resulting, in part, from the temptation of the historian to put together different historical episodes in a same chronological moment, what we cannot denay is the passage of time itself.

Even today, where, thanks to pollution, the climate is generally much more stable (at least in the Mediterranean) and warming is a global constant on the planet, it is an unquestionable fact that it is colder in winter than in summer (at least in our latitudes and hemisphere).

In Antiquity, in spite of all the existing eras and the different methods to measure time, the seasons would be much more marked and they looked at the sky to know things that now we know thanks some applications of our handphones. The Sunset of the Pleiades was an astronomical phenomenon that marked the beginning of the harsh winter and is one of the few chronological references of astronomical character that we have for Hannibal’s epic journey against Rome.
Therefore, we borrowed this astronomical and chronological reference, not so much to talk about the time in Antiquity, but to note what events the Academy has in the future and to evaluate some of the most important of them.

 It won’t be a place only to comment on our busy schedule but rather to describe these events and, as long as we take part in them, define our participation and how they were. It isn’t our intention to give to us some special importance or propaganda, so if you organize any event related to Archeology or Ancient History, contact me to find a spot in our agenda of scientific events.

Come with me to a hidden place, without light pollution or too much stress, to see what the future holds for the past.

The Neverending Story

My relationship with Michel Ende’s novel published in 1979 is a story of self-improvement. The genetic and psychological need to be as cool and intelligent as my brother David, two years and three days older than me, and an unconscious act of paternal imitation, made me learn how to read long before I went to school.

 With less than 6 years, I had already tried to read the Neverending Story on several times and, I can assure you, it seemed like an impossible task, it literally seemed to me a neverending story. At 10 minutes per page, it seemed that the nearly 800 pages of the Spanish translation we had at home was going to cost me a lifetime. Shortly after turning six, I managed to finish the novel and it was for me as sweet as the Carthaginian victory at Cannae was for Hannibal.
Although I could dovote this section to criticize literary novels, since it’s another of my secret passions, I don’t think it should be the place since as Michael Ende said "that is another story and should not be told here."


On the contrary, my idea is to devote this part of the blog to one of the darkest monsters that we have to face now. I mean the merciless bureaucracy. My intention is not to criticize the system, although I suppose that, like most of you, it has given me more than one annoyance, several attacks of insomnia and some occasional anxiety ones. On the contrary, following my usual pragmatism, I will assume that things are like that and I will devote the posts to offer suggestions and tricks learned from my life experience to face the stone giants, the depressing marshes and the desperate Nothing. I mean, of course, scholarship/fellowship applications, transfers to other cities, reports and other exciting questions like that.
Climb with me to the loft, since our own Neverending Story is about to begin.

Somewhere in Time

While I must recognize that the name with which I have baptized this blog section sound like the title of a romantic film or novel, you don’t have to expect that I will confess here my unspeakable sins and passions. This is only for my injured conscience and some of my corny poems and stories.

 The leit motiv from this part of Hannibal’s Dream is to create a sort of Travel Agency to the past. We will visit here archaeological sites in their current state, with the excuse of dealing with one or other aspects of the past: we will make a tour not only around monuments discovered a long time ago, but where we will see as well new sites where new project are being carried out.
That is to say, a kaleidoscope of the present past, with announcements about nostalgic sites and new places that seek to find (or recover) their echo in this busy era of information.
In this odd visual and textual time machine, we will seek the remains that for certain human or natural misfortunes have been sealed so that, thanks to the help of archaeologists and other experts in the historical sciences, we can know some of their secrets.

 But be careful and hold tight where you can, because this time machine seems a Tardis[1] so it won’t be a quiet walk to a certain time in the history of mankind, but a chaotic, continuous and unpredictable leap towards "Somewhere in time."





[1] We are speaking about the Dr. Who’s famous time machine whose abbreviations stands to Time and Relative Dimensions In Space.

Who is Who?



Like many people of my generation, the so-called Pop culture has left a very clear stamp in my everyday language and even in my way of thinking. Phrases and titles of films, songs and TV shows are interwoven in my writings in a virtually subliminal attempt to please those readers who lived the revolution of television and, when we had not yet recovered from it, the internet one. An obvious example of this is found in the name I have given to this section and its iconography. As you may know, the 1960’s British police box is a clear reference to the long-lived science fiction TV Show of Dr. Who, whose success since the beginning of the second half of the 20th century has converted it into a cultural reference both for the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, for the rest of the world.


The title, on the other hand, is a loan from the popular board game designed by Ora and Theo Coster in the late 70's which main purpose was to try to find out which character had your opponent by asking simple questions (yes or no) and thus discarding innocent candidates. Although it would be tempting to put a silhouette, a phrase or an image of some of their papers and then leave it to you to find out who it is, since the Internet makes things very easy and that would also require your participation and my time, I have decided that in its place we will devote this section to briefly describe the life and work of some friends who, coincidentally, are well-known researchers on the human sciences. I will take advantage of the fact that some of them have accepted my invitation to make an educational visit to Ghent University over the last few months to make them be the ones to occupy the first posts of this section, which I have to warn you, will be an irreverent one. My idea is not only to speak of its important contribution to historiography but also to allude to the people behind such eminent surnames and initials. However, don’t look here for a space suitable for malicious gossip, but a place devoted to praise great researchers through modest odes and apologies.


The first one is a man, I don’t know him with beard or mustache, doesn’t wear glasses in his workaday, his eyes are brown and he has devoted most of his research to dealing with different aspects of Phoenician and Punic studies.

We are not Alone



Even if the name with which I have baptized this section may recall a recent Peruvian horror film on paranormal phenomena, a late 30’s american thriller , or even some webpage devoted to find the evasive alien life, I don’t expect such esoteric, obscure or alien elements in here. But who knows?

Although we don’t fully agree with some specific theoretical models, it’s absolutely necessary that we have to value it in order to stablish its strengths and try to incorporate them into our theoretical alternatives.

 For this reason, this section will be devoted to comment articles, books and other activities from colleagues who have also worked on the Barcid period or on other topics with which we are more familiar.

 As in other sections of the webpage, we will try to avoid technical terms and similar resources to review these works in a language that we hope will be understandable and pleasant and, therefore, a little more accessible.

 As long as publishers' guidelines don’t explicitly oppose it, the original contribution under analysis will be attached as a pdf or, more likely, as a hyperlink, in order to benefit the author with an increase in his/her downloads and, thus, his/her scientific impact. Be that as it may, you can take advantage of that to form an opinion of your own which I hope will encourage a small and respectful debate in the comments.

 Having said all that, we can only clean the mist over the window to see who is hiding behind.

The Art of War

For this section we’ve borrowed the translation into Spanish of the title of the book of the legendary Chinese strategist Sun Tzu whose life Asian sources place, with some vagueness, between the 8th and 5th centuries BC. However, and even if it would make a lot of sense to deal here with poliorcetica[1] and other military issues that were really important during the tumultuous Barcid period, these issues, and other similar ones, will be discussed in other sections of the blog.


Here, against my very usual behavior, we will be a more literal and instead of looking for beauty in the despicable warlike conflicts, we will choose to go through the history of the members of the Barcid family and of their native city through the lost look of sculptors , painters, writers and other artists who have immortalized their own version of the facts.


I hope that we will find a pleasant walk through the fascination that the Phoenician and Punic culture and, specially, the romantic [2] Hannibal Barca’s history caused on bohemian scholars, triggering an artistic interpretation of well-known historical episodes.


Although the real heroes of this section will be engravings, sculptures, paintings, films, books and other works of art, our intention is to go one step further the silent observation of these Humanity’s precious treasures. Therefore, we will take advantage of the moment and we will speak briefly about the geniuses who create them, their time and even we will venture to look for their inspiration in Classical Sources comparing the literary information with their artistic expression, with special interest in revealing and explaining their artistic licenses.

 Prepare your chisel and arrange the canvas, because the remarkable Carthaginian general will pose for us with his fiercest posture.



[1] Greek term that designates the art of attacking and defending strongholds. 
[2] We are taling on the artistic trend of the 18th century in which, as in some episodes of Hannibal’s life, they were dominated by passion, sometimes arriving, as happened with the Carthaginian general, to choose suicide as the end of existence.

Back to the Past

My passion for the Seventh Art, which I guess I’ll give more than a few proofs in this blog as time goes by, has allowed me to gather enough confidence to distort the title of the excellent movie by Robert Zemeckis which in 1985 allowed us to travel through time with Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. In our specific version of a 1988 DeLorean DMC-12, we will create an area in which the new gadgets and computer applications will be placed at the service of History and, especially, Archaeology.

 Although I should admit that would be great to be able to start a customized DeLorean in the Vin Diesels’ style of Fast & Furious and travel to the Iberian Qart Hadasht (current Cartagena), I’m afraid I have to feel disappointed you. This won’t be a corner for the funny exercises of historical fantasy or the exciting science fiction debates on travel in time. On the contrary, it’ll be rather devoted to the applications of specific software to help us in Archeology and other historical sciences.

 It’s, as probably you have guessed, one of my lines of research that has given to me, equally, more headaches and more satisfactions. Geographic Information Systems (GIS), photogrammetry, 3D restitution, creation of animation videos and web pages, design of books and journal, vectorization and photograph design tools or databases will be some of the topics that we will try to discuss in this section. Sometimes we will present the final results or the future uses of each of these techniques, but there will also be room for posts devoted exclusively to tips and tutorials on specific case studies.

 Fasten your seatbelt and recharge the reactor with plutonium or debris, because our trip to the past is about to begin and we have to reach 141.6 km/h in order to do so.

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