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This article gives reasons why the statues were broken but doesn't give a convincing reason why the noses are particularly targeted (sure, you breathe through t

This article gives reasons why the statues were broken but doesn't give a convincing reason why the noses are particularly targeted (sure, you breathe through the nose - but you also breathe through the mouth). It's now commonly suggested that the statue's noses most obviously indicated African heritage: that they were representing Black Africans - and white Christians wanted to erase that heritage. I find it surprising that this apparently-scholarly article wouldn't touch upon that.

wernercd 6y ago
"it's now commonly suggested" a lot of things are commonly suggested today that have no basis in reality or no representation in real history. This is no different than Ancient Aliens where all of history is changed to be full of Aliens. Creating what you want to see out of scant evidence to support the claim. "Connecting the dots" to say what you want. Taking history and deciding that "race" is the reason something happens... doesn't change history to make that assertion true. Noses broke because "race"? False https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/29/fact-check-were-egyptian-monuments-defaced-because-they-look-black/3571128001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/29/fac...
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  So how do we have a 7000 word essay which sidesteps that claim without providing a better explanation. One of the claims in this essay is that noses were removed by early Christians to discourage polytheism - if so, then why do ancient Greek gods still have their noses? Whatever academic reason you can come up with, noses were ultimately targeted because someone with political power or some group of people specifically did not like these noses. And why did they not like these noses?
  - iguy 6y ago
    Lots of greek & roman statues have lost their noses too. Also, you may be thinking that because Egypt is in Africa, its people in 2000BC were African in the colloquial sense of today. That's far from obvious, the Sahara is wide. Although the upper Nile reaches some way across it. I am lazy to dig for references, but IIRC the status from ancient DNA was that the fraction of sub-saharan african descent in north africa has increased slowly over the last 2000 years or so, to maybe 10% today? I don't know whether such DNA tends to represent the elite (as you might expect statues to do) or not.
    - throwaway2245 6y ago
      > Lots of greek & roman statues have lost their noses too. Where "lots" is a much smaller percentage. > you may be thinking that because Egypt is in Africa, its people in 2000BC were African in the colloquial sense of today. I don't have to think this any more than I think every Roman emperor had perfect abs. If (some) statue's noses were modelled after Black Africans, and (some) people took a conscious or subconscious dislike to this, then the consequences can be fast, or develop as a more general tradition over time, with multiple pseudo-academic cultural explanations.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  >This is no different than Ancient Aliens where all of history is changed to be full of Aliens. Further thought: the trope that ancient constructions were built by aliens is also in general rarely applied to ancient white civilisations.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    Probably because Europeans either made little worth attributing to aliens OR in cases where they did (Rome, Greece, later cathedrals, etc) lots of contemporary documentation exists today. In cases where an impressive structure in Europe was created but for which no contemporary documentation survives, aliens are indeed given credit. Stonehenge comes to mind.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- yizaa811 6y ago
  Their conclusion is that "research shows the statues were defaced to deactivate the life form believed to be within them." Which is to say it hinges on the idea that the statues were not destroyed by racist western colonialists at all, because they found ancient texts mentioning defacement of noses. They don't actually prove anything, the standards of this kind of research are incredibly low. The problem is that western egyptologist are unlikely to go out of their way to put effort into researching what particular crimes colonialists committed. The victor writes the history books, and they probably didn't even think to write prominently anything about the countless artifacts they destroyed, to them it was all just the work of godless subhumans so why bother. They have a very good motive to do it, and that today the decedents of the racists will go out of their way to deny it isn't surprising at all. The whole ancient alien thing comes from a different direction, its whole foundation lies in the disbelief that african people could've ever possibly built the pyramids, even aliens is a more plausible theory to them.
mistersquid 6y ago
> It's now commonly suggested that the statue's noses most obviously indicated African heritage: that they were representing Black Africans - and white Christians wanted to erase that heritage If I'm recalling correctly, this comes up in Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo (1972).
joosters 6y ago
Presumably: 1) the damage to statues can be dated - so we know roughly who did it, and 2) some of the damage is specifically targeted (like the article mentions, the left/right hand damage would have meaning to Egyptians, but has far less context to supposed Christian attacks)
Bayart 6y ago
>It's now commonly suggested By whom ? One's opinion is only valuable as their credentials. >I find it surprising that this apparently-scholarly article wouldn't touch upon that. Then it wouldn't be scholarly. Christian Egyptians were for the most part identical to pre-Christian Egyptians. And the foreign dynasties (Nubian and Greek) are pretty well identified. Using post-colonial racial stereotypes to interpret Egyptian history is lunacy.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > Using post-colonial racial stereotypes to interpret Egyptian history is lunacy. If you - like the author of this article - were a museum curator of Egyptian art within the USA then you should, perhaps, think about your exhibitions with some understanding of race and colonialism.

wernercd 6y ago

"it's now commonly suggested" a lot of things are commonly suggested today that have no basis in reality or no representation in real history. This is no different than Ancient Aliens where all of history is changed to be full of Aliens. Creating what you want to see out of scant evidence to support the claim. "Connecting the dots" to say what you want. Taking history and deciding that "race" is the reason something happens... doesn't change history to make that assertion true. Noses broke because "race"? False https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/29/fact-check-were-egyptian-monuments-defaced-because-they-look-black/3571128001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/29/fac...

throwaway2245 6y ago
So how do we have a 7000 word essay which sidesteps that claim without providing a better explanation. One of the claims in this essay is that noses were removed by early Christians to discourage polytheism - if so, then why do ancient Greek gods still have their noses? Whatever academic reason you can come up with, noses were ultimately targeted because someone with political power or some group of people specifically did not like these noses. And why did they not like these noses?
- iguy 6y ago
  Lots of greek & roman statues have lost their noses too. Also, you may be thinking that because Egypt is in Africa, its people in 2000BC were African in the colloquial sense of today. That's far from obvious, the Sahara is wide. Although the upper Nile reaches some way across it. I am lazy to dig for references, but IIRC the status from ancient DNA was that the fraction of sub-saharan african descent in north africa has increased slowly over the last 2000 years or so, to maybe 10% today? I don't know whether such DNA tends to represent the elite (as you might expect statues to do) or not.
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    > Lots of greek & roman statues have lost their noses too. Where "lots" is a much smaller percentage. > you may be thinking that because Egypt is in Africa, its people in 2000BC were African in the colloquial sense of today. I don't have to think this any more than I think every Roman emperor had perfect abs. If (some) statue's noses were modelled after Black Africans, and (some) people took a conscious or subconscious dislike to this, then the consequences can be fast, or develop as a more general tradition over time, with multiple pseudo-academic cultural explanations.
throwaway2245 6y ago
>This is no different than Ancient Aliens where all of history is changed to be full of Aliens. Further thought: the trope that ancient constructions were built by aliens is also in general rarely applied to ancient white civilisations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Probably because Europeans either made little worth attributing to aliens OR in cases where they did (Rome, Greece, later cathedrals, etc) lots of contemporary documentation exists today. In cases where an impressive structure in Europe was created but for which no contemporary documentation survives, aliens are indeed given credit. Stonehenge comes to mind.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
yizaa811 6y ago
Their conclusion is that "research shows the statues were defaced to deactivate the life form believed to be within them." Which is to say it hinges on the idea that the statues were not destroyed by racist western colonialists at all, because they found ancient texts mentioning defacement of noses. They don't actually prove anything, the standards of this kind of research are incredibly low. The problem is that western egyptologist are unlikely to go out of their way to put effort into researching what particular crimes colonialists committed. The victor writes the history books, and they probably didn't even think to write prominently anything about the countless artifacts they destroyed, to them it was all just the work of godless subhumans so why bother. They have a very good motive to do it, and that today the decedents of the racists will go out of their way to deny it isn't surprising at all. The whole ancient alien thing comes from a different direction, its whole foundation lies in the disbelief that african people could've ever possibly built the pyramids, even aliens is a more plausible theory to them.

mistersquid 6y ago

> It's now commonly suggested that the statue's noses most obviously indicated African heritage: that they were representing Black Africans - and white Christians wanted to erase that heritage If I'm recalling correctly, this comes up in Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo (1972).

joosters 6y ago

Presumably: 1) the damage to statues can be dated - so we know roughly who did it, and 2) some of the damage is specifically targeted (like the article mentions, the left/right hand damage would have meaning to Egyptians, but has far less context to supposed Christian attacks)

Bayart 6y ago

>It's now commonly suggested By whom ? One's opinion is only valuable as their credentials. >I find it surprising that this apparently-scholarly article wouldn't touch upon that. Then it wouldn't be scholarly. Christian Egyptians were for the most part identical to pre-Christian Egyptians. And the foreign dynasties (Nubian and Greek) are pretty well identified. Using post-colonial racial stereotypes to interpret Egyptian history is lunacy.

throwaway2245 6y ago
> Using post-colonial racial stereotypes to interpret Egyptian history is lunacy. If you - like the author of this article - were a museum curator of Egyptian art within the USA then you should, perhaps, think about your exhibitions with some understanding of race and colonialism.