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Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

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Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#51

Post by novacole »

danans wrote: post #46
fwip wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention another popular theory: that many of the Egyptian statues taken by Europeans had their noses deliberately broken to obscure their blackness. As the theory goes, in order to make the statues seem like high art, it was necessary to make the culture seem more like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Removing their noses made it so the viewer could more easily read the statues as…

This theory doesn't hold up not the least because the surviving representations of noses in statuary don't look particularly "black" (interpreted very narrowly as the west sub-saharan facial phenotype), which is the image of Africans around which most Eurocentric racism is built. Look the statue in the article with an intact nose, and also the statues of the seated pharoahs at Abu Simbel. To my eyes, they just look a…

> the surviving representations of noses in statuary don't look particularly "black"

I think this says the exact opposite of what you want it to say. The fact that they survived, may be that they were sufficiently non-"black" looking to leave them alone. Phenotypes come in ranges especially for black people, so a "black" nose is anything from the nose of a random Scandinavian to that of a Sudanese persons.

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#52

Post by danans »

fdloo3 wrote: post #41
throwaway434234 wrote: post #5

You see this in India at every temple that was raided by Muslims. The logic being that breaking the nose would make the "idol" unfit for worship. There probably are a lot of examples in the North (they are now part of some "secular" Mosque complex), but it's very apparent in some of the Hoysala temples that were partially/fully destroyed (esp. Halebidu), and in Vijayanagara. It's really quite sad. Then again, I suppo…

Well the other side of the coin is, Indian civilization survives. The same language, rituals, stories, music, food, imagery used, are all pretty much alive outside and inside thousands of temple even today. Those aspects of culture have somehow weathered invasion, natural disasters, famine, and drought. You can't say the same about Egyptian civilization.

> The same language, rituals, stories, music, food, imagery used, are all pretty much alive outside and inside thousands of temple even today.

Technically, it's not the same language, culture, etc. The living culture has changed considerably over the centuries both organically and via outside influences, including Islam.

The surprising thing about India is that it has kept around so much of the really ancient stuff while also adding a huge amount of new stuff along the way. Cultural hoarding, if you will.

It's like the cultural change process is sedimentary, with previous layers being preserved below, while the newer layers get added above, giving a kind of continuity, whereas in other parts of the world, it has often tended to be a more volcanic process, with the destruction of what preceded.

Also, Indian culture long ago accepted what to Western thinking seems like a contradiction of polytheistic icon based religious worship and the belief in a more abstract deity, or even atheism.

In the West, this resulted in the complete disposal of the previous pantheons, but in India, it was rationalized through a "many perspectives" lens where all the viewpoints could be accommodated.

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#53

Post by [deleted] »

danans wrote: post #46
fwip wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention another popular theory: that many of the Egyptian statues taken by Europeans had their noses deliberately broken to obscure their blackness. As the theory goes, in order to make the statues seem like high art, it was necessary to make the culture seem more like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Removing their noses made it so the viewer could more easily read the statues as…

This theory doesn't hold up not the least because the surviving representations of noses in statuary don't look particularly "black" (interpreted very narrowly as the west sub-saharan facial phenotype), which is the image of Africans around which most Eurocentric racism is built. Look the statue in the article with an intact nose, and also the statues of the seated pharoahs at Abu Simbel. To my eyes, they just look a…

[deleted]

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#54

Post by naibafo »

fwip wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention another popular theory: that many of the Egyptian statues taken by Europeans had their noses deliberately broken to obscure their blackness. As the theory goes, in order to make the statues seem like high art, it was necessary to make the culture seem more like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Removing their noses made it so the viewer could more easily read the statues as…

The only information I have on Egyptian noses is that, according to Asterix and Obelix, Cleopatra was famous for her nose.

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#55

Post by ISV_Damocles »

malvosenior wrote: post #49
NelsonMinar wrote: post #40

The computer geniuses here at Hacker News have decided the main argument of this article are wrong. But among archaeologists ritual defacement is understood to be a regular thing that happens to art all over the world. Roman coins defaced: https://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Defacing-the-past-damnation-a... Teotihuacan icons demolished and destroyed by fire: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/sep/24/teotihu...

Isn't the argument in the article not that they were defaced due to "ritual defacement" but that vandals thought that by breaking the noses off, they were effectively killing the person in the after life, thus not allowing them to seek retribution for robbing their grave?

Breaking the nose to placate concerns about a supernatural phenomenon seems like the very definition of a ritual (placate concerns about a supernatural phenomenon) defacement (literally removing a surface feature from the face of a statue)?

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#56

Post by povertyworld »

danans wrote: post #46
fwip wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention another popular theory: that many of the Egyptian statues taken by Europeans had their noses deliberately broken to obscure their blackness. As the theory goes, in order to make the statues seem like high art, it was necessary to make the culture seem more like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Removing their noses made it so the viewer could more easily read the statues as…

This theory doesn't hold up not the least because the surviving representations of noses in statuary don't look particularly "black" (interpreted very narrowly as the west sub-saharan facial phenotype), which is the image of Africans around which most Eurocentric racism is built. Look the statue in the article with an intact nose, and also the statues of the seated pharoahs at Abu Simbel. To my eyes, they just look a…

It's worth noting though that Arabs are not native to North Africa, so ancient Egyptians wouldn't necessarily look like many people today. They colonized the Maghreb around the 7th century. The indigenous people of that region are the Amazigh in the west and Copts in Egypt. Egypt today also has very light skinned people descended from European slaves the Turks brought in to aid their military.

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#57

Post by novacole »

aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #44
fwip wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention another popular theory: that many of the Egyptian statues taken by Europeans had their noses deliberately broken to obscure their blackness. As the theory goes, in order to make the statues seem like high art, it was necessary to make the culture seem more like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Removing their noses made it so the viewer could more easily read the statues as…

Yeah, and they didn't mention other crackpot theories either, like ancient aliens destroying the statue's faces with zero-point energy weapons. I wonder why?

Why would it be a crackpot theory to suggest that for Western Europeans, whose civilization as we know it starts in the late 1400s, who convinced themselves of African inferiority for the purpose of justifying their theft, rape, and murder of those people, upon seeing Black looking people in Egypt from thousands of years before their civilization started, would want to erase signs of it? Sounds just about right to me.

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#58

Post by cwmma »

naibafo wrote: post #54
fwip wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that the article didn't mention another popular theory: that many of the Egyptian statues taken by Europeans had their noses deliberately broken to obscure their blackness. As the theory goes, in order to make the statues seem like high art, it was necessary to make the culture seem more like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Removing their noses made it so the viewer could more easily read the statues as…

The only information I have on Egyptian noses is that, according to Asterix and Obelix, Cleopatra was famous for her nose.

she was Greek though so probably not a great example

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#59

Post by PopeDotNinja »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #40

The computer geniuses here at Hacker News have decided the main argument of this article are wrong. But among archaeologists ritual defacement is understood to be a regular thing that happens to art all over the world. Roman coins defaced: https://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Defacing-the-past-damnation-a... Teotihuacan icons demolished and destroyed by fire: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/sep/24/teotihu...

And then there's the Sphinx's nose! That's the canonical example of Egyptian statue nose bashing.

https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/blog/photo-what-happened...

Re: Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues Have Broken Noses?

#60

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab »

novacole wrote: post #57
aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and they didn't mention other crackpot theories either, like ancient aliens destroying the statue's faces with zero-point energy weapons. I wonder why?

Why would it be a crackpot theory to suggest that for Western Europeans, whose civilization as we know it starts in the late 1400s, who convinced themselves of African inferiority for the purpose of justifying their theft, rape, and murder of those people, upon seeing Black looking people in Egypt from thousands of years before their civilization started, would want to erase signs of it? Sounds just about right to me…

That's a very "nice" narrative. The only problem is that it isn't grounded on archeological or historical evidence, therefore it's a crackpot theory.
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