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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?

#81

Post by malvosenior »

ISV_Damocles wrote: post #55
malvosenior wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

I see it more as the ancient equivalent of disabling a car alarm when you're stealing it. They were robbing the graves not preforming a ritual. Their beliefs may have been supernatural but at the time it seemed logical to "kill" the observer of the crime. It wasn't defacement to send a message, it was practical and tactical as far as the robbers were concerned (according to this article's premise).

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

#82

Post by novacole »

Kaiyou wrote: post #79
novacole wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because it's unnecessary. To them these people looked so much inferior, that they even put them into zoos. Now ask yourself, if you found ruins indicating that [insert animal, maybe elephants] used to have an ancient civilization would you find that incredibly interesting or would you want to destroy evidence of that because it might affect the way we think of elephants today?

I think you underestimate the sickness of the people and culture of said people who would put people in zoos.

If you can do that, you can’t put anything past that person/culture.

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

#83

Post by [deleted] »

Geimfari wrote: post #67
povertyworld wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Genetic testing on ancient Egyptian mummies showed they were most similar to modern day Arabs. Sub-Saharan African genes made up 6-15%, which is much lower than today's Egyptians. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controve...

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by Bartweiss »

dalbasal wrote: post #34
LeanderK wrote: post #20

> Such a practice seems especially outrageous to modern viewers, considering our appreciation of Egyptian artifacts as masterful works of fine art, but Bleiberg is quick to point out that “ancient Egyptians didn’t have a word for ‘art.’ They would have referred to these objects as ‘equipment.’” When we talk about these artifacts as works of art, he said, we de-contextualize them. this is very interesting and I have n…

We kind of don't have a word for "art" either. Historically/etymologically, art means "skilled work" or just "stuff made by people" (as in artifact). The word/concept seems to have evolved gradually to its current meaning with all its complex connotations of beauty, metaphorical depth and existing for its own sake. Even early modern and Renaissance art was probably seen differently to how we see it. A lot of the best…

> A lot of the best statues and paintings had religious purposes, kind of like Egyptians.

I think it's worth distinguishing religious works from religious tools.

As I understand it, religious works were generally made to glorify God in a cultural sense - mostly as commissioned works to make churches and cathedrals more impressive. That's substantially different than pieces with intrinsic religious significance, whether as a literal idol, a vessel for a soul, or an offering to a divinity. For instance, a relief of a Pharaoh might be considered significant while placed in a sealed tomb, even worth opening the tomb to deface, but a pietà shut up in a basement is largely irrelevant.

It's an interesting point, though, because the distinction can definitely get fuzzy. The Stations of the Cross can be performed by simply carrying a blessed cross, but it's hard to deny that the construction of actual stations is the creation of an artistic religious tool. (And of course, an archaeologist would find the stations, but not necessarily have a way to know about the practice without implements.) Rosaries and reliquaries are clearly functional art, and even devotional paintings become ambiguous when literacy and ownership of a Bible aren't standard.

I think there's still a worthwhile distinction here between artistic/instructional and instrumental works, but I'm not sure it would hold across faiths or larger time spans.

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

#87

Post by soneca »

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...

I had to collapse about 8 threads to find the first comment of someone doubting the argument (in a polite way).

Your comment is popular because you are fighting a "easy-to-hate" minority that is only relevant because you made it so.

You make fun of a kind of HN commenter that you find typical. But if your comment is the most popular (#1 now), and assuming that people are upvoting you because they agree that it is indeed typicial, it means that this type of commenter is not typical at all. It is an outlier, properly undervoted by the real typical commenter.

So your comment being upvoted disproves itself. Quite a paradox (or just irony?).

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

#88

Post by Aromasin »

danans wrote: post #52
fdloo3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

How it was described by my Indian friends was that, at least in their households, the religious stories were treated more like 'campfire stories'; not practically real, but entertaining, and good for teaching morality (that's not to say that there aren't Hindus that take it very seriously). This is as opposed to how most westerners treat religion, in a very literal sense - Moses/Muhammed/Jesus DID exists and their teachings ARE the word of God, and they must be strictly adhered to.

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

soneca wrote: post #87
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...

I had to collapse about 8 threads to find the first comment of someone doubting the argument (in a polite way). Your comment is popular because you are fighting a "easy-to-hate" minority that is only relevant because you made it so. You make fun of a kind of HN commenter that you find typical. But if your comment is the most popular (#1 now), and assuming that people are upvoting you because they agree that it is ind…

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by dosy »

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...

The old creation of grievances in order to exploit them trick. "If we can reframe the past to support our current ideology", "if we can manufacture fake victims", etc.

I'm reminded of this quote:

    "To witness is to ignore as little as possible. Because a 
    judgment so often impairs the ability to notice what 
    doesn’t conform with it, the witness chooses for the time 
    being to keep judgment at a distance."
From this great article by Salvatore Scibona posted the other day: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/opinion/sunday/internet-s...
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