101–110 of 140 posts
Is that falsifiable? We would need someplace Muslim thought held sway but they aren't broken, and places where it never penetrated and they are all broken anyway.
None of that would conclusive in isolation. You would need a lot of data; or records of fatwas issued demanding it.
The noses are broken off in order to deprive the statues of their power. It's the same reason the the Muslims scratched out the eyes of Jesus in all of the mosaics in the Hagia Sophia.
Wasn't that done because Islam rejects idol worship and the visual depiction of prophets?
In "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", Julian Jaynes argues that before human intelligence was experienced as reflective, self-conscious internal monologue, early humans would routinely experience "command hallucinations" which they ascribed to gods[0]. In a setting that was designed to induce awe, reverence and altered states of consciousness, an idol could prompt believers to hallu…
The most fundamental problem is that the dates don't line up. Causes and effects are separated by millennia.
It remains a mystery.
A bigger mystery is where the pre-dynastic Egyptians got hold of all those extremely precisely worked, very, very hard stone bowls and jugs. Some are of carborundum! All we know is that they were completely unable to make them themselves. We would be hard-pressed to make those today, using our most advanced fabrication tools.
Likewise the 50+-ton basalt boxes found empty underground at Saqqara, polished to a mirror sheen, optically flat, with interior faces exactly parallel.
I am an Egyptian. When I were young, they told us that Sphinx's nose is broken because it was shot in the 73 war.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sphinx_of_Giza#Missing_n...
Anyone care to write an abstract for this article?
Maybe the take-away is that in different eras statues were broken in different ways for different purposes. Various Egyptian groups broke each other's statues, which they fully understood, for instance breaking the left hand of gods understood to be giving things, and the right hand of those receiving things, to prevent them from performing their function. And often digging out the inscription of the name of the king…
Does it? Wouldn't the name be set off in a conspicuous cartouche?
I've seen the same phenomena in dozens of ancient temples in India I had the chance to visit, often attributed to Islamic conquests. The native Hindu rulers weren't any less sparing either when they conquered their rivals who worshipped a different deity.
What you tend to see in India is the deliberate desecration of carvings - smashing in faces and breaking hands. Hindu rulers tended not to do these kinds of specific acts. You could probably count on one hand the "Indic" kings documented to have specifically targeted temples or religious iconography. The most famous examples that come to mind immediately would be the razing of the temples of Pratihaspura, allegedly t…
This is more of a statement about the quality of the historical record in India (which is abysmally low).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know. All I know is what I overheard a tour guide telling her group when I was there. But it makes sense, because I saw the same thing at all of the Christian churches I visited in Turkey.
Such iconoclasm is certainly not unique to Islam. Many older Christian churches in the UK saw their crucifixes, statues and stained-glass windows defaced by Puritans, out of belief that Catholic symbolism was idol worship rather than any superstition about the crucifixes having any actual power
Heathen; “ don’t tread on me, I’m not giving up my idol!” Christin “okay fine, pray to this figurine of a saint”
Heathen: “so I can worship this idol of Saint Bernard?”
Christian: “ummm, itSs not a, ummm, okay close enough”
Proving once again that min/maxing arbitrary metrics leads to weird results.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Muslim, I can confirm we only do it because we reject idol worship and the visual depiction of any living being, particularly prophets. We dont believe in any power being present in statues. Just wanted to let you know :)
It doesn't justify the destruction of historical artifacts, though. :/
Statues don’t fight back. Real trouble is when you run out of statues.
In "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", Julian Jaynes argues that before human intelligence was experienced as reflective, self-conscious internal monologue, early humans would routinely experience "command hallucinations" which they ascribed to gods[0]. In a setting that was designed to induce awe, reverence and altered states of consciousness, an idol could prompt believers to hallu…
Everybody agrees he took on an important question, but his answer was not right. I spoke to a Greek classics scholar who said Jaynes's interpretations of the evolution of Greek emotion names was very far off the mark. The most fundamental problem is that the dates don't line up. Causes and effects are separated by millennia. It remains a mystery. A bigger mystery is where the pre-dynastic Egyptians got hold of all th…