The real reason ancient Egyptian statues have broken noses

For several decades it has been an unsolved mystery among experts and enthusiasts Ancient egypt, one of the oldest and most enduring civilizations in the world.

At first glance, this seems normal: the passage of thousands of years makes it inevitable the monument or the artefact wears out. But why were there so many immaculate statues to which the only thing missing was the nose? Maybe because after all, if anything is going to break, it’s that prominent organ.

However, how then was it explained that Two-dimensional relief works will often show the same damage?

The case had given rise to hypotheses, including a bitter that keeps repeating itself, even if it has been refuted: that it was an attempt by European colonialists to erase the African roots of the ancient Egyptians.

Experts, on the contrary, assure that this theory lack of foundation, among other reasons because noses are not the only physical proof of these origins. And they agree that despite the many horrors of imperialism, This is not one of them. So what could have happened?

The most credible answer at this point can be summed up in one word: iconoclasm, Greek Eikonoclasm, What does mean “image break“.

We are not talking about the adepts of the 8th century stream who rejected the cult of sacred images, destroyed them and persecuted those who worshiped them.

In this case, the term is used more broadly to refer to the social belief in the importance of destruction of icons and other images or monuments, often for religious or political reasons.

And that makes a lot of sense when you consider that for the ancient Egyptians statues were the point of contact between divine and earthly beings.}

The ancient Egyptians believed that the images could harbor supernatural power, as explained Edward Bleiberg, the foremost curator of Egyptian, classical and ancient art from the Middle East Brooklyn museum.

Bleiberg, who explored the issue due to the fact that the most common query from museum visitors was “why is their nose broken?”, Indicated that the words “sculpture” and “sculptor” emphasize that the images are alive.

The word “sculpture” literally means “something created to live”, while a sculptor is “someone who brings it to life”.

Objects representing the human form, made of stone, metal, wood, clay or even wax, could be occupied by a god or a human who died and became a divine being, and so they could act in the material world.

This was the case with an inscription dedicated to Hathor, the goddess of love and fertility, on the walls of the temple of Dendera, probably built by the pharaoh Pepy I (2310 to 2260 BC): “(…) he flies from the sky to enter the horizon of his soul [es decir, su templo] in the Earth, it flies towards its body, it unites with its form ”.

In that case, the goddess permeates a three-dimensional figure, but in the same temple they tell how Osiris – one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt – is merged with a relief representation of himself: “Osiris comes as a spirit. He sees his mysterious form represented in his place, his silhouette engraved on the wall; enters its mysterious form, arises in its image“.

Once busy, images had powers which could be activated by rituals. And they could also be disabled by deliberate damage. But why do it?

The reasons were many, from the anger and resentment against enemies who wanted to do evil in this world and the next, until the terror of revenge the deceased felt by the grave robbers, as well as the desire to rewrite history where are you going dream of changing the whole culture.

When Akenatón, Tutankhamun’s father, who reigned between 1353-1336 BC, wanted Egyptian religion to revolve around a god, Athens, a solar deity, faced a powerful being: the god Ammon.

His weapon was the destruction of images. The situation was reversed when Akhenaton died and the Egyptian people resumed traditional worship: the temples and monuments honoring Aten and the late Pharaoh were the ones that were destroyed.

But let us remember that it was not only the gods who could inhabit the images, but also the humans who had died and, after the long and tortuous journey to the Truth Double Room, demonstrated their decency in the judgment of the soul, becoming divine beings.

Knowing that your ancestors continue to accompany you despite their death can be comforting but also worrying, especially If you’re a powerful person and it’s not right for you that the past eclipses you. And power struggles often leave scars.

When Thutmose III, who ruled 1479-1425 BC, wanted to make sure his son succeed him, tried to erase his predecessor and mother-in-law from history Hatshepsut, destroying the physical evidence of its existence. And he almost succeeded.

These examples may give the impression that this has only happened in extreme cases, but the destruction of representations of deities or humans was so common that, as documented by the Egyptologist Robert K. Ritner, was a constant concern in ancient Egypt.

Among the many texts expressing this concern is a royal decree of First intermediate period (2130-1980 BC): “Anyone in all this land who do something harmful or perverse to your statues, slabs, chapels, carpentry or monuments found within the walls of any temple, My Majesty will not allow her property or that of her parents to stay with them., nor that he unites with the spirits of the necropolis, nor that he remains among the living ”.

Equally serious and feared were the attacks on the graves. A man called Wersu of the Copts, who lived during the 18th Dynasty (1539-1295 BC), recorded a threat which read: “As for whoever attacks my corpse in the necropolis, let him remove my statue from my grave, Outside, the sun god, will hate him. He will not have water from the altar of Osiris, he will never pass his property on to his children ”.

And the nose?

The mutilations were then aimed at restricting power and it could be done in different ways. If you wanted to prevent the humans depicted from making much-needed offerings to the gods, you can remove the arm that was commonly used for this task: the left.

If you prefer that the god does not listen to them, you remove the ears of the deity. If your intention was to end all possibilities of communication, separate head from body it was a good option.

But perhaps the most effective and quickest method of making your wishes come true was to take her nose out. “The nose was the source of the breath, the breath of life; the easiest way to kill the inner spirit is to suffocate it by removing its nose, ”Bleiberg said.

A few blows with a hammer and a chisel, and problem solved. The paradox, after all, is that this compulsion to destroy images is proof of their importance to this great civilization.

BBC Mundo