Conspiracy

Kemet: Understanding African-centred Egyptology Lecture

Understanding African-centred Egyptology Lecture 2016

It was great to see so many friends at my recent London lecture for Black History Month, which had been organised by the Equiano Society and the British Museum. Some people who were not able to attend asked me if I would summarise the talk, so that is what this post will do.

Maritime_Museum_SCA_279_and_278. — Colossal granite statues of Ptolemy VIII and either Cleopatra II or III. Maritime Museum, Alexandria SCA 279 and 278.

I began by talking about the lack of theoretical frameworks within Egyptology and illustrated this point later in answer to a question with the dating of the sculpture in the current exhibition: Sunken Cities. Egypt’s Lost Worlds. The statues above form part of this exhibition and are dating the Early Ptolemaic Period by the curators. However, I would suggest, based on parallels, that this in fact represents Ptolemy VIII and one of his wives. I’m not suggesting that my interpretation should be taken over that of the curators of the exhibition. However, I used it to demonstrate that if we had solid frameworks on which to date and interpret the material culture of Kemet, of Egypt at this time, then there would be no such debate.

Of equal importance is the extent to which the lack of academic frameworks increases the likelihood of confirmation and cognitive bias.

Statue of Rameses II with a missing nose and damaged face — Statue of Rameses Usermaatre-setepenre with a missing nose and damaged face

I then when on to consider popular conspiracy theories relating to the the ‘Whitewashing’ of Kemite culture; one of the most common is that European travellers deliberately removed the noses of statues in order to alter their appearance. I wrote my first post on this subject; debunking this particular myth, which risks distracting from embedded racist ideologies within the foundations of Egyptology as an academic discipline. The conspiracy to maintain an erroneous connection between ancient Egypt and non-African civilisations is much deeper than damaging statues.

nott_and_glidden_1 — J.C. Nott and G.R. Gliddon, Types of mankind or, ethnological researches based upon ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural geographical, philological and biblical history 1854

The illustrations above are from Nott and Gliddon’s 1854 publication on ancient Egyptian monuments. In it, they argue on the basis of nothing but their own prejudice and supremacist ideologies that the people of Ancient Kemet were non African. Here rulers are described as “entirely Jewish” and the caption that accompanies the drawing of a statue of Rameses Usermaatre-setepenre reads:

His features are superbly European as Napoleon’s, whom he resembles.

I have taken the liberty of including an actual statue of the King below!

curating_kemet_ramesses_2_Briitish_museum — Fragment of a colossal statue of Rameses Usermaatre-Setpenre in the Sculpture gallery at the British Museum

nott_and_gliddon_2 — J.C. Nott and G.R. Gliddon, Types of mankind or, ethnological researches based upon ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural geographical, philological and biblical history 1854

They continue with their racist ideologies throughout the book. And a summary of 3 out of 15 points in the book of their colleague Samuel Morton goes some way to explaining why these early authors were so keen to remove Egypt from Africa:

1.The valley of the Nile, both in Egypt and in Nubia, was originally peopled by a branch of the Caucasian race.

7.The Copts, in part at least, are a mixture of the Caucasian and the Negro in extremely variable proportions.

8.Negroes were numerous in Egypt but their social position in ancient times was the same that it now is, that of servants and slaves.

S.G. Morton, Crania Aegyptiaca, or, observations on Egyptian Ethnography, derived from anatomy, history and the monuments 1844: 65-66

Quite simply these writers were projecting their own distorted sense of the world upon the past.

Keeping up appearances…

Museums have a choice. They can either perpetuate the myths that were peddled by past scholars who belonged to a racist imperial past. Or, they forge ahead with a more appropriate presentation that shows the African origins of this ancient culture as well as the cultural diversity in the region across time. In actual fact in order to understand the history of Egypt you have to do just this.

manchester_museum — The Egyptian gallery at Manchester Museum

This can be as simple as including a map of Africa and reminding people that Egypt is an African culture with indigenous African people as a population. The screen at Manchester Museum achieves this by situating Egypt in Africa.

I went on to discuss how identifying only certain figures from ancient Kemet as African was really no different to the categorisations of Nott, Gliddon and Morton above. At the British Museum only one room is explicitly linked to Africa; this is the room that contains material from the region of Nubia and which includes images like the tomb painting below that depict people from this region.

curating_kemet_painting_Sobekhotep_tomb — Detail from the wall paintings from the Tomb of Sobekhotep. Around 1400 BCE. Gallery 65 The British Museum

By making a distinction between people from the region of Nubia (ancient Kush) and Kemet, Egyptology erroneously implies that there is one ‘type’ of African person. Could the figure below not also be seen as a representation of an indigenous African person? I would suggest so on the grounds that her hair is textured and is a style that is not found outside of African cultures.

african_queens_Kawit — A detail of a relief showing royal wife Kawit having her hair styled

I have discussed possible solutions elsewhere on this blog. However, as I concluded in my lecture, until those who study Egyptology look more widely for cultural parallels and frameworks, it will continue to perpetuate a myth that engenders a divisive interpretation of the past. It feels odd to have to defend this culture as African, and yet in 2016 we are still having to do so.

Racism and Kemet, beyond a cognitive bias

Cognitive bias and dissonance

Earlier this week, I witnessed an extreme reaction that resulted from cognitive dissonance. I was delivering a workshop with a focus on the presence of people of African descent in the UK. We looked at evidence from the Roman period, Tudor England, and then referenced African, Black British and Caribbean political activists from the Industrial Revolution through to the twentieth century. We then went on to consider academic studies that showed how the media have distorted and demonised British people who are racialised as Black in contemporary Britain. And how Black British people are treated differently and less favourably in the Criminal Justice System. These contemporary issues came as no surprise to anyone of African descent in the audience. The workshop offered academic evidence that corroborated these experiences and the social psychology prejudice and racism.

A member of the audience left the workshop part way through. When I asked why, she said that it was “all lies”, that I was “anti-White” and that the workshop was subjective because it did not give examples of “Africans treating White people differently”. As she spoke, she was visibly upset and indeed described herself as such. Had she stayed until the end of the workshop, she would have realised, but probably denied, that she was suffering from cognitive dissonance.

The role of history in the formation of social identity

We each have two different types of self: 1. social identity, which relates to the groups we belong to; 2. personal identity, which not surprisingly is defined by our personal traits and relationships.

In a recent comment Nicole asked:

Why are we hated as a people? Is it fear?

Some groups we choose to belong to, for example political or social groups. However, when it comes to racialised groups, society determines where we are placed solely on the grounds of our appearance. ‘Race’ is a social construct and its advocates implemented a racial and social hierarchy to control and oppress entire groups of people. In doing so, members of the European societies who proposed the concept of ‘race’ elevated themselves and their own group.

Presenting history from a Eurocentric perspective is one means of distorting and maintaining hierarchal group identities. I have interviewed many people who state quite clearly that they feel history does not impact on who they are; but history is no different to any other influence on group identities, such the media.

racism_and_kemet_Cape_coast_castle — View from Cape Coast Castle, Ghana

I’ll give an example. When I tell people that I research and teach ‘Black’ history they will often assume that I specialise in the history of the enslavement of African peoples (see image above). When I correct them and state that this is only a small part of African history and it is not the area that I specialise in, they often look confused and surprised. It’s not that they necessarily want this to be the only history, but it is the only one they are familiar with. This in turn has the potential not only to impact on people of the African Diaspora, who struggle to access a more balanced history of their cultures, but it will influence how people who are of non-African descent view them and also see their group identity.

In the case of Kemet, not only does introducing this as an African culture challenge the narrow definitions that some people have when it comes to African history, but it removes Egypt from European historical cultural achievement. By changing the historical identity of one ‘group’ it impacts on the other.

Racism

I have researched the impact of racism, with particular reference to people of African, Black British and Caribbean descent in the UK, for the past 10 years. For many people whose ethnic background forms the majority in the UK, it is shocking to accept that our society does not treat people equally. In some cases, like the example I started this post with, they do not wish to accept the results of academic research, or to hear individual experiences of injustice and unfair treatment solely on the grounds of a racialised identity. As a result of this, and because they belong to the majority group (again through no choice of their own), some people react defensively when they are presented with examples of inequality. This is an example of what social psychologists define as ‘new racism’.

Then there are those people, fortunately in a minority, who are openly racist and have a pejorative view of people from other racialised and cultural groups. Their responses to the idea to Egypt (Kemet) as an African culture are more subjective, extreme and dismissive.

Finally, institutional racism plays a key role. The definition given by Sir William Macpherson in his report: The inquiry into the matters arising from the death of Stephen Lawrence (1999) is, in my opinion, the best to date. He defined institutional racism as:

The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racial stereotyping.

If museums, educational providers, and the media fail to promote even the possibility that Ancient Egypt was African, they are failing to provide an appropriate and professional view of African heritage and cultures. The reticence of some key institutions to promote African cultures from an African perspective creates a distorted view of the past. This, potentially, supports a majority group hierarchy; risks promoting bias and dissonance; and enables racists to justify their distorted view of the world.

Why are the noses missing from Egyptian statues?

The mystery of the missing noses

One of the most common questions that I have been asked over the years by community members is: ‘Why are the noses missing from Egyptian statues?’. I learned early on that there is a subtext to this question and that what the person is really asking is: ‘Were the noses deliberately removed in order to disguise the appearance of the people of Ancient Kemet?’.

Possible reasons for damage

Before answering the question of the missing noses, it is necessary to look at all of the possible causes of damage, and there are a number of these:

Statues were re-used in antiquity. Temples became obsolete during the later Roman period and onwards, because people changed their religion. When people wanted building materials they would simply take them from the nearest free source. A sort of recycling. There is evidence of this right through until the 20th century.

Statues covered by sand at the Temple of Rameses II in Nubia

Natural erosion. Many statues were made from sandstone or limestone, both of which are soft stones that are liable to erode very easily when exposed to sand or weather conditions. You can see from the above photograph how quickly statues can be covered by sand, and sand erodes (damages) the surface. Hard stones such as granite and basalt survive much better.

Coptic inscription on a temple relief — Coptic (Christian) inscription on an earlier temple relief. The face of the king has been damaged deliberately.

Later inscription on a statue of Rameses II detail o — Detail of the later inscription and cross

Deliberate damage to change the appearance of the statue. Yes this did happen both soon after statues were made, often when a new ruler or dynasty came to power, and also for religious reasons. The images above show a depiction of Rameses II, who ruled Egypt from around 1279-1213 BCE (before common era and so over 3000 years ago). Between the King’s legs is a much later inscription that can be identified culturally as Coptic (Christian) by the cross. The face and eyes of the king have been chiselled away.

The Washington obelisk

The appropriation (unauthorized theft) of Ancient Egyptian culture by non-African cultures. The Washington Monument is in the form of an ancient Egyptian obelisk and was built to commemorate George Washington. More will be written about obelisks in a future post; it is used here to illustrate how easily an Egyptian symbol can be used out of its original context and by a culture that had no direct link to the original. Many cultures that had no connection to Ancient Egypt have used Kemetic symbols for their own purposes, in order to try to connect to a powerful ancient civilisation.

How do we know who damaged the noses of statues?

why are the noses missing from Egyptian statues. The sphinx at Giza — Detail of the Sphinx at Giza

For many, we will never know. We can assume in the case of the Christian writing next to the damaged representation of Rameses II (above) that the two acts may be related.

Still on the subject of appropriation, many people have suggested that non-African cultures have been keen to disguise the African origins of Ancient Egyptian or Kemetic culture in order to claim them as their own. Stories of Napolean’s army firing at the Sphinx in Giza in order to destroy the nose have circulated for a number of years. However, I have been unable to find any documented evidence for this prior to the 20th century; and I have looked in detail.

What we do have evidence for, in the form of Arabic manuscripts, is the damage of the face of the sphinx by an 14th century extremist named Mohammed Salim al-Dahr. For further references to the original texts see: Haarmann, U., 1980. Regional sentiment in Medieval Islamic Egypt, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. vol. 43: 55-66.

why are the noses missing from egyptian statues. The mosque of Abu Haggag, Luxor — The Mosque of Abu Haggag in the grounds of Luxor Temple

Egyptian statues represented gods, kings, other members of the royal family or officials. When people in Egypt converted to Christianity in the form of the Coptic religion, or later Islam they no longer wished to have what they deemed to be ‘pagan’ images surrounding their new places of worship. Many of the old temple sites became churches, monasteries and later the sites of mosques, as seen in the image above at Luxor temple. As mentioned above, the new builders often re-used building materials, that to the modern observer contained beautiful images of a past culture, simply as ballast. In short they did not wish to preserve these images, and the available materials saved them time and money.

A conspiracy in Egyptology?

Yes there was, but it was not as simple as damaging the facial features on statues and reliefs to disguise their identity. There was a deliberate attempt by early Egyptologists to deny that Ancient Egypt was an African culture. It was embedded within the discipline from the start and will form the subject of my next post.