I recently read an interesting article by Julia Wolkoff about the reason why so many Egyptian statues & flat reliefs had been desecrated. It’s based on the book written by Brooklyn Museum curator Edward Bleiberg entitled “Striking Power: Iconoclasm in Ancient Egypt.”
The article calls on the psychology associated with the destruction of these artifacts summing the action up essentially to ‘campaigns of vandalism intended to deactivate’ an image’s (perceived) strength. In other words, the belief in the abilities of these monoliths from their creators is so strong that we are going to smite them. You know… just in case.
Seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
There have been a few arguments put forth as to why so many of these structures & historic records were destroyed in this particular way. Now I’m not about to open a full-on debate on the topic here, but the argument that holds the most validity for me is instead, an intended desire to remove the verifiable identities of the creators who ruled this region during that era. In my view, the act is too precise for it to have been rooted in the idea that “maybe we ought to make sure the deities we don’t believe in associated with these structures don’t prove us wrong”.
It’s so ironic, storytelling. The richest & oldest communication tool of our species. So easily used or forgotten, readily interpreted or misrepresented, engorged or gentrified. From the dawn of our time it seems it’s been this way.
We all love a good story. I think it’s just become a part of our DNA. & if it’s not, it’s at least a way of tracking events. The lines between the truth & fiction are regularly blurred in the name of entertainment. Some of our best works of literary & cinematic fiction are simply reimaginings of the truth, often dominating our iconoclastic cultural mediums. It’s not wrong, in the sense that such creations spur other creative endeavors & the cycle perpetuates. & since this type of creativity has the ability to push us to think about other possibilities, creating what we ‘know to be true’ & always challenging us to consider our own feelings, it adds validity to the human experience. Where it gets problematic is when it results in the rewriting of history. Yeah, it’s a possible risk every time a work is created. The reality is, many of our predecessors’ historical accounts have been reviewed & edited & redacted & altered. Hell, it’s happening as we speak in many parts of the world through the filter of news oftentimes.
While creative pursuits are so critical to a holistic human being, the facts of our collective history should not be lost in it. It should be catalogued, & verified, & studied. For if you don’t know your past, you can’t definitively design a future you know is your own. & as we are constantly reminded, our history has a way of repeating itself when left unchecked.