I remember a teacher telling me how Archaeologists would hack off the noses of statues they found in order to remove any indication that it was of a black person or any POC. It hurts me to think of all the art we’ve lost and damaged because of historical revisionism and flat out racism.
I…wasn’t taught this. Only about penises being broken off as censorship.
When I was in primary school (around 8 or 9) I asked why none of the Egyptian statues had noses. They lied to us and said that they broke off because they were a really fragile bit of the statues so when I learnt the real reason (years later) I was so pissed off with teachers for lying to millions of school children around the world. It’s disgusting and needs to be taught properly.
It was likely not just archaeologists doing this; it was (tacitly if not openly) more or less official policy of colonialist European governments to discredit, cast doubt on, and appropriate the achievements of non-white civilizations. This is our history, and the history of colonialism and white supremacy.
People who deface and destroy cultural artifacts are not archaeologists – at least, not in the modern sense of the word. Most “archaeologists” up until the end of the 19th century were little more than treasure hunters. Archaeology, as it is practiced today, is about historical study and preservation. We do not destroy evidence, especially not to support a racist agenda.
