Revising history

Chxta offer his two pence of how and why Africa's history has been written over again.

Revising history

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?"

---Napoleon Bonaparte.

Has any one of you wondered why the Sphinx by the Great Pyramid of Giza has no nose? According to the legend, when the great French general later to be emperor, Napoleon invaded Egypt, he was shocked to find that the Sphinx's nose had the distinct broad features of a Negro. This was in direct contradiction to the prevailing thinking at the time that Negro peoples had absolutely no history and that the ancient empire of Egypt for example had a Caucasian upper class who lorded it over subject peoples.

The Negro nose possessed by the Sphinx challenged that school of thought, so to remove any doubts in his mind, Napoleon had his soldiers break the nose off. As time has gone on since that incident in 1798, it has become accepted thinking that Rameses II was Caucasian. Recent archaeological evidence challenges that perception, but whole generations have come and gone in the 211 years since, who have believed with their entire souls that the Egyptian Empire was ruled by a Caucasian upper class. In that regard, Napoleon has successfully revised history. Of course that story is not exactly true as a Danish explorer, Frederic Norden made sketches of the Sphinx in 1737 and it was without a nose then. Napoleon was born in 1769. However, there are so many cases of history being rewritten to suit the whims of a conquering peoples.

Fast-forward the clock some 211 years, and there is a genuine attempt to rewrite the history books.