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Comment by feralimal | Hacker News Reader

This is something I've noticed on a lot of older statues. Not just Egyptian ones.

This is pretty far from the standard narrative, but I think something happened 300 years ago. A different group moved in, and destroyed the more beautiful creations of the older group. Where there were statues on churches, these were replaced with gargoyles.

I think the nose destruction you raise is a part of that - its a simple way to 'uglify' a thing of beauty. Those Egyptian statues are representation of people that were in perfect proportions and display idealised geometry.

https://www.emotions.64g.ru/prof3/pro04en.htm

So, I think they were beautiful and destroyed intentionally by whoever conquered or moved in over the preceding group.

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Is it silly to assume that a nose would break of the easiest? Like how stretched out arms are usually broken. These statues are very old.

At a glance, the black ones appear to be made of granite - this is very tough! You might wonder how they were ever able to make such perfect representations with very hard material 3000+ years ago. And to then polish them so well that the polish still looks good after all this time, as on the picture at the top of that article.

However (and whenever) they were made, once made, these are hard and most definitely do NOT break accidentally. Well, not so many of them as that, anyway. If it is granite, I think you could drop a statue like that and it would break your wood or marble floor, rather than break off accidentally.

I've seen my fair share of cracked, chipped, and otherwise broken granite countertops. Granite can definitely break accidentally and dropping a granite statue could certainly break off chunks of it.

Maybe the dangling arms of greek statues fall off over time (the article points out that statues held together with dowels are especially susceptible, vs carved from a single block)

But a lot of these statues have arms by their side. Further, the author mentions chisel marks and describes where a statue was hit to break it apart. I think the 'iconoclasm' explanation is fairly uncontroversial.

300 years is so far off, you are basically implying a worldwide conspiracy

EDIT: i read through other comments by you and you seem to be dangerously deep down a rabid hole of believing society to be hocussed by descartes' demon, throwing around words like propaganda and indoctrination that imply evil intent and planning. There is philosophical insight in cartesian doubt, and that radical constructivism you seem to hold dear, but the path you walk is very dangerous, as it is beset by highwaymen that want to break peoples sanity and hook them on their ideology, cultism or concept of enemies. Please be careful.

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