According to a common legend, the famous Egyptian structure lost his nose due to the fault of the French commander. We checked if it was true.

Here's what he writes in his memoirs The famous Soviet diplomat Nikolai Kanaev: “During a trip to Egypt, Napoleon visited these places. For a long time he peered into the face of the Guardian of the Pyramids and the pride filled with greatness and pride and the pharaohs sent by God and, as it were, the defender of all of Africa. It is not known what associations caused the greatness of the Sphinx in Napoleon, but he ordered the gun to bring the gun into the Sphinx ... The nucleus hit the nose and beat off most of it. The head remained. "

A similar statement can be found in the journal "Fight" for 1956, the famous Soviet writer writes about it Nikolai Tikhonov. And the popular publicist and author of a number of historical works Sergey Kara-Murza reports: "The Russians beat the French, but France did not hate and would not, like Napoleon, beat off the nose of the sphinx and blow up the Kremlin." The legend is spreading today - for example, thanks to the cognitive article on the Radio website Relax.fm.

The story of Napoleon and in the West is well known. In 1995, the leader of the African American radical organization "Nation of Islam" Luis Farrakhan during his "Million Men march" declared: "The superiority of the white It became the reason that Napoleon deleted his nose, because he was too reminded to you (white. - Approx. Aut.) About the greatness of a black person. ” The same statement appeared in 2020 on the popular Facebook page African Diaspora.

One more book quote - At first glance, professional: “Europeans captured Egypt at the end of the 18th century during the famous Egyptian expedition of Napoleon. Before that, Egypt was under the rule of the Mamelukov. Around this time, perhaps the "scientific processing" of Egyptian history began. It is well known, for example, that Napoleon’s gun batteries were shot with direct fire from the guns of the famous Sphinx in Giza and greatly damaged his face.

The question is, why was this done? Maybe by ignorance of ordinary French soldiers? But in the army of Napoleon was the staff of scientists-egiptologists. Where did they look? Why did they not like the face of the Big Sphinx and the inscriptions on the tombs of the pharaohs? But it was with the Egyptian campaign of Napoleon that the rapid development of European Egyptology began. Hieroglyphs are deciphered, papyrus and so on are found. And at the same time they knock down inscriptions from tombs and shoot ancient monuments from the guns. ”

However, there is a very important point here, namely, the personality of the author of the quote. His name is Anatoly Fomenko, and he is the creator of the notorious new chronologyIn which an alternative view of world history is presented, which has nothing to do with reality. Therefore, we turn to the conclusions of these historians.

In 1798, then General Napoleon Bonaparte was still headed campaign The French army in order to conquer Egypt, turn it into a French colony and undermine the dominance of Great Britain in the Eastern Mediterranean. Despite a number of high -profile victories, as a result, the French army was forced to retreat, and Napoleon abandoned it and returned to Paris ahead of schedule, after he realized that the final defeat was inevitably. Nevertheless, the campaign was also of important cultural significance, since Bonaparte included advanced scientists in his expedition. As a result, in Europe, interest in the ancient civilizations of the East has repeatedly increased, and the Rosetta stone discovered during the expedition has opened an opportunity to decipher the ancient Egyptian writing.

What happened with one of the main attractions of Egypt during the days of staying there Napoleon? The facts say nothing special. For example, the drawings of the Danish captain Friedrich Norden, made in 1737 and published 18 years later in the book, have been preserved "Travel from Egypt to Nubia":

How easy it is to notice, even then, long before the arrival of Napoleon, the nose of the Sphinx was absent almost completely and since then almost did not change. Perhaps the Napoleonic soldiers trained their accuracy on a colossal figure, but without any noticeable consequences for the monument.

What caused the loss of the great creation of antiquity of an important element? The versions on this subject vary. Back in the 15th century, the Egyptian Arab historian Abbas al-Makrizi accused In the vandalism of the Sufi fanatic of Muhammad Saim al-Dach. Allegedly, in 1378, having learned that the Egyptian peasants still bring the offers of the Sphinx in the hope of a good harvest, Saim al-Dydo has become so furious that he had repulsed his nose from a giant figure. Sufi paid dearly for this - a crowd of local residents tore off him. According to the German Islam Vedu and the historian Ulrich HarmanThis version is confirmed by a number of other significant Arab scientists of the Middle Ages. And at least in 1546, Europeans learned about this lack - a French naturalist visited the country Pierre Belonwho subsequently said that the Sphinx "no longer bears the seals of grace and beauty, which was so admired by [Arab scientist] Abdul-Latif in 1200."

Some authors suggestthat the face of the Great Sphinx was finally disfigured after the shots from the mamluks in the 18th century. For another versions, the Egyptian pharaohs themselves tried in this way to interrupt the afterlife life of their predecessors, which supposedly depended on the integrity of the mummy or the monument. There is also a natural science theory - some scientists They thinkthat the cause of everything was the wind and sharp fluctuations in the air temperature. It turns out that the Arab proverb “The world is afraid of time, and time is afraid of the pyramids” does not apply to the neighbor and peer of these majestic structures.

One way or another, but Napoleon Bonaparte, as we have seen, has nothing to do with the loss of his nose.