Every so
often internet pages devoted to the ancient world will have a run on posts
about marine archaeology sites from Alexandria ,
Heracleion and Canopus in northern Egypt
And, just
to be clear, this is a fabulous and interesting topic, the excavator of
these sites, Franck Goddio, has a very good web page with some equally good images, that have also been taken out of context and used indiscriminately
on the web, but at least these are legit images, with interesting information at the source. You can find them here
The problem
is that a group of photographs from unrelated modern marine parks have become
hallmarks of these posts on web pages, and these false photos are casually
mixed in with images taken from the excavation web page, sometimes in greater volume
than the real photos.
My post
today is basically the outcome of a new round of this nonsense occurring on the
web and my deciding that I need to have a file with links to the sources
debunking these images. And then I
thought why not create a blog post with the links instead. As that is
convenient for me to find when I need it, as well as for others.
But before
we go in, it is probably worth pointing out that the images that follow are not
just used for ancient Egypt Indonesia ,
China , the Atlantic Ocean or
the Mediterranean . These images are in fact legion in the tin hat
wearing and touristy clickbait realms. A
quick image search on Google will support this statement.
1. Bull statues in some sort of underwater temple
complex
Culturally speaking
these bulls are complete non-entities, as they do not appear to have been modelled on any
ancient culture. To describe them as
ancient Egyptian involves having no awareness of Egyptian art and
assuming that because it is a bovine head with horns and a disk between them
that it must be Egyptian.
But here’s
the thing, the horns are distorted into the wrong shape and the disk is too
small for Egypt. I also have no idea what the
object under the disk is intended to be. The body of the bull itself is rectangular and blocky … so not an
Egyptian thing. They actually liked their cows with curves. Finally the architecture in the background
resembles no ancient culture, it is just schematic and vague, and, pro tip, the
ancient Egyptians did not build with arches, the Romans did, but that is stretching the point..
Also, aquarium fish photoshopped
into an image do not prove it is the ocean. Although to be honest, this whole image looks like it was produced in a
computer program. The top image looks like the outcome of the same
design process.
The source appears to be:
Diving park
at a whizz bang holiday resort in the Bahamas
http://ownthereef.com/atlantis-access/activities/marine-habitat
2. Classical looking lion with columns in
the background
Or should I
say, neo-classical style lion with his paw on a globe and some columns in the
background. This guy would look
appropriate propping up the entrance to a city court building or library
anywhere in Europe today. However, he would not fit a temple entrance
in Egypt 2000 years ago.
The Egyptians liked their lions seated, and if
standing in that rather arrogant pose, they preferred a traditional enemy’s
head under the front paw… it says so much more … A globe was the symbol of the sun god, it
does not get dominated, that would not be cool or respectful.
Again the columns in the background
resemble no specific ancient Mediterranean cultural style, because they don’t
need to, it is a holiday park.
Florida marine park with the theme Atlantis: Neptune Society Memorial Reef
http://www.nmreef.com/reef-gallery.html
http://www.lovethesepics.com/2013/10/eerily-beautiful-underwater-sculptures-art-transformed-into-artificial-reefs-pics/
3. Pharaoh with large pot
What is
wrong with this picture? … As it turns out … rather a lot.
First of
all, a statue of Botticelli’s Venus is in the background. Now the original Venus is part
of a very famous painting, “The Birth of Venus,“ from the Italian Renaissance. Look it up. It is lovely.
It is in fact a historically viral image worthy of the internet age. One way this figure might occur as a 3
dimensional statue is as a garden decoration that one can purchase from most
garden supply centres all over the world.
So that
says modern right there.
Then there
is the pharaoh with the pot on his lap.
Seriously, where do I start?
The entire
figure looks wrong, the details and the modelling are not ancient
Egyptian. A statue of a seated or
kneeling king is never, and I am talking never, shown with a big pot on his lap
with a bit of cloth thrown in for style ... wtf ... it would undermine his whole power over all humanity image. The proportions
are wrong, with the elongated head and crown being just a tad disturbing. The uraeus
snake on the crown is a lump and the jewellery he wears looks nothing like
jewellery on a real statue.
Then there
is the pot, which is not Egyptian type. In fact it looks more like a planter for flowers. The hieroglyphs on this pot are cut into the
clay, but the ancient Egyptians decorated their ceramic with paint. They did not cut or drag a sharp instrument
over the surface. Finally the hieroglyphs
are ugly, unbalanced and they say… absolutely nothing ... because some signs
are made up, some are wrong, primarily because whoever made it had no idea … Again,
probably a garden centre statue.
This photo
is from an underwater museum at Tarkhankut in Crimea
(created in 1992) that people are just adding more objects to as it evolves. So I’m guessing some bright sparks threw in a
few garden statues for lols.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/01/underwater-museum-at-cape-tarkhankut.html
End
Beyond
these three or four hackneyed internet misrepresentations that are used for the Alexandria marine excavations in Egypt Dubai
Then the
internet came along and exploited this just that little bit further.
The final
image is a given, it is a photograph of the Giza
And to
those sensible people reading this post and scratching their heads, because
seriously how could anyone looking at these photographs make this mistake,
regardless of an extensive knowledge of ancient artistic architecture and art, or
none. They can, and they do, and they can
be quite abusive towards you if you suggest otherwise.
So, because
I was sick of trying to look up this information after every encounter over the
last 5 years, I wrote this piece …
Andrea Sinclair