Colonisation Results in "Graham Hancock-Figures": The Societal Conditions for Historical Disinformation

Might colonisation result in the likes of Graham Hancock, regardless of the time period? 

In a nutshell, this is what this blog addresses. Why isn't this the title of the blog? Trolls. My brother, with whom I discussed many of these ideas warned me that Hancock and the new generation of "ancient apocalypse" fan-kids can be feral online. Apparently you end up with a different class of fans when you don't have to rely on them reading your entire book like back in the '80s and '90s, and you can now get multi-billion dollar platforms to essentially read these people a pseudo-historical fairytale instead.

The idea coalesced after discussing the unexpected immediate interest in my blog on the "Colossus of Memnon" with my brother. You can find the blog here; this blog will make more sense if you read it. My brother had thought I was talking about the blog I published on the Egyptian historian Manetho in which I also discuss decolonisation (you can find that blog here), and that decolonisation was the point of interest, but it wasn't that blog.

After to-ing and fro-ing while preparing dinner (yes, we are both history nerds discussing history while cooking), we pondered whether it was my inclusion of a discussion of ancient misinformation which might have made it so visible to search engines. This then went into a discussion of modern disinformation campaigns relating to the pseudo-archaeology promoted by Graham Hancock, Ancient Aliens, et alia.

The "Colossus of Memnon" as Pseudo-History

During this conversation I realised that the entire identification of the partially collapsed colossal statue of Amenhotep III as the Homeric hero Memnon is not that different to the rubbish put out by Graham Hancock and his ilk. Compare the pair: 

Was/is the real history actually known? Yes!
Was a gargantuan task successfully completed by people from a non-Caucasian background? Yes! 
Was/is a false history based on natural phenomena* promoted? Yes! 
Was/is this false history being promoted by a foreigner to the place? Yes! 
Did/does this false history result in money being made from those who were/are lied to? Yes! 
*I am comparing the noise from the statue to the erosion on the sphinx here. I imagine similar methods are still being used.

I am sure that other parallels could be drawn if I wanted to revisit the rabbit hole of pseudo-archaeology, but I don’t want to actively seek the destruction of my mental well-being, so I’m writing this using old material I am familiar with.

When I look at the “Colossus of Memnon” through this lens, I see people who have taken over a foreign kingdom (the Ptolemies and then the Romans), looked at an incredible feat of engineering (the movement of an enormous approx. 720 ton stone 675 kilometres), who then disregarded the local people's understanding and history to impose an imagined narrative (the Homeric myth). Add the fact that a natural phenomenon (the heating of the stone generating a sound) which was then given a supernatural explanation (the heroic son greeting his mother, the goddess Dawn), and it has all the hallmarks of an effective historical disinformation campaign. In fact, if the statue were still issuing its sound, I can't help but imagine it would be the topic of various silly theories a la Ancient Aliens.

I have a hatred for these pseudo-historians and pseudo-archaeologists because at the heart of the rubbish they peddle is a deep-seated racism. I am not sure if most of these pseudo-academics consciously acknowledge this fact, but anyone who promotes the idea that the people who lived at a given site were incapable of building it and must have had outside assistance is incredibly offensive. Consider what a reversal of this behaviour might look like:

Niels Vergouwen's "Why is mainstream archaeology so afraid of the truth?" Could be Worse Comic16 March 2023, Instagram. (I adore Niels Vergouwen's work, but consider this comic a masterpiece owing to its ability to quickly convey how racist and stupid these arguments appear)

For that reason, I view these people as representing the worst of the Western society in that they remove agency from non-Caucasian civilisations with regards to their culture, especially engineering, in what is effectively a form of white supremacy. And this kind of behaviour has its roots in colonisation. 

The "Colossus of Memnon" ticks all the boxes for material targeted by those with these kinds of attitudes. To be honest, I am surprised that this statue has not been made the target of such rubbish unless it has been in some of the video that appear in a Google search that I refused to watch. And no, I refuse to go and check because clicks increase how much more those kinds of videos will appear in algorithms, and generates money for these people, and I don't wish to help these kinds of creators in any kind of way! So, I am now considering whether this particular type of pseudo-history existed in antiquity.

Now I recognise that religious syncretism was extraordinarily common throughout the ancient world, but the reidentification of Amenhotep III's broken statue is not such an act. From the perspective of people in the Roman period, Memnon was not a religious figure even if he was a demigod: the Trojan War was regarded an historical event in antiquity. Amenhotep III was also an historical figure. Even the chronographers who were trying to marry up the events of their antiquity together (granted from a Christian perspective) recognised that Memnon and Amenhotep III could not be the same person. The true identity of the statue was known, but despite that, the story of Memon was superimposed upon it anyway. This meets the definition of disinformation: "false and misleading information created or shared to deliberately mislead people."¹ It is my opinion that this is an ancient equivalent to how modern pseudo-historical/pseudo-archaeological bullshit purveyors.

Now it appears that the local people of Thebes end up accepting this recreation of their history, but when you read the inscriptions left upon the statue by Roman woman Julia Balbilla during the visit of emperor Hadrian in 130 CE, they did not let go of their own true Egyptian history of the site. The literary account of Pausanias recognised this history, as did various Christian chronographers (see the The “Singing” Statue Which Illustrates the Graeco-Roman Relationship With Egypt’s Antiquity blog for reference details). 

It is almost as if the conditions of colonisation or conquest promotes historical disinformation. In addition to our modern ideas of disinformation, the more I considered the pseudo-history used around the "Colossus of Memnon", the more appropriate some modern terminology used to describe the information environments and systems can be used to accurately describe the way the broken colossal statue of Amenhotep III had its identity overwritten. 

Information Dissemination in Antiquity 

Once I started looking at the example of the "Colossus of Memnon" through the comparative lens of historical disinformation, new ways of looking at the sources for it came to mind, and some of my existing ideas came into sharper focus. Many of the terms were associate with information dissemination, including those describing that which takes place within social media, are surprisingly effective in conveying what was taking place, be it in an extremely slower, analogue fashion. Most of the analyses of mis/disinformation today have focused on politics and public health, not pseudo-archaeology and pseudo-history, but I think that comparisons can still be made.

The enactment of and engagement with misinformation by controlling foreign interests

The emperor of Rome effectively owned Egypt, and in the case of Hadrian, he took a personal interest in this pseudo-history enough to visit. Eight of the inscriptions on the monument were left by the Prefect of Egypt (an emperor's personally chosen administrative agent), and another by a Prefect's wife. The people who controlled Egypt were deeply engaged in the imposition of this Homeric pseudo-history. The effectiveness of power to legitimise misinformation or disinformation cannot be underestimated. Compare, for example, Donald Trump's use of social media to spread his personal historical disinformation than I can poke my walking stick at, let alone political and public health related. 

The amplification of disinformation

Power is in the best position to amplify disinformation to an audience, regardless of when in history we look. Consider, for example, that following the visit of Hadrian and his sizable entourage in 130 CE,  there seems to have been an uptick in the creation of literature which completely misrepresents the statue: my original comment on misinformation.

However, it must be remembered that this visit was to the "Colossus of Memnon", not the statues of an Egyptian pharaoh. In addition to this, there also seems to be an amplification of the pseudo-history and the sheer lies that surrounded the statue.

Continuing with the Trump comparison, he shares the ideas that he likes on social media, thus amplifying their reach; then his followers often take this material and expand upon it.

Monetisation of the "Attention Economy"

Prior to the fame created by the natural phenomenon of the statue bottom issuing a sound, the region surrounding the colossus was experiencing poverty. It appears that the site was managed by the local priesthood and their acceptance of the pseudo-history generated a tourism economy for the region. Visiting the "Colossus of Memnon" was on every Roman-era tourist's must-do list as a result. It certainly was on Septimius Severus' list, and we know that following Hadrian's 130 CE visit that tourism increased; I propose that he was (likely inadvertently) a tourism "influencer." You could also describe the people who visited the colossus and then wrote about it as being akin to travel bloggers. The use of historical disinformation for economic gain does sound a lot like today's "attention economy":

It can be highly profitable to gain peoples' attention, hence the term 'attention economy'. We all have a limited amount of attention that we can pay to any one thing at a time. If companies or online creators can captivate us, they can sell products, services, or spread messages. This means that there is an incentive to create attention-grabbing information, which often needs to be more extreme or unusual to stand out.¹ 

The concept of a singing or talking statue of a Homeric legend definitely grabbed the attention and the imaginations of people throughout the Graeco-Roman world for the time it continued to sound. The novel held great appeal to people in the Roman world. 

I won't use a Trump comparison here because he attempts (hello bankruptcies) to monetise everything, but I will give another American example: the various historical museums of colonial and revolutionary USA. These include the home of Washington (Mount Vernon) and Jefferson (Montecello), and the more generic Colonial Williamsburg, all of which are opened to the public who rework their history to make Caucasian visitors more comfortable.²

Othering

"Othering" is another term included when discussing mis/disinformation online. Needless to say that there is plenty of evidence of this throughout antiquity, because for the most part, the ancient world was filled with bigots. Sadly, the more I look around the world today, I am unsure if I need the adjective "ancient" in that sentence. The satirist Juvenal, is a perfect example of othering surrounding the story of the Colossus of Memnon. I will expand the quote I provided in the previous blog a little:

[I]s there anyone who doesn’t know the kind of monsters that crazy Egypt worships? One district reveres the crocodile, another quakes at the ibis, glutted with snakes. The sacred long-tailed monkey’s golden image gleams where the magic chords reverberate from crumbling Memnon and ancient Thebes lies in ruins with its hundred gates. Entire towns venerate cats in one place, in another river fish, in another a dog—but no one worships Diana. 

It is much easier to discount an ethnic group's history and religion if you ridicule it. Egypt fascinated the Graeco-Roman world and its cults spread beyond its bounds in the Roman period, but multiple studies have shown that the Egypt received throughout the empire was inherently different to the native Egypt.

I won't provide a modern example, because if you have read this far without stopping in anger, you are aware of what othering is, but if you have difficulty defining it, look at Australian Museum of Democracy link in the notes.

Conclusion

While it might not be exactly the same as the pseudo-history peddled on the History Channel, given Netflix specials and books deals, or the topic of unhinged podcasts and You Tube videos, I do think it is quite similar. 

The people who visited Roman-era Thebes or wrote about it, were denying the local people their history and attributing a wonder to a different culture; a culture which aligned with their understanding of history. This action was certainly influenced by conquest, racial difference bordering on supremacy. What is disgusting to be is that the pair of colossal statues of Amenhotep III are today together called "The Colossi of Memnon". This superimposition of Graeco-Roman culture onto this site is continuing! Given the manner in which "Western Civilisation" is now flung about by white supremacists who hold positions of political, economic, and cultural power, this is wrong on so many levels.

To me this is just shy of being akin to tour guides at the pyramids 2000 years from now (well I doubt humans will still be here, but the pyramids do have form) describing them as having been built by aliens or Atlanteans. If that travesty were to occur, would it be too much to hope it might be accompanied by this marvellous piece of satire on this topic again my Niels Vergouwen:

Niels Vergouwen's "Checkmate archaeologists!" Could Be Worse Comic, 30 July 2021, Instagram.

Notes

¹ The definition comes from the Australian Museum of Democracy.

² I am familiar with this thanks to the American public history work of Tad Stoermer. You can find his videos on the usual platforms and while his personal webpage is focused more on resistance history, he does discuss the misuse of history in the USA frequently. This comes from his blog: Erasing Washington’s Truth: How Mount Vernon and Nationalists Rewrite the Past — Tad Stoermer's Resistance History