The long-held belief that even the giant sphinxes had lost their noses due to wear and tear isn't actually accurate, but rather these statues were intentionally vandalized in an effort to reduce their symbolic powers. Wikimedia Commons The Great Sphinx of Giza, perhaps the most famous Egyptian statue with a glaringly missing nose. As curator of the Brooklyn Museum’s Egyptian art galleries, Edward Bleiberg fields a lot of questions from curious visitors. The most common one is a mystery many museum-goers and history obsessives have pondered for years — why are the statues’ noses so often broken? According to CNN , Bleiberg’s commonly held belief was that the wear and tear of millennia would naturally affect the small, protruding parts of a statue before the larger components. After hearing this question so often, however, Bleiberg began doing some investigative research. Bleiberg’s research posited that ancient Egyptian artifacts were deliberately defaced as they served as poli...
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