quote:A Chinese professor claims that the Egyptian pyramids, the Parthenon, and other remnants of ancient civilizations in the West, were all faked by Western scholars in order to fabricate an ancient history, and diminish the glory of China.
Hong Kong News outlet Hong Kong 01 is just one of many Chinese language media who reported on the farcical claims after Professor Huang Heqing broadcast one of his lectures live to the internet recently.
While ultranationalist conspiracy theories are not rare in China (or indeed, in any other country), what makes this story even more bizarre is that Huang teaches in the School of Arts and Archeology at Zhejiang University – one of the oldest, most selective, and prestigious universities in China.
Huang Heqing stated in his lecture that from the 19th to 20th centuries, the West was rampantly forging historical and cultural relics, and spending huge sums of money everywhere from the Mediterranean to India, fabricating fake ancient relics.
The Pyramids of Khufu, and the Great Sphinx of Giza, were made of concrete, and constructed in the 19th century, Huang claims.
“A well-known French chemist and material scientist conducted physical and chemical analysis on the Khufu pyramid in the 1980s, and confirmed that other than a small amount of natural stone, it mostly consisted of concrete.”
“Another materials scientist from the United States came to a similar conclusion,” Huang says, without naming the French and American scientists.
“In addition, the stones at the bottom of the Pyramid of Khufu have a “lip shape”, which is obviously a sign they were cast,” Huang said. “The ancient Egypt we know today is actually a fairy tale fabricated by the Western orthodox historians since the 19th century.”
Western scholars elevated the status of ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indian civilizations at China’s expense, Huang argues.
The intention of this vast occidental conspiracy in fictionalizing these three civilizations to appear to be older than Chinese civilization was to “weaken the glory of Chinese civilization. Chinese civilization is more ancient,” Huang said.
Goes to show you there truly are no limits to the insanity ethno-nationalists will sink into.
posted
Sad that a professor will stoop so low and make such weird claims.
Otherwise, in our time of social media, it is not totally uncommon with absurd claims, like the woman on TikTok who claims that the Roman empire never existed.
Some people on social media actually took some time to refute her, among others Lady of the Library
quote: There's a TikToker who is currently spreading a false conspiracy theory that the Roman Empire (and everything encompassed within it) never existed. As a new, baby Classics PhD student, I felt compelled to make a video debunking everything they say.
posted
^ Another example of Chinese ultra-nationalism run amok. There are examples years ago of Chinese professors claiming an East Asian origin of mankind and guess which modern country.
There is ONE thing I somewhat agree with and that is since when are all the civilizations he listed all 'Western' in the sense of Western European or at least European?? The only one was Greece. The older civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia were different cultures that were non-European. For example, for the longest time Egypt was considered "Western" but not Nubia even though Egyptian culture is far closer related to Nubia than anything else.
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
A Chinese American professor has proposed that the ancient Olmecs were Chinese, or at least were inspired by ancient Chinese people, and that the Olmec glyphs were in fact ancient Chinese signs.
quote: Chinese origins Some writers claim that the Olmec civilization came into existence with the help of Chinese refugees, particularly at the end of the Shang dynasty. In 1975, Betty Meggers of the Smithsonian Institution argued that the Olmec civilization originated due to Shang Chinese influences around 1200 BC. In a 1996 book, Mike Xu, with the aid of Chen Hanping, claimed that the very same La Venta celts discussed above actually bore Chinese characters. These claims are unsupported by mainstream Mesoamerican researchers. The evidence relied on by Mike Xu, including the coincidence of markings on Olmec pottery with those on Chinese oracle bone writings, the significance of jade in both cultures and the shared knowledge of the position of true North, was discussed in an article by Claire Liu in 1997.
As is well known, Chinese are not the only who claim the ancient Olmec culture, claims of European, Middle eastern and African origin have also been forwarded. Seems that some people simply can not accept that Native Americans in ancient times could create their own civilisations.
For some reason one does not so often hear claims of the opposite, that American indigenous people sailed out on the oceans to civilize the "Old World".
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 2684 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
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posted
^ Yeah and I remember reading an article almost two decades ago by an East Asian (I don't know if Chinese) who is not a professor but theorizes the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built by "Mongoloids".
-------------------- Mahirap gisingin ang nagtutulog-tulugan. Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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