Ancient Egyptians believed a human's soul could occupy a sculpture reserved for that person, and Edward Bleiberg said "the vandalism deactivated an image’s strength."

The statues hold a certain power in Egypt, Edward Bleiberg said in the article. He said the statues represented the intersection between humans and the supernatural.

A common cultural belief in ancient Egypt was that once a body part on the monument is damaged it cannot perform its purpose anymore, therefore a broken nose causes the spirit to stop breathing, he said.

The exhibit "Striking Power: Iconoclasm in Ancient Egypt" for the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, curated by Bleiberg, states in its catalog that it delves into the "targeted destruction driven by political and religious motivations."

Rulers benefited from the defacement, which helped them by "rewriting history to their advantage." However, the exhibit's catalog makes no mention of race as a motivating factor for defacement.

In an article published by Live Science, curator Adela Oppenheim from the Department of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art also said the statues were believed to have a sort of life form and to "deactivate" it people would smash off the nose.

Oppenheim said antagonists, like robbers, would deface the statues because they believed they had powers to harm intruders. 

The Sphinx’s nose and the one who caused its fracture is one of the most controversial topics, there were a lot of rumors about who caused it, so what was the reason behind the destruction of this historic statue?!

As for the accusation of Napoleon Bonaparte and his armies of deliberately breaking the nose of the statue during the French campaign against Egypt in 1798, these accounts were refuted based on the information of the historians who confirmed that the paintings left by the European explorer, Frederick Lewis, in 1737, showed it without a nose, it showed it without a nose in a shape similar to its current shape.

The account of one of the Egyptian historians, the Maqrizi historian of the fifteenth century, denies these accusations, claiming that the destruction of the statue was from a fanatical Sufi named Mohammed Saem Al-dahr (also spelled Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr); this sheikh’s campaigned to remove evil things and images, and “the sphinx” at the head of them. His goal was to stop worship and convert the people to his beliefs as another form of control, by disconnecting the people from their history!

He did his best to destroy it, until he was enough by maiming its mouth and nose, the statue remained so to this day, and as a punishment for his act, in 1378 the local people beat him to death! 🙏🏾

THERE IS NO DENYING THE AFRICAN FEATURES AND ANCESTRY OF THE PEOPLE OF KEMET ✊🏾