Another Ten Historical Myths That Refuse to Die

Let’s set these straight

Napoleon crossing the Alps (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

“History became legend. Legend became myth.” — Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Over the course of my time on this site, I have written multiple articles about historical myths and historical revisionism. Among the most popular of these are a semi-regular series on historical myths that simply refuse to go away. Today we’re looking at ten more myths that need to be set straight.

1. Napoleon Bonaparte shot the nose off the Sphinx. After the myth that he was short (by the standards of the time, he wasn’t), one of the most persistent myths about Napoleon is that he had his troops use the Sphinx for target practice during his conquest of Egypt, ultimately shooting off the nose of the ancient statue. This is a 20th century myth apparently even used by Egyptian tour guides of the early 1900s to liven up the story of the Sphinx for European tourists. In fact, the Sphinx was damaged centuries before Napoleon arrived. In one account from 1546, a French explorer noted that the Sphinx no longer had the beauty it possessed centuries before. Most scholars today agree with the medieval Arab accounts that laid the blame for the damage on Muhammad Sa’im Al-Dahr, a fanatical Cairo Sufi, around 1378, more than 400 years before Napoleon arrived.