Art History Professor in China Claims Egyptian Pyramids Are Modern Fakes

2/5/2021

A couple of weeks ago, Huang Heqing, a professor in the department of art and archaeology at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China made ridiculous claims about ancient history at a conference. Huang, who teaches art history, holds a doctoral degree from the University of Paris but nonetheless is convinced that all the achievements of ancient Western cultures were fabricated in the nineteenth century.

A professor in School of Arts & Archaeology at Zhejiang Univ @ZJU_China (National Rank 4), with a doctoral degree from Univ de Paris @Univ_Paris, announced he found "irrefutable evidence" that Great Pyramid, Persepolis, Parthenon were all fakes, built by Europeans in the 19th c. pic.twitter.com/ISynowhpdK
— Jin Xu (@xujnx) February 3, 2021

At the conference, Huang made the following assertions. They were presented in Mandarin, which it should be obvious that I do not speak. Below is a machine translation, which I have smoothed out and compared to discussions from actual Mandarin speakers who have also analyzed the claims:

Athens in Greece, the pyramids of Egypt and the “ruins” of Persepolis in Iran are modern forgeries. Using the method of “illustrated history,” from the perspective of art history, to examine ancient Western architecture, sculpture, cultural relics and sites, through a network of resources and access to a large number of rare and almost undisputed illustrations and historical photographs of ancient Western books, unquestionably proves that Athens’ Parthenon and other monuments, the Egyptian Sphinx, and the ruins of Persepolis in Iran ... It's all a modern forgery.

1. The Parthenon in Athens is a fake.

2. Monuments such as the Temple of Zeus in Athens were built in the 19th century.

3. The pyramids of Egypt were newly built after 1809.

4. Persepolis was designed by the French and is less than 100 years old.

As best I can tell, his argument seems to be that nineteenth century drawings of ancient sites and art are not scientific records of preexisting structures and carvings but rather plans for construction. The stunning ignorance—and the wholesale imaginary conspiracy required to carry out this ridiculous work, fabricating thousands of years of documents, and rewriting thousands of books—boggles the mind.

He went on to claim that steel was an invention of the Chinese, not the West, and that cuneiform is a “scam” designed to rob China of its primacy as the first culture to write.

Fortunately, his colleagues in China have criticized his bizarre claims, and he has apparently been mocked vigorously on Weibo, the popular Chinese social media site.

20 Comments

Jim

2/5/2021 11:49:03 am

When was the Coliseum in Rome finished,,,,,,, the scaffolding was still up and work going on when I was there in the 1990s for Pete's sake.

The Rooster

2/5/2021 03:24:46 pm

OMG! I saw that, too, in the late 80s!

Look? Just for the sake of hilarity, and driving the ball sack down the field? I say we go with the crazy Chinese guy. Most refreshing madness in decades.

😅😅😅

2/5/2021 09:23:24 pm

*back*

Not "sack". Freudian slip. Sorry, gang.

😅🖕❤️

Kent link

2/5/2021 12:18:45 pm

Ho and hum. Wake me when he claims that magnetized bits of rock carry declination with them, that he won five state football championships, or that Reno is not west of Los Angeles.

And Jason? Not for nothing, but steel was invented in India around 500 BC. Hardly "the West". Be best!

Rock Knocker

2/5/2021 03:34:36 pm

Now that Bob Schoch’s bizarre claims of the great antiquity of the Sphynx have been debunked, whatever will he do henceforth as a talking head on AA, etc?

Kent

2/5/2021 09:16:24 pm

"Is Greece western?"

Simply put, yes.

Wee Jim

2/7/2021 11:39:01 am

"Is Greece western?"
No. Greece's important relationships were with Egypt, Persia, the Black Sea and around the Mediterranean Sea.

However, if we ask "Is the West Greek?", then, yes.

T. Franke link

2/5/2021 04:43:59 pm

Much can be said to this professor.

"all the achievements of ancient Western cultures"

I would first like to question the word "Western". Is Greece western? Is Persepolis western? From a Chinese perspective maybe. But what about Japan and South Korea? They are in the East of China but still "Western" in their adoption of democracy and the achievements of the "West".

I would rather prefer to talk about humanism and enlightenment, independently of compass direction and culture. It happened in China, too, with Confucius. And in Greece. Both not the perfect thing, but a beginning. Persepolis is rather not on the list, I am sorry, but earlier stages of Mesopotamian cultures did contribute something indeed. Also Islamic Bagdad in the Golden Age of Islam surely is on the list.

Secondly, the radical questioning of the known course of history sounds very much like certain Foucault'ish narratives about Western civilization. In the end, some accusations to Trump's 1776 report are not so different. The claim was e.g. that all the freedoms and achievements did not exist then, but were achieved only much later and then only projected back into the past. This is not completely wrong, but rather wrong than right. It is not so different to the Chinese professor's claim: Washington and other Founding Fathers believing in human rights for all human beings only to be understood as a picture painted much later is almost exactly the same what the Chinese professor said.

Then, we live in a time where knowledge about history and the Humanities as such has lost much of its esteem. Sometimes I have the impression that I live in a world where most people do not know any more how all our achievements have come from. And which bad ideas have already been tried in the past and failed. This is kind of erasing history, too: Just not being interested in, just having a condesending smile for people who care about. He, who does not remember history, is doomed to repeat it. And then the same "buildings" will be re-built, of course.

Then, this Chinese professor is not completely wrong about new constructions of ancient buildings. The Acropolis e.g. had been much more destroyed than it can be seen today. They put back into place some ancient stones, but they also produced new stones to be put into the reconstructed Acropolis. (Or the Athena temple, the Parthenon, to be precise.) This is the enigma of Theseus' Ship: Is it still original, if you replace all the parts over time, or is it not?

Then, the Acropolis is not the "real" thing in Athens. It was only a complex of temples. Democracy and philosophy happened at other places. In the Agora and at the Pnyx. I would never say that the Acropolis building is a great Western achievement. Well, the statues maybe, yes. The statues. Because they are free from all religious frippery and very good natural copies of the real human being. This is an achievement. But not the building as such. It has become only a symbol for this all, over time. Somehow, this Chinese professor confuses the building of great buildings (Acropolis, pyramids) with civilatory achievements.

Just my 2 cents.

Anthony G.

2/5/2021 07:14:38 pm

Thanks professor but, we do our own good job of denying our past. This is why people keep calling a milestone a millstone. Part of a relic church, and Roseline found by the Spanish and a terrestrial compass rose incorporating the Celestial sphere, and the star cluster we call Cygnus. More specifically the Northern Cross asterism part of the overall constellation. Then began the shift to the modern system and a different set of stars. Maps and globes sure have been dumbed down over the past 500 years. Globes no longer carry the celestial knowledge incorporated into them.

The Spanish weren't the only ones to use this Roseline or the Mile Stone/relic church. There are works of cartography which show this knowledge preceding the Spanish. All of this is posted for free at the Phippsburg History Center if you wish to follow along. Some pretty incredible work has been done at reviving maps 400 to 1,000 years old. The level of artistic skill amongst the cartographers is amazing. The cartographers are telling a different story than what we've been taught.

2/6/2021 10:53:32 am

No one calls a milestone a millstone.

Phipps History Center blows.

One wonders if Big Map is working with the Freemasons or the Smithsonian?

2/6/2021 05:46:37 pm

"No one calls a milestone a millstone."

Oh really???

https://www.andytheargumentativearchaeologist.com/newport-tower.html

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/the-newport-tower.html

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-newport-tower-the-lovecraft-connection

Multiple inaccuracies in this article

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/did-giovanni-verrazano-visit-the-newport-tower

This article needs updated too. Coded message LAVRA.

"One wonders if Big Map is working with the Freemasons or the Smithsonian?"

These maps reside all over the world. 99% of all maps were created after 1900. Therefore, we are dealing with less than 1% of 1%. Over 300 works of cartography attest to the same thing. Many of which predate the Spanish. Most of the pigments on these maps have gone to crap. This is why it's so amazing that a cell phone can bring it all back to life. The crappier looking the smear, smudge, or splotch the more detail has gone to crap over the centuries. Those smears, smudges, and splotches were once highly detailed islands, icons and other features.

In many cases the writing has completely faded. Some of the pigments have turned black and brown. Sometimes the map itself is almost faded to oblivion. Yet, a lone man in Kansas can bring it all back with his cell phone. The stick figures, and other detailed iconography representing certain constellations are really neat. The biggest shock was discovering the Vinland map is REAL. Someone touched it up at some point but, it's real.

"Phipps History Center blows."

NO. I'm pretty sure he is straight.

2/9/2021 06:48:16 am

https://www.andytheargumentativearchaeologist.com/newport-tower.html

Contains neither "millstone" nor "milestone".

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/the-newport-tower.html

Contains neither "millstone" nor "milestone".

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-newport-tower-the-lovecraft-connection

Contains neither "millstone nor "milestone".

The patient is 0 for 3.

We used to have a patient, uh, poster here who went by Anthony Warren among other names and used to talk about using a cellphone for purposes for which it was not a good tool. He was also all up inside Patrick Shekleton on Scott Wolter's website.

Phippsburg History Center. Status unchanged.

2/9/2021 10:17:28 am

Blah, blah, blah. Too lazy to check out the work. How about the remnants of Vinland and relic church on a 1455 map. Right along the Cygni Roseline!

https://www.facebook.com/114338978642314/photos/a.114955778580634/3673464672729709/?type=3&source=57

Consensus public opinion of American Negro/Disco Dan/Kent
Unchanged.

PLEASE, keep talking. PLEASE!!!

2/9/2021 03:41:47 pm

https://f3dscans.com/newport-tower

"...using a cellphone for purposes for which it was not a good tool."

I call BULLSHIT. All carvings and inscriptions found with cellphone have been VINDICATED. They are ALL there. NEW carvings and inscriptions have been found too!

2/10/2021 08:55:26 am

You posted 3 links to back up your assertion and none of them did.

Life is too short to chase your clues, Anthony Warren/Jr. Timelord/Priceless Defender. As demonstrated above your track record is not good.

Today's forecast is 100% chance of sucking in the Phippsburg Historic Center area. As I recall most of the site is links to FaceBook pages. No es bueno, es mucho "lame".

2/10/2021 10:48:39 am

If you squash a bug on an antique map Patrick Shekleton will identify it as the Newport Tower.
He is the King of Pareidolia.

Going from memory, he once identified a smudgy squiggle located near or on Greenland on an antique map, and claimed it was the Newport tower but said the cartographer marked it in Greenland to hide it's true location from the world.

2/12/2021 08:47:13 pm

Just Jason Colavito's two resident ninnies. Two regular bescumbers of this blog usually arguing over the International Date Line. Come on now. I know you can do better.

Funny. We are holding back!

For a poor man's version of multispectral imaging, I don't do too bad. We have made visible things which have not been seen for over 500 to 1,000 years. Those are not stains at all. They are the remnants of once highly detailed islands with various icons attached. Many of the pigments have turned brown and black due to age. In many cases, We have been able to bring them back to their original condition. Follow the links. You will see the entire process.

Bye, bye now.