The facts
Cairo authorities painted over a 66-meter-long mural in Tahrir Square that depicted Pharaoh Tutankhamun and Queen Nefertiti with dark skin. The artwork, created by young volunteers from Rasmet Basma using AI program ChatGPT, was commissioned to beautify the city for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit in late August. The mural drew criticism from Egyptians who viewed it as reviving Afrocentric claims about the origins of ancient Egyptians. Ahmed Moussa, founder of Rasmet Basma, stated that the Cairo governorate asked them to paint over the work, acknowledging a mistake in not consulting archaeological and art specialists. Moussa explained that a golden-bronze tone used in the artwork, combined with shadows at night, made the figures appear dark-skinned. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former antiquities minister, deemed the public outrage justified, calling Afrocentric claims about ancient Egyptian civilization being black African in origin ‘nonsense.’ He noted that temple carvings do not depict Egyptian kings as dark-skinned. Egyptologist Monica Hanna described Afrocentric claims as ‘pseudoscience,’ emphasizing the historical ethnic diversity of Egyptian society. AI researcher Walid Mahmoud cautioned that AI tools like ChatGPT can reflect widely shared online information rather than factual accuracy, potentially shaping perceptions of cultural identity.
Our take
Well, here we go, another masterclass in cultural cowardice from the fucking geniuses running Cairo. Some kids, the Rasmet Basma volunteers, get a commission to pretty up Tahrir Square for a visiting Chinese president. They use an AI, because why not, and they paint a 66-meter mural of Tutankhamun and Nefertiti. And then the city, in a fit of historical hysteria, sends in the whitewash brigade because, oh holy shit, the pharaohs look a bit dark. The shadows at night, combined with a 'golden-bronze tone,' made them appear dark-skinned, says the project founder, Ahmed Moussa, with the defensive whimper of a man who just realized he hired a robot to do history's homework. So instead of turning on a fucking streetlight or, I don't know, commissioning a follow-up mural about the sun, the authorities just paint the whole thing over. That's their solution: historical erasure with a roller. It's the bureaucratic equivalent of shitting your pants because you saw a shadow and then burning the trousers.
Enter Zahi Hawass, the former antiquities minister, who pops up to bless this clown show. He calls the public outrage justified and labels Afrocentric claims 'nonsense,' because temple carvings, the ancient world's ultimate source for skin-tone diversity, apparently don't show dark-skinned kings. Never mind that the actual 'outrage' seems to be about a fucking paint job influenced by an AI chatbot's interpretation of 'widely shared online information,' as researcher Walid Mahmoud cautiously notes. So the city is taking policy cues from the digital equivalent of a drunk uncle's Facebook rant. Monica Hanna, an Egyptologist, calls Afrocentric ideas 'pseudoscience,' which is fine, but the response to pseudoscience isn't to behave like a censorious, paint-splattered asshole. It's to have a conversation, maybe even put up a plaque. But no, the governorate's big-brain move is to cover it up, admitting they forgot to ask any archaeologists or art specialists before green-lighting the project in the first place. So their incompetence is matched only by their panic.
This is the most pathetic kind of cultural policing: reactive, stupid, and utterly devoid of any grace. They were so terrified that a mural might accidentally agree with a theory they hate that they destroyed a piece of public art made by volunteers. They treated a wall like a thoughtcrime. The whole saga is a perfect monument to modern institutional cowardice - afraid of shadows, afraid of AI, afraid of color, and absolutely pissing themselves over what a bunch of tourists or, god forbid, President Xi might think. They didn't preserve history; they performed a cover-up, literally, because their own vanity and historical insecurity couldn't handle a bit of bronze paint in the wrong light. What a pack of thin-skinned, paint-huffing bastards.
