Egyptian Inspiration for the Statue of Liberty
Our Lady Liberty has been an icon in the American story, representing hope & freedom, and was the first thing most immigrants saw when coming into the New York Harbor.
Some know this statue in NY was designed by a French sculptor, and given to the US as a gift from France celebrating 100 years of independence from Britain (which was France’s long term enemy neighbor). Even fewer people know this statue was designed with the Colossus of Rhodes in mind (a sun god in modern day Turkey), built at the entrance of their ancient (and rich) port town (which is exactly what NY is).
In my studies of Egypt, I discovered some interesting connections that our own epic symbol of freedom had to do with Egypt. What could she possibly have to do with Egypt?
Several things:
The French sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, designed the Statue of Liberty, just after he visited Egypt, and was inspired by the large Egyptian monuments carved into rock for King RAmesses (named Ra/Re/Ray after the Egyptian sun god, and where we can trace our words of sunRAY and REign of a Queen).
The french guy was also inspired also by the sun god statue in RHOdes known as the “Colossus”. We know this for a fact, since the inscription on the base of our Statue of Liberty literally reads, “The New Colossus”.
The statue of the original Colossus sun god in Rhodes was built to celebrate the victory against a rouge Greek general attempting to steal their treasures. They only reason they were able to protect themselves was because the Egyptians came in to help.
Inspired by both Egyptian statues, and the statue built in thanks to the Egyptians (and their sun god, whose name survives in remnant form in the name Rhodes itself), the french guy’s first idea was to build a similar huge lighthouse for the Suez Canal in Egypt, of a WOMAN who brought illumination to the world.
His original design was one of a simple Egyptian woman, but Egypt (then an Arab state under British “protectorship”), not surprisingly, rejected, stating it was too expensive. I bet there were also some questions about, “why her”?
Here we see three cultures bonding in their attempt to rid themselves of Britain: France, the US, and Egypt.
The French guy then reconstructed his idea and proposed it in America.
From there, he sponsored world wide fundraisers to get our Statue of Liberty built as a gift from France to America celebrating 100 years of freedom.
So there is a WHOLE LOT Egyptian about our Lady of Liberty that is of Egyptian inspiration.
Let’s go back in time to each of these moments:
Egypt - The Tomb of Ramesses
Alexander the Great
We need to understand Alexander to understand the signifigance of Rhodes. He was a young general who took the world by storm around 333 BC. At just 20 years old, he took the throne, and within 13 years amassed more land than anyone else in known history. Julius Caesar is told to have cried over being insignificant in comparison. The thing about Alexander is he was like the best quarter back of all time. He was charming, smart, and athletic. He lead his men into battle, never once lost, and made strategic maneuvers and quick adjustments that allowed him to win every battle. Many places he just walked up and they surrendered, as was the case with Egypt. Ones who faught him and lost were destroyed, completely. He was not afraid to be brutal, ina. world that was brutal, and yet, he showed incredible compassion to those who were loyal. He did not force beleifs on anyone, instead seemed like a young guy touring the world that he read about in his studies.
This guy was set up for success: his father was the king of the Macedoniam kingdom, just one among the Greek states that had been fighting eachother for the last few hundred years, keeping their military strong and ready. Persia, on the other hand, had been the major power house empire. They would poke in and mess with one greek state, fund one until they became more powerful, then help another, so nobody could ever really take over or unite. Alexander changed all that. He made everyone love him, even the wife and mother of the Persian king, who were left deserted in battle. He was taught by Aristotle himself. And the most interesting of all, had a mother who made him believe he was the son of a god, like Hercules. Once in Egypt, which was at its most glorious reputation, they treated him as a living god, and reinforced his mother’s prediction. This, in comparison to the Persian king who was only married into the throne, and beleived he was at the mercy of the finicky gods. Rather than trying to win their favor, Alexander beleived he WAS a god. What i like best, is that he allowed the cultures brought into his empire to thrive. He embraced their culture. He allowed them to maintain all their old ways and religions, and his army even complained he was becoming too foriegn himself.
What he could do, nobody else could. Upon his death, both of his sons (the number is debateable, some say he had 8 children), but the known sons of royal acknowledged birth, were killed. This left a fight for the throne and division of his empire. His generals split up the lands between themselves, with his best friend, Ptolemy, getting the best cuts of land: Egypt and the lands of the Jews. Another general had the town of Rhodes, nearby and just across the sea from Egypt. One of the general’s son decided to plunder Rhodes, a known rich community thanks to trade, but lost, only due to the help of the Egyptian crew. This set up Rhodes to be in debt to the Egyptians. The main god of the Egyptians was Ra. Could it be a surprise that the sun god was what was built in thanks? This was the colossus that inspired the New Colossus of the statue of liberty. A rose of any other name smells as sweet. Call her lady liberty, Ray, Colossus, Helios, she or he is the sun god.
Alexander’s Successors and the fight over Rhodes
Demetrius, son of Antigonus, attacked Rhodes. Most of the Greek world agree that it was more of pirate attack than any political strategy. The Rhodiams applied to Ptolemy in Egypt for help. Rhodes was
The RHOdian statue was built to celebrate the battle against the invaders trying to plunder their massive port treasure, and they only won (in a VERY close battle) with the help from forces in Egypt. Once safe, used all the metal from the weapons to build the statue. Funny part of all of it, the two men fighting - the one attacking Rhodes, and the one leading the Egyptian forces that came to help - over plundering Rhodian treasures or protecting them, were both Alexander the Great’s generals. When he died, after he was deified as a living version of the sun god RAY in Egypt, his generals split up his territory and fought over it. At only 33 years old, he amassed the greatest amount of land victory ever known. He did have at least 2 sons born that could have succeeded him, but both were murdered by people trying to take the seat of power themselves, and in a Roman upset that both women, the mothers of the future emperors, were NOT Roman or Greek.
Napoleon
The only reason we know anything about the Egyptian traditions is that she was able to find her voice, with the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone. The history around it is fascinating. The French in 1799 were in battles with the British.
The sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty was forn in the era
The British Rival
France vs Britain
France and Britain have been long rivals,
The French themselves were hoping for independence, a right that America only ever got with France’s help against their mutual enemy: the British, who are pretty much bullies as rulers, extracting wealth with no concern for people’s wellbeing. France and America got away, but India couldn’t until very very recently: 1947. And her cultural amnesia still exists. Egypt is just getting her voice back, with France’s help from the 1799 Napoleon Exhibition, but 200 years later, we still struggle with understanding her. Of course, British swooped in after France, and took control of Egypt, and built the Dam and Canal, both of which devastated agriculture and created chemical damage with pestcides that the river and fertile lands may never recover. Egypt’s wealth came from the soil, which is now so polluted you are told not to touch.
over 75% of fish tested in the Nile were contaminated with microplastics, and is often referred to as the "Plastic Nile". It is also highly polluted by heavy metals like cadmium, nickel, chromium, copper, lead and zinc.
US vs Britain
The only reason America broke away was with France’s financial help, which almost bankrupted their country. Thomas Jefferson spent years in France negotiating them, and they eventually spent a quarter of their GDP (total annual income) on supporting the American Revolution.
The only reason America was discovered at all was because the Christian Roman Empire lost the port city of Istanbul/Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, which cut off trade to India and Asia. This caused:
Columbus to sail west in 1492, (looking for “Indians”)
Vasco de Gama to sail south around Africa in 1497
and started a quest to find a northern passage through the icy waters in 1497, something that was not completed until 1907, when we officially discovered the “North Pole”. 400 years of ships freezing in ice sheets found this route not worth it.
The British inherited the wealth of the Roman Empire, and its habit of subjugation, a method I consider total theft, with all the people it took over. This was seen especially in how Britain held onto India with even a tighter grip once it lost America. They increased production of raw goods in India, stealing its vast resources which have always been scarce in cold Britain, and took in all the profit. Britain made its wealthy by taking resources from others, and making it the industrial “workshop of the world” (aka, abhorrent working conditions to make a profit).
Egypt vs Britain
Egypt was a stepping stone to India.
Rome silenced Egypt and Britain took on its legacy of silence and not caring about the story of the people it stole everything from.
The Suez Canal
France’s Gift
All of this history above would have been fresh in the mind of Frederic, our sculptor.
The American Ideal
Most of us don’t think twice about the statue being a woman. We might think, huh, maybe they must have been pretty progressive or something. Maybe it was just one of those Roman goddesses, even though Rome was terribly anti-female power.
But anything Roman, anything in the Roman story in general, has a much deeper story of subjugation. The British then took on this Roman inheritance, and in a strange plot twist, Americans took on the role of Empire. But what are we taught in schools? Rome was the ideal. The place of democracy, freedom, writing, literature, and science. In reality, it really was a collection of items of all the places it took over and plundered. They used to laugh at the Greeks for all their time in leisure telling stories and reading about the past. They were a brute warrior culture, through and through. Everything was a calculated decision, voted on by a group of old men. It is estimated that at least 23 cultures were totally wiped in their path to domination, totally forgotten to history aside from some scarce remains. They used laws to forbid speaking of native languages, changing of stories to manipulate thought, and even forbid the playing of music to restrict transmission of ancient wisdom. The silence of Egypt was one of their greatest triumphs. But they allowed Christianity to flourish, so they must be kind of good, right? Sure, they killed a jewish guy, then 300 years later made him their martyr. Then used the name of religion to continue their path of domination that lead to near total illiteracy, and a crime to question ANYTHING. “Could we revolve around that sun?” Death!
Rome was a society of terror, of plunder. It was founded by a bunch of warriors at the top of a hill excited to do their own thing, until they realized they needed women to make babies and extend their legacies - so they stole the women of the town over, after staging a fake party in 750 BC, told in an epic National poem by Livy with a poem literally called, “The Rape of the Sabine Women” written around 9 BC, or a decade before 0 BC/AD, or the birth of “our lord savior” as stamped into our calendar. (Even if not religious, we are all counting time in step to this moment the Christians chose as significant in 1582 AD to be the start of counting time).
According to Livy, in the role of an official historian, this was done in quite a gentlemanly way as the King Romulus spoke to each woman to persuade her to become a Roman wife. But the chapter literally has the word rape in it, Certainly the Sabines were at war with Rome not long after so probably they saw thing differently.
Did Livy call it “rape”? No, he used the word “abduct”, but all translations use the word “rape”. Elsewhere, he used the legal term stuprum (used to describe sexual crimes) of two other women in this official history of Rome: Lucretia and Verginia. Rape was a common thing in Rome, in history, and in story. We find out in our own studies of women in the past, this was a tactic to remove women from positions of power, and in story, it effectivley stripped women of her magical powers. Like many mistranslations, I beleive this was an error in Rome’s philosophy. I do not think rape strips a woman’s powers completely. As evidenced, the past survives, and her illumination bringing light into the world as she finds her voice, we see she never left us, she really never could, or none of us would be here. No matter how much they thought men could do it alone, they needed women, albeit in dominated form.
Ovid added some color to the story in 8 AD, just a decade after the start of the Christian era of 0 BC/AD: “so shuddered the Sabine women when they beheld these fierce warriors making towards them.” -Ovid, in an effort to write a history of the World
Which is all the more striking that our Statue of Liberty was a woman. Women in the 1800’s had a fraction of rights men had, so I am stunned they allowed it to be constructed, but I appload that French Frederick for studying Egypt, and for being such a fighter of the representation of women, whether he knew it or not.
Considering broken chains lay at her feet, I think he knew.
The broken chains at the base of the statue of liberty
France broke away, Egypt broke away, America broke away, and now Women have finally broken away from this legacy we still hold onto so tightly as the ideal Empire of the Romans.
What will Americans do with this new role as the “leaders of the free world”? Can we compete with those who see authoritarian empires, that of Russia (a variation of Christian), the Middle East (terrorist forms of Islam) and China (mostly Buddhists), where there is total disregard for human rights, and fear of any kind of religious study. In these worlds, choice is labeled as “heresy”. In most of these interpretations of ancient wisdom, the next life is considered more important than this one, which leads to some pretty horrific outcomes, often in the name of their religion.
I believe any kind of answer has to come from learning more about ourselves, to study, and to share. To find where our own religion, the one we were taught as children, may have some questionable things worth investigating.
We need to find our own voices and show there is a path forward that does not include hate, but empathy. Our hope lies in our shared roots, understanding our shared connections, in every story imaginable, even the religious ones, no matter how mistranslated or manipulated. There is beauty in all of these intentions, we just have to find the ones worth keeping.
