Damnatio Memoriae - Similar Practices in Other Societies

Similar Practices in Other Societies

• In Ancient Greece, Herostratus set fire to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus to become famous. To discourage such acts, the Ephesus leaders decided that his name should never be repeated again, under penalty of death. This attempt was unsuccessful, however, as illustrated by the fact that his name is still known today.
• Ancient Egyptians attached the greatest importance to the preservation of a person's name. The one who destroyed a person's name was thought somehow to have destroyed the person, and it was thought that this effect extended beyond the grave.
• The cartouches of the heretical 18th dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten were mutilated by his successors. Earlier in that same dynasty, a similar attack on Hatshepsut was carried out. However, only engravings and statuary of her as a crowned king of Egypt were attacked. Anything depicting her as a queen was left unharmed, so this was not strictly speaking damnatio memoriae.
• In Judaism, the curse, "May name and memory be obliterated," (Hebrew: ימח שמו וזכרו, yimach shmo ve-zichro) is used.
• Despite successfully invading England in 1216, being proclaimed King Louis of England in London and conquering half the country, under the terms of the treaty of Lambeth, Louis is not counted as one of the Kings of England.
• Adandozan, king of Dahomey in the beginning of the nineteenth century, had imprisoned his brother Gakpe. Once the latter became king Ghezo, he took revenge by erasing the memory of Adandozan. To this day, Adandozan is not officially considered as one of the twelve kings of Dahomey.
• Marino Faliero, fifty-fifth Doge of Venice, was condemned to damnatio memoriae after a failed coup d'état.
• More modern examples of damnatio memoriae in actual practice include the removal of portraits, books, doctoring people out of pictures, and any other traces of Joseph Stalin's opponents during the Great Purge. (For example in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.) When in 1952 the Soviet Union football team lost to Yugoslavia at the Summer Olympics, Stalin ordered that all footage of the event be destroyed. In a twist of fate, Stalin himself was edited out of some propaganda films when Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union, and the city of Tsaritsyn that had earlier been named Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd in 1961.
• In Argentina, it was forbidden to say "Juan Domingo Perón" after the coup that deposed him in 1955, and the media often referred to him as the "Deposed Tyrant". Additionally, hospitals and other public buildings named after him during his presidency were quickly renamed by the Liberating Revolution. Photographs and other representations of the Argentine leader were also prohibited. Also in Argentina in the year 2003 following the election of President Néstor Kirchner, there was a widespread effort to show the illegality of Videla's rule. The government no longer recognized Videla as having been a legal president of the country, and his portrait was removed from the National Argentinian military school.
• A similar fate befell jarl Hákon Sigurðarson in 10th century Norway; according to Snorri Sturluson, after his death, "So great was the enmity of the Throndhjem people against Earl Hakon, that no man could venture to call him by any other name than "the evil earl"; and he was so called long after those days."
• In the United States, the official portraits of disgraced Maryland governors Spiro Agnew and Marvin Mandel were absent from the Maryland State House Governor’s Reception Room for periods of time. In both cases this followed allegations of corruption. Mandel's portrait was restored when he was later cleared of charges. Agnew was never cleared, but his portrait was restored after arguments that no one had the right to change history.
• Memorials to Continental general Benedict Arnold at the Saratoga National Historical Park and the United States Military Academy bear neither his name nor his likeness, as a result of his treachery. For example, at the United States Military Academy the names of all the governors of this site are listed except for Arnold; in his instance only the date of his tenure, 1780, appears.
• In 2007, the Spanish Parliament passed the Ley de Memoria Histórica de España to remove the traces of the Nationalist faction in the Spanish Civil War and afterwards. Public buildings and streets named after nationalist personalities were renamed and statues of Francisco Franco and other nationalist leaders were removed.
• In 2008, two engraved bricks on the "Wall of Fame" at Liverpool's famous Cavern Club were controversially removed because they bore the names of two members of music industry who have since been disgraced by sexual scandal: singer/songwriter Gary Glitter and record producer Jonathan King. In their place, a metal plaque was installed which simply stated that the names had been removed (albeit without actually identifying the men).
• In 2007, after it was found that professional wrestler Chris Benoit had murdered both his son and his wife before taking his own life, the WWE removed all mention of Benoit from its TV broadcasts, website and subsequent DVD releases. Wrestling Observer Newsletter had a recall poll to remove him from their Hall of Fame but was under the 60% needed to do so.
• On 10 May 2012, the Canadian Forces announced that it had made a "terrible mistake" by publishing a booklet with a photograph bearing the likeness of convicted murderer and rapist Russell Williams in the background, and ordered 4,000 copies of the book destroyed. The photograph was incidental to the subject matter of the book, but the image was felt to be offensive. In 2010, the CF had also burned his uniforms and destroyed his medals.
• The names of Hosni Mubarak and his wife Suzanne were erased from all Egyptian monuments after they were deposed in 2011.
• Convicted child rapist and retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was edited out of a mural and replaced with a blue ribbon. The famous coach Joe Paterno also had the statue of him, and the backwall to it removed, along with the record of his victories from 1998 through 2011 vacated.
• In 2012, in the wake of child sexual abuse allegations against the late disc-jockey and TV presenter Jimmy Savile, his headstone was removed from his grave site. In addition, buildings named after him have been renamed and street signs with his name have been taken down. The BBC later announced it would no longer show reruns of Top of the Pops hosted by Savile.