Just before the recent state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Cairo authorities removed a massive 66-metre-long mural from public view. The artwork, situated in Tahrir Square, had been created by a group of young volunteers known as Rasmet Basma. It was one of 40 murals commissioned to improve the city’s appearance for the diplomatic arrival but was painted over by the governorate shortly after completion. The city authorities were busy removing a 66-metre-long mural from the esteemed guest’s line of sight, on the eve of the Chinese president Xi Jinping’s state visit to Cairo last month. The artwork vanished under fresh paint just hours before Xi landed.
The controversy stemmed from the depiction of Pharaoh Tutankhamun and Queen Nefertiti with dark skin. This choice sparked immediate outrage among many Egyptians, who viewed the imagery as an unwelcome promotion of Afrocentric theories regarding the origins of ancient Egyptian civilization. The mural, produced in just five days during late August, was eventually erased mere hours before the Chinese president arrived in the capital. While others accused Afrocentric groups of appropriating the images to claim Egyptians endorsed their theories, one user asked whether anyone involved had “even seen what Nefertiti actually looked like”. “Temple carvings from the late period show Egyptian kings depicted alongside captives from parts of Africa, Libya, Syria and Palestine, with the king himself not shown as dark-skinned,” he said.
Ahmed Moussa, the 22-year-old founder of Rasmet Basma, confirmed the group was instructed by the governorate to remove the work. He explained that the team had utilized artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT, to generate the design. According to Moussa, local officials including the deputy governor had initially monitored the project and expressed approval of the volunteers’ efforts until the social media backlash intensified. Which volunteers then painted on to the wall, the team used the AI programme ChatGPT to generate the designs.
Regarding the artistic choices, Moussa stated that the group applied a golden-bronze tone that inadvertently created shadows on the figures’ faces when viewed at night, resulting in the dark-skinned appearance. He acknowledged that the team committed a significant oversight by failing to consult with professional archaeologists or art historians during the planning phase. “We acknowledge our mistake in not consulting specialists in archaeology and art.”.
Prominent figures weighed in on the incident, with former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass describing the public anger as justified. He criticized the decision to allow inexperienced volunteers to alter a historic site like Tahrir Square without expert supervision, dismissing links between ancient Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa as nonsensical. Archaeologist Monica Hanna also characterized these Afrocentric claims as pseudoscience, emphasizing that the ancient population was ethnically diverse rather than defined by a single skin color. Afrocentrism is a political movement asserting that ancient Egyptian civilisation was black African in origin and population. Monica Hanna, a prominent Egyptologist and assistant professor of archaeology at the American University of Iraq–Baghdad, labelled Afrocentric claims “pseudoscience”.
The incident is part of a broader, ongoing debate about historical representation in media. Similar tensions arose in 2023 with a Netflix documentary’s casting of Cleopatra and again in June 2024 following reports of a guide providing Afrocentric historical narratives at the Egyptian Museum.
Experts have also highlighted the role of AI in this dispute. Researcher Walid Mahmoud noted that tools like ChatGPT are trained on information widely circulated online rather than verified academic facts. He warned that because these platforms are primarily developed by Western companies, they can distort cultural identities, urging that their output should never be accepted without human oversight. Art critic Mostafa Eissa echoed these concerns, cautioning that relying on AI risks stripping art of its human element and original creative integrity.
