Blackwashing the Greek Past: The Engagement of the Trans-Saharan Africans of Ottoman Crete with a Roman Marble Statue

Abstract: In Ottoman Heraklion, Crete, a Roman statue made of white marble and embedded in a Venetian fountain was painted black and became the object of veneration by the trans-Saharan African community of the city. Criticized as "superstitious" by both bewildered foreign antiquarians and Christian Cretans of the time, and overlooked by historians and archaeologists until recently, the blackwashing of the statue and the associated African religiosity are indicative of alternative engagements with monuments of classical antiquity. The engagement in this case was not shaped by the dogmatic antiquarianism of white elite Europeans; instead, it was developed by Black people who were typically marginalized and often remain invisible and silenced in the textual record of previous centuries. This case highlights the politicized dynamics of whitewashing and blackwashing in constructions of the Greek past and classical antiquity; it also underscores the role of trans-Saharan African communities within the broader context of the Black Mediterranean.