A black and white photograph of a man has gone viral with the claim that it shows a ‘real photo’ of Tipu Sultan – the legendary ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore – spotted in London.
SouthCheck found that the claim was false. The man in the image is an African trader, not Tipu Sultan.
We found that the first photo ever taken was in 1826 or 1827 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépc, while Tipu Sultan died in 1799. Thus, the viral photo must have been captured after the death of Tipu Sultan. The images depicting Tipu Sultan are mostly paintings that were made of him.
On doing a Google reverse image search, we found the same image uploaded by Alamy, stating that the viral image shows an African slave trader. A comparison of the viral image with confirmed images of Tipu Sultan did not show any similarities between the persons.
We also found that a Twitter user had also shared the viral image stating that the person in the image is Rumaliza, an Arab trader of slaves and ivory.
Taking this hint, we further searched for the images of Rumaliza and found an image published by Getty Images. We compared the viral image with a photo published by Getty Images and found them to be the same. We also found an image of Rumaliza published by Alamy. Rumaliza was an Arab trader of slaves and ivory, active in Central and East Africa in the last part of the 19th century.
Hence, we can conclude that the image of an Arab trader has gone viral as the image of Tipu Sultan.