Black Athena Revisited

Description

Was Western civilization founded by ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians? Can the ancient Egyptians usefully be called black? Did the ancient Greeks borrow religion, science, and philosophy from the Egyptians and Phoenicians? Have scholars ignored the Afroasiatic roots of Western civilization as a result of racism and anti-Semitism? In this collection of twenty essays, leading scholars in a broad range of disciplines confront the claims made by Martin Bernal in Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. In that work, Bernal proposed a radical reinterpretation of the roots of classical civilization, contending that ancient Greek culture derived from Egypt and Phoenicia and that European scholars have been biased against the notion of Egyptian and Phoenician influence on Western civilization. The contributors to this volume argue that Bernal's claims are exaggerated and in many cases unjustified. Topics covered include race and physical anthropology; the question of an Egyptian invasion of Greece; the origins of Greek language, philosophy, and science; and racism and anti-Semitism in classical scholarship. In the conclusion to the volume, the editors propose an entirely new scholarly framework for understanding the relationship between the cultures of the ancient Near East and Greece and the origins of Western civilization. Cover Half Title Imprint Contents Maps Preface Ancient Egyptian Chronology (Frank J. Yurco) Chronology of the Early Greek World INTRODUCTION Ancient History, Modern Myths (Mary R. Lefkowitz) EGYPT The Aims and Methods of BLACK ATHENA (John Baines) Egypt and Greece: The Bronze Age Evidence (David O'Connor) BLACK ATHENA: An Egyptological Review (Frank J. Yurco) RACE Ancient Egyptians and the Issue of Race (Kathryn A. Bard) Bernal's “Blacks” and the Afrocentrists (Frank M. Snowden, Jr.) Clines and Clusters versus “Race”: A Test in Ancient Egypt and the Case of a Death on the Nile (C. Loring Brace et al.) THE NEAR EAST The Legacy of BLACK ATHENA (Sarah P. Morris) LINGUISTICS Word Games: The Linguistic Evidence in BLACK ATHENA (Jay H. Jasanoff and Alan Nussbaum) SCIENCE BLACK ATHENA, Afrocentrism, and the History of Science (Robert Palter) GREECE The World Turned Upside Down (Emily T. Vermeule) Did Egypt Shape the Glory That Was Greece? (John E. Coleman) BLACK ATHENA: Vision or Dream of Greek Origins? (Lawrence A. Tritle) HISTORIOGRAPHY When Is a Myth Not a Myth?: Bernal’s “Ancient Model” (Edith Hall) Eighteenth-Century Historiography in BLACK ATHENA (Robert Palter) The Tyranny of Germany over Greece?: Bernal, Herder, and the German Appropriation of Greece (Robert E. Norton) Bernal and the Nineteenth Century (Richard Jenkyns) The Bathwater and the Baby (Marzo Liverani) Multiculturalism and the Foundations of Western Civilization (Guy MacLean Rogers) CONCLUSION Quo Vadis? (Guy MacLean Rogers) Bibliography Contributors Indexes