Bernard Sergent (; born 23 February 1946) is a French

ancient historian Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

and comparative mythologist. He is researcher of the CNRS and president of the Société de mythologie française.

Publications

He has written a seminal work on

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

entitled ''Homosexuality in Greek Myth'', translated into English two years later by Beacon Press. In 1986, he followed up with a study covering early

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, under the title of ''L'homosexualité initiatique dans l'Europe ancienne'' (Payot 1986), which has yet to be translated into English. The two studies have been published together, with a postface, as ''Homosexualité et initiation chez les peuples indo-européens''. In ''Genèse de L'Inde'', he attacks the recent anti-invasionist reconstructions of early

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n history. Instead he defends the traditional hypothesis that the

Indo-Aryans Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of Indo-European peoples speaking Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent. Historically, Aryan were the Indo-European pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia into South Asia and intr ...

came into India in the 2nd millennium BC. According to Sergent, the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...

originated in Africa before reaching South Asia. The book ''Les Indo-Européens - Histoire, langues, mythes'' is a general introduction to the Indo-European language family. Sergent associates the

Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

with certain archaeological cultures in Southern Russian Steppes or Deshti Kipchak, and he reconstructs an Indo-European religion (relying on the method of Georges Dumézil). In the monograph, ''Les trois fonctions indo-européennes en Grèce ancienne'', vol. 1: ''De Mycènes aux Tragique'', Sergent examines the employment of the Dumézilian tripartite system in Greek epic, lyric and dramatic poetry. In a second volume, which has not been published yet, he will continue this examination with Greek philosophy and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

. His recent work, ''Celtes et Grecs'', is dedicated to comparative

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and Celtic mythology. In volume 1, ''Le livre de héros'' (Payot 1999 ), the Irish hero Cuchulainn is compared with the Greek heroes

Achilleus In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's ''Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, k ...

, Bellerophon and

Melanthius Melanthius ( grc, Μελάνθιος) was an ancient Greek painter of the 4th century BC. He belonged to the school of Sicyon Sicyon (; el, Σικυών; ''gen''.: Σικυῶνος) or Sikyon was an ancient Greek city state situated in the ...

and the Irish epic

Táin Bó Cúailnge (Modern ; "the driving-off of the cows of Cooley"), commonly known as ''The Táin'' or less commonly as ''The Cattle Raid of Cooley'', is an epic from Irish mythology. It is often called "The Irish Iliad", although like most other early Iri ...

with the Greek

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

, which, according to Sergent, presuppose an Indo-European "pre-Iliad". In volume 2, ''Le livre des dieux'', Sergent argues that the Celtic and Greek pantheons derive from a common Indo-European inheritance.

Works

* ''L'homosexualité initiatique dans l'Europe ancienne'', Payot 1986 * ''Les Indo-Européens'' Payot, 1995 * ''Genèse de l'Inde'' (Genesis of India), Payot, Paris 1997 * ''De Mycènes aux Tragique'', Économica 1998 * ''Celtes et Grecs'', Payot, 1999 * ''La guerre à la culture: aspects des attaques contre l'intelligence dans la période jospino-raffininesque'', L'Harmattan, 2005, * ''Les Dragons. Mythes, rites et légendes'', 2018, Fouesnant-Embanner, 2018

Books with English translations

* ''Homosexuality in Greek Myth,'' tr. Arthur Goldhammer, pref.

Georges Dumezil Georges may refer to: Places * Georges River, New South Wales, Australia * Georges Quay (Dublin) *Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania Other uses *Georges (name) * ''Georges'' (novel), a novel by Alexandre Dumas * "Georges" (song), a 19 ...

. Beacon Press, Boston, 1986. *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sergent, Bernard 1946 births Living people 20th-century French historians 21st-century French historians French archaeologists Indo-Europeanists Scholars of Greek mythology and religion Comparative mythologists French male writers Winners of the Prix Broquette-Gonin (literature)