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''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'', its three volumes first published in 1987, 1991, and 2006 respectively, is a controversial book by Martin Bernal proposing an alternative hypothesis on the origins of
ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
and classical civilisation. Bernal's thesis discusses the perception of ancient Greece in relation to Greece's African and Asiatic neighbors, especially the ancient Egyptians and
Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their hist ...
ns who, he believes, colonized ancient Greece. Bernal proposes that a change in the Western perception of Greece took place from the 18th century onward and that this change fostered a subsequent denial by Western
academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
of any significant African and Phoenician influence on ancient Greek civilization. ''Black Athena'' has been heavily criticised by academics. They often highlight the fact that there is no archaeological evidence for ancient Egyptian colonies in
mainland Greece Greece is a country of the Balkans, in Southeastern Europe, bordered to the north by Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria; to the east by Turkey, and is surrounded to the east by the Aegean Sea, to the south by the Cretan and the Libyan Seas, a ...
or the Aegean Islands. Academic reviews of Bernal's work generally reject his heavy reliance on ancient
Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
, speculative assertions, and handling of archaeological, linguistic, and historical data. The book has also been accused that, by reopening the nineteenth-century discourse on race and origins, it has become part of the problem of racism rather than the solution that its author had envisioned. Bernal himself has been accused of pursuing political motives and enlisting Bronze Age Greece in an academic war against Western civilisation.


Thesis


Origins of Ancient Greek civilization

Bernal rejects the theory that Greek civilization was founded by Indo-European settlers from Central Europe; that theory (which Bernal calls ''the Aryan model'') became generally accepted during the 19th century. Bernal defends instead what he calls ''the Ancient model''; the name refers to the fact that both Egyptian and Phoenician influences on the Greek world were widely accepted in Antiquity. Bernal discusses
Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek ...
's play '' The Suppliants'', which describes the arrival in Argos from Egypt of the ''Danaids'', daughters of
Danaus In Greek mythology, Danaus (, ; grc, Δαναός ''Danaós'') was the king of Libya. His myth is a foundation legend of Argos, one of the foremost Mycenaean cities of the Peloponnesus. In Homer's ''Iliad'', "Danaans" ("tribe of Danaus") and ...
.
Cadmus In Greek mythology, Cadmus (; grc-gre, Κάδμος, Kádmos) was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes. He was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the day ...
was believed to have introduced the
Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician alph ...
to Greece.
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known for ...
also mentions Eastern influences.
Thucydides Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientif ...
did not, which Bernal explains with his nationalistic wish to set up a sharp distinction between Greeks and
barbarians A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by some to be less ...
.
Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for h ...
attacked Herodotus' view that the Greeks had learned from barbarians. Yet
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to t ...
was very interested in Egypt; Plutarch himself wrote a work ''On Isis and Osiris'', part of the ''
Moralia The ''Moralia'' ( grc, Ἠθικά ''Ethika''; loosely translated as "Morals" or "Matters relating to customs and mores") is a group of manuscripts dating from the 10th–13th centuries, traditionally ascribed to the 1st-century Greek scholar Plu ...
'', which is a major source on Egypt. Admiration for Egypt was widespread in the
Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
and
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
civilizations, especially in the
Neoplatonic Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ...
school.
Hermeticism Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are containe ...
was based on writings attributed to Egyptian
Hermes Trismegistus Hermes Trismegistus (from grc, Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος, "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"; Classical Latin: la, label=none, Mercurius ter Maximus) is a legendary Hellenistic figure that originated as a syncretic combination of t ...
, the so-called
Hermetica The ''Hermetica'' are texts attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. These texts may vary widely in content and purpose, but are usually subd ...
or ''Hermetic corpus''. These pro-Egyptian currents influenced
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism, monotheistic religion based on the Life of Jesus in the New Testament, life and Teachings of Jesus, teachings of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. It is the Major religious groups, world's ...
,
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
and
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
, as well as
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
figures such as
Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (; pl, Mikołaj Kopernik; gml, Niklas Koppernigk, german: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic Church, Catholic cano ...
,
Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver o ...
and
Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno (; ; la, Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmolog ...
. It was demonstrated in 1614 that the Hermetic corpus was not very ancient at all and originated in late antiquity, though more recent scholarship has established that parts of it do probably have a Pharaonic origin. Casaubon's textual analysis partly discredited the Hermetic corpus, but Bernal maintained that respect for Ancient Egypt survived and contributed to the Enlightenment in the 18th century. The
Freemasons Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
are particularly relevant. Bernal traces thus the influence from the Ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians to the Ancient Greeks, and a tradition of acknowledgement of those links from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. Bernal uses linguistic evidence to support his claim of a link between Ancient Greece and earlier Egyptian and Phoenician civilizations. The
Classical Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
language arose from the
Proto-Greek language The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Aeol ...
with influences from the
Anatolian languages The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language. ...
that were spoken nearby, and the culture is assumed to have developed from a comparable amalgamation of elements. However, Bernal emphasizes African elements in
Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...
ern culture and denounces the alleged
Eurocentrism Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world ...
of 19th and 20th century research, including the very slogan "Ex Oriente Lux" of
Orientalists In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
which, according to Bernal, betrays "the Western appropriation of ancient Near Eastern culture for the sake of its own development" (p. 423). Bernal proposes instead that
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 ...
evolved from the contact between an
Indo-European language 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, Dut ...
and culturally influential Egyptian and
Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...
. He believes that many Greek words have Egyptian or Semitic roots. Bernal places the introduction of the
Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...
(unattested before 750 BC) between 1800 and 1400 BC, and the poet
Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
in the tenth century.


Ideologies of classical scholarship

The first volume of ''Black Athena'' describes in detail Bernal's views on how the ''Ancient model'' acknowledging Egyptian and Phoenician influences on Greece came under attack during the 18th and 19th centuries. Bernal concentrates on four interrelated forces: the Christian reaction, the idea of ''progress'', racism and Romantic Hellenism. ''The Christian reaction''. Already
Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
had fought the Church of Rome with the Greek Testament. Greek was seen as a sacred Christian tongue which
Protestants Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
could plausibly claim was more Christian than
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
. Many French students of Ancient Greece in the 17th century were brought up as
Huguenots The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...
. The study of Ancient Greece especially in Protestant countries created an alliance between Greece and Protestant Christianity which tended to exclude other influences. ''The idea of progress''. The antiquity of Egypt and Mesopotamia had previously made those civilizations particularly worthy of respect and admiration, but the emergence of the idea of
progress Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension w ...
portrayed later civilizations as more advanced and therefore better. Earlier cultures came to be seen as based on superstition and dogmatism. ''Racism''. The
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...
and later European
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
required the intellectual justification of racism. It became paramount to divorce Africans and Africa from high civilisation, and Egypt from Africa itself. Ancient Greeks would be divorced from Ancient Egypt through the concept of the Greek Miracle, and would be reclaimed as whites and Europeans. ''Romanticism''. Romantics saw humans as essentially divided in ''national'' or ''ethnic'' groups. The German philosopher
Herder A herder is a pastoral worker responsible for the care and management of a herd or flock of domestic animals, usually on open pasture. It is particularly associated with nomadic or transhumant management of stock, or with common land grazing ...
encouraged Germans to be proud of their origins, their language and their national characteristics or national ''genius''. Romantics longed for small, virtuous and "pure" communities in remote and cold places: Switzerland, North Germany and Scotland. When considering the past, their natural choice was Greece. The Philhellenic movement led to new archaeological discoveries as well as contributed to the
Greek War of Independence The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted ...
from the
Ottoman empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. Most Philhellenes were Romantics and Protestants.


Reception


Criticism

According to Christina Riggs, ''Black Athena'' was embraced by Afrocentrists and
postcolonial Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...
studies even as archaeology, Egyptology and classical scholarship rejected much of Bernal's evidence and, implicitly or explicitly, his central thesis. There is no archaeological evidence that would clearly indicate a colonization which Bernal suggests. He himself says: “Here again, it should be made clear that, as with archaeological evidence, there are no smoking guns. There are no contemporary documents of the type 'X the Egyptian/Phoenician arrived at this place in Greece and established a city/kingdom (t)here', explicitly confirming the Ancient Model. Nor, for that matter, are there others denying it”. Bernal also devotes ''Black Athena'' to V. Gordon Childe and his book does fall into Childe's outdated
paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. Etymology ''Paradigm'' comes ...
of
culture-historical archaeology Culture-historical archaeology is an archaeological theory that emphasises defining historical societies into distinct ethnic and cultural groupings according to their material culture. It originated in the late nineteenth century as cultural ev ...
.
Michael Shanks Michael Garrett Shanks (born December 15, 1970) is a Canadian actor, writer and director. He is best known for his role as Daniel Jackson in the long-running military science fiction television series '' Stargate SG-1'' and as Charles Harris ...
criticized this outdated approach to archaeology stating: In her review "The Use and Abuse of Black Athena" Professor of Classics Molly Myerowitz Levine states that:
Paul Oskar Kristeller Paul Oskar Kristeller (May 22, 1905 in Berlin – June 7, 1999 in New York, United States) was an important scholar of Renaissance humanism. He was awarded the Haskins Medal in 1992. He was last active as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Colum ...
, writing in the '' Journal of the History of Ideas,'' states that Bernal’s work is full of gross errors and that it has not received the criticism it deserves due to political reasons. Scholars also criticized the fact that Bernal speaks of a unified Ancient Greek people and speaks of "Hellenic nationalism" and "national pride" in the 5th century BC which does not have any historical backing as the Greeks were not unified until the
Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
and the tensions between different
poleis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means " city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it als ...
was sometimes so great that it escalated into wars like the
Peloponnesian War The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world. The war remained undecided for a long time until the decisive intervention of t ...
. The book also ignited a debate in the academic community. While some reviewers contend that studies of the origin of Greek civilization were tainted by a foundation of 19th century racism, many have criticized Bernal for what they perceive to be the speculative nature of his hypothesis, unsystematic and linguistically incompetent handling of etymologies and a naive handling of ancient myth and historiography. The claims made in ''Black Athena'' were heavily questioned ''inter alia'' in ''Black Athena Revisited'' (1996), a collection of essays edited by
Mary Lefkowitz Mary R. Lefkowitz (born April 30, 1935) is an American scholar of Classics. She is the Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she previously worked from 1959 to 2005. She has published ten b ...
and her colleague Guy MacLean Rogers. Critics voice their strongest doubts over Bernal's approach to language and word derivations (etymologies). Cambridge Egyptologist John D. Ray has accused Bernal's work of having a
confirmation bias Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring ...
.
Edith Hall Edith Hall, (born 1959) is a British scholar of classics, specialising in ancient Greek literature and cultural history, and professor in the Department of Classics and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College, London. She is a Fellow o ...
compares Bernal's thesis to the myth of the
Olympian gods upright=1.8, Fragment of a relief (1st century BC1st century AD) depicting the twelve Olympians carrying their attributes in procession; from left to right: Hestia (scepter), Hermes (winged cap and staff), Aphrodite (veiled), Ares (helmet and s ...
overwhelming the
Titans In Greek mythology, the Titans ( grc, οἱ Τῑτᾶνες, ''hoi Tītânes'', , ''ho Tītân'') were the pre-Olympian gods. According to the ''Theogony'' of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gai ...
and
Giants A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to: Mythology and religion *Giants (Greek mythology) *Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...
, which was once thought of as a historical recollection of ''
Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, a ...
'' taking over from Neanderthal man. She asserts that this historical approach to myth firmly belongs in the 19th century. Others have challenged the lack of archaeological evidence for Bernal's thesis. Egyptologist James Weinstein points out that there is very little evidence that the ancient Egyptians were a colonizing people in the third millennium and second millennium BC.Interview with James Weinstein, at 2:16, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBPlENmnWiE Furthermore, there is no evidence for Egyptian colonies of any sort in the Aegean world. Weinstein accuses Bernal of relying primarily on his interpretations of Greek myths as well as distorted interpretations of the archaeological and historical data. Bernal has also been accused of pursuing political motives and enlisting Bronze Age Greece in an academic war against Western civilisation. Bernal in fact made no secret of his political motives and at the end of his introduction to Black Athena wrote that, “the political purpose of Black Athena is, of course, to lessen European cultural arrogance”. According to historian David Gress: In 2001, Bernal published ''Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to Critics'' as a response to criticism of his earlier works. Although Bernal's hypotheses have been widely rejected, his work has still had a significant impact on
classical scholarship Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classic ...
and
Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...
. Some classicists have praised him for putting a spotlight on what they consider to be a Eurocentric bias in classical scholarship. Some Egyptologists have praised him for the fact that he studied ancient Greece in a wider cultural and geographical context, which they assert classicists tend not to do.
Thomas McEvilley Thomas McEvilley (; July 13, 1939 – March 2, 2013) was an American art critic, poet, novelist, and scholar. He was a Distinguished Lecturer in Art History at Rice UniversityThomas McEvilley, G. Roger Denson (1996), ''Capacity: : History, t ...
concluded in 2002 that while Bernal's "analysis of earlier periods of anti-Semitic attitude in regard to ancient Near Eastern culture may remain valuable, his attempt ... to derive Greek philosophy from Africa seems so glaringly unsupported by evidence that it is likely to pass without leaving a trace."Thomas McEvilley. ''The Shape of Ancient Thought''. New York 2002, page 666 A number of archaeogenetic studies have since refuted Bernal's hypotheses of an Egyptian or Phoenician colonisation of Greece. In a 2017 study from
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
led by geneticist Iosif Lazaridis, the full genomes of 19 Bronze Age individuals, including Minoans from Crete and Mycenaeans from mainland Greece were extracted and analysed. With regards to Bernal's claims, the authors concluded that:


Editions of ''Black Athena''


Volume 1

*''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'' Rutgers University Press (1987) ) *''Black Athena: Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785–1985'' Vol. 1 (Paperback) Vintage; New Ed edition (21 Nov 1991) *''Black Athena: Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785–1985'' Vol. 1 (Paperback) Free Association Books (29 Nov 2004)


Volume 2

*''Black Athena: Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence'' Vol. 2 (Paperback) Publisher: Free Association Books (1 Jan 1991) *''Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'' Vol. 2 (Hardcover) Rutgers University Press (Jul 1991)


Volume 3

*''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume III: The Linguistic Evidence'' Vol. 3 (Hardcover) Rutgers University Press (25 Nov 2006) *''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume III: The Linguistic Evidence'' Free Association Books (1 Feb 2006)


Books and articles about ''Black Athena''

*Black Athena 2: History without Rules. Robert L. Pounder The American Historical Review, Vol. 97, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 461–464 . * Mary R. Lefkowitz, '' Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History'', 1997, * Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers (eds.), ''Black Athena Revisited'', 1996, * Mary R. Lefkowitz, ''History Lesson'', 2008, * Martin Bernal, ''Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics'', 2001. * Jacques Berlinerblau, ''Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals'', 1999, * Michael Skupin. "Anacalypsis II: A review of Black Athena Vol. I and II by Martin Bernal." Epigraphic Society Occasional Publications, Vol. 20 (1991), p. 28–29. * Duncan Hallas
Absent Friends
''Socialist Worker Review'', 100 (1987)


Selected publications

What follows is a list of relevant publications listed on the www.blackathena.com website. *1976 ''Chinese Socialism Before 1907'', Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. *1987 ''Black Athena The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785–1985''. London: Free Association Books. and New Brunswick: Rutgers University. *1988 "The British Utilitarians, Imperialism and the Fall of the Ancient Model," ''Culture and History'' 3: 98–127. *1989 "Classics in Crisis: An Outsider's View In," ''Classics: A Discipline and Profession in Crisis?'' Ed. P. Culham and L. Edmunds. University Press of America. pp. 67–76. *"Black Athena and the APA." in "The Challenge of Black Athena" Special issue of ''Arethusa''. pp. 17–37. *1990 "Responses to Critical Reviews of ''Black Athena: Volume I'': in the ''Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology'' 3/1:111- 137. *''Cadmean Letters: The Westward Diffusion of The Semitic Alphabet Before 1400 B.C.'' Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. *1991 ''Black Athena 2: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence''. London, Free Association Books; New Brunswick: Rutgers University. *1992 "Animadversions on the Origins of Western Science," ''
Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
'' 83, 4 (December): 596–607. *1993 "Response", to "Dialogue: Martin Bernal's Black Athena." ''Journal of Women's History'' 4.3, (Winter):119–135. *"Phoenician Politics and Egyptian Justice in Ancient Greece." in Kurt Raaflaub ed. ''Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike: nahöstliochen Kulturen und die Griechen. Schriften des Historischen Kollegs''. Kolloquien 24. München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag. pp. 241–252. *"Reply to L. A. Trittle," '' Liverpool Classical Monthly'' 18.2: whole issue. *1994 "Response to Robert Palter," ''History of Science'' 32:1–20. *1995 "Race, Class and Gender in the Formation of The Aryan Model of Greek Origins." ''South Atlantic Quarterly''. 94.4. (Fall): 987–1008. *"Politically Correct: Mythologies of Neo-Conservatism in the American Academy," ''New Political Science''. 38/39:17-28. *1997 "Responses to Black Athena." ''Black Athena: Ten Years After''. Special edition of ''Talanta'' vols. 28 and 29. pp. 65–99, 165–173 and 209–219. *2005 "Martin Bernal," by Kinohi Nishikawa. ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature''. Ed. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, Jr. 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 114–15.


See also

*
Pre-Greek substrate The Pre-Greek substrate (or Pre-Greek substratum) consists of the unknown pre-Indo-European language(s) spoken in prehistoric Greece before the coming of the Proto-Greek language in the Greek peninsula during the Bronze Age. It is possible that ...
*''
Life of Sethos ''Life of Sethos, Taken from Private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians'' (french: Séthos, histoire, ou Vie tirée des monumens, anecdotes de l'ancienne Égypte, traduite d'un manuscrit grec) is an influential fantasy novel originally published in ...
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References

{{Reflist


External links


Black Athena
website
Lefkowitz on Bernal on Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa
in: Journal of the History of Ideas 57.4 (1996) 705–724; a critical look at Bernal's historiography.

by John R. Lenz (
Drew University Drew University is a private university in Madison, New Jersey. Drew has been nicknamed the "University in the Forest" because of its wooded campus. As of fall 2020, more than 2,200 students were pursuing degrees at the university's three scho ...
)
With Black Athena into the third millennium CE?
by Wim van Binsbergen

fro
The World Ages Archive
a web-based reference for the study of ancient chronological revisionist, catastrophist, and the Afrocentric discourse. 1987 non-fiction books 20th-century history books Afrocentrism American Book Award-winning works American non-fiction books English-language books History books about ancient Greece Rutgers University Press books