Ancient Near East

Mesopotamia: Sumerians c. 3100
     Babylonians c. 2000
      Assyrians c. 1300

Egypt c. 2700

Asia Minor: Hittites c. 1650-1200

Levant: Phoenicians 1100 -

Ancient Views

Near Eastern Contacts

• Cadmus myth (Tyre -> Thebes)
• Phoenician traders in Odyssey

• Myth of Danaus & 50 daughters
• Menelaus & Helen in Egypt (Odyssey)
• Herodotus Bk. II: claim that Greek gods are Egyptian
• "Atlantis" myth in Plato

19th Century Scholarship

• Indo-European language -> theories of Indo-European ("Aryan") race, culture
• German fascination with Greece
• Role of classics in British education

• Africa (Egypt) the origin of civilization
• Ancient Egyptians were "black"
• Greek culture derived from Egypt

George G.M. James, Stolen Legacy (1954)

Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa (1996)

"Black Athena"?

Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization

• Greece colonized by Semitic and/or Egyptian "Hyksos" c. 1750-1570 BC (as well as by IE-speakers)
• Non-IE elements of Greek language (c. 50%) come from Semitic, Egyptian
• Ancient Egyptians "can usefully be called black"
• Goal:  "To lessen European cultural arrogance"

Mary Lefkowitz & Guy Rogers, eds. Black Athena Revisited (1996)
Martin Bernal, Black Athena Writes Back (2001)

Likely Borrowings

Two periods (separated by Dark Age)

• Bronze Age, via Ugarit (Ras Shamra)
• "Orientalizing" Period (750-650 BC), via Al Mina

• Cosmic "succession myth" (< Hittites)

Anu     Ouranos
Kumarbi    Kronos
Storm God   Zeus
• Aphrodite and Adonis (?Phoenicians)

• Orientalizing pottery: "black figure" technique, w/ animals
• Sculpture: Lifesize figures (< Egypt)

• Alphabetic writing (< Phoenicians)
• Hesiodic "wisdom literature" (like OT)
• Astronomical prediction (< Babylonia)