Black Athena

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (Rutgers University Press 1987, ISBN 0813512778) is a work by Martin Bernal, a controversial hypothesis that ancient Greece derived much of its cultural roots from Afroasiatic (Egyptian and Phoenician in particular) influences. While it is widely accepted that Classical Greek culture arose from an amalgamation of Indo-European and Ancient Near Eastern, particularly Anatolian elements, Bernal emphasizes African elements in Ancient Near Eastern culture, and the denunciation of the alleged Eurocentrism of 19th and 20th century research, including the very slogan Ex Oriente Lux of Orientalists which according to Bernal betrays "the Western appropriation of ancient Near Eastern culture for the sake of its own development" (p. 423).

Related Topics:
1987 - Martin Bernal - Hypothesis - Ancient Greece - Cultural - Afroasiatic - Egypt - Phoenicia - Indo-European - Ancient Near East - Anatolian - African - Eurocentrism - Orientalists

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Many critics are appalled by what they consider to be Bernal's confusion of culture, ethnicity and race and his unsystematic and linguistically incompetent handling of etymologies (MacLean Rogers, G., 1996, Quo vadis? , in: Lefkowitz & MacLean Rogers, o.c., pp. 444-454; Snowden, Bernal's 'Blacks ; Brace, C. L., D. P. Tracer, L. A. Yaroch, J. Robb, K. Brandt, and A. R. Nelson, 1996, Clines and Clusters versus 'Race': A Test in Ancient Egypt and the Case of a Death on the Nile, in: Lefkowitz & MacLean Rogers, o.c., pp. 129-164; Baines, J., 1996, On the aims and methods of Black Athena, in: Lefkowitz & MacLean Rogers, o.c., pp. 27-48.) Bernal has said that he, if not his publisher, always preferred the title African Athena.

Related Topics:
Culture - Ethnicity - Race

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Bernal proposes that Greek evolved from the contact between an Indo-European language and cultural influential Egyptian and Semitic languages. He cites as examples many Egyptian or Semitic roots for Greek words, including some words with currently accepted Indo-European etymologies. Bernal places the introduction of the Greek alphabet (unattested before 750 BC) between 1800 and 1400 BC, and the poet Hesiod in the tenth century.

Related Topics:
Greek - Greek alphabet - Hesiod

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Black Athena has spawned a series of published works debating it (positively and negatively):

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• Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1)
• Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers (eds.), Black Athena Revisited, 1996.
• Martin Bernal, Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics, 2001.

The book's notability is mostly due to its enormous impact on African American Afrocentrist movements and its de-centering impact on classical images of the West.

Related Topics:
African American - Afrocentrist

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