African Athena Controversy - Essay Example

Athena Controversy In the Greek history, Black Athena is the most controversial book on the Greek history. Martin Bernal, exposits that it isfrom the feelings of nationalism and racism that the Greek historians rejected the ancient view that the cultural diffusion of the Greeks from the Egyptian and the Phoenicians played a dominant role in the development of the Greek civilization. Bernal was able to read hieroglyphics and Greek and also claimed to know other languages as well which helped him to come to an inference that the Greeks were influenced by the Egyptian and the Phoenicians. In his first volume, “The Fabrication of Ancient Greece”, the author has attacked the nineteenth century notion that Greeks were basically Aryans from the North and he proposes to dissolve his ideas from the Aryan Model to Ancient Model and stated that the religion of the Greeks were derived from the East with Egypt in particular. The controversy is that the western ideological thinkers have criticized Bernal’s views of the Greek’s influence (p.1). Bernal argues that the widely influential books like Flaubert’s Salambô (1862) suggested that the African cultures were pugnacious and uncivilized than that of the Greeks or the Romans. Bernal describes that Flaubert had originally meant to elucidate a historical novel about Egypt but later on fixed on ancient Carthage as his subject because the Egyptians were not sufficiently degenerated for his purposes. Bernal describes the authors’ work as a typical reflection of the western hypocrisy. “Flaubert implied that Europeans-with the possible exception of the English-were incapable of such things. In fact, the Romans outdid the Carthaginians in virtually every luxury and outrage while the Macedonians [i.e., Greeks] were not far behind” (p. 2). The paper focuses on the influence of the Greeks and the Phoenicians on the Greek society on the lines of Bernal’s elucidation in his “Black Athena” but at the same time criticizes his views and highlights the area of loopholes of his findings. The paper seeks to argue that Greeks had no significant contacts with the Egyptians and the Phoenicians. Competitive plausibility From the initial findings of the book Black Athena project, Bernal saw the competition between the Aryan and the revised models in terms of competitive plausibility from the documents of the Late Bronze Age in terms of archaeology, language, culture and religious rituals and historical analogy and topology (p.3). In terms of the archaeology and documents the evidence hardly points out to the Revised Ancient Model but in terms of cult and language the evidence supports the very dominance of the Revised Ancient Model (p.9). Bernal argues that the world of the Revised Ancient model is more exciting than the Aryan models in the sense that the former generates more scope to explore the civilizations around the eastern Mediterranean and provides interesting answers about those civilizations (p.9). According to Bernal the city of Athens derives its name from the Egyptian Ht Nt (vocalized) and who was identified with the Greeks with their goddess Athena (p. 2). The dimension of language Bernal claims states that the religion of the Greeks was borrowed from the Egyptians and their influence on the Greek culture was immense. But evidences reveal that the influence of the Greek language entailed less dominance of the eastern world especially the Egyptian culture on them. Some similarities in nouns and names were found but that does not always reveal the linguistic proof of their origin. The metamorphosis of one culture in to the realms of another culture gets reflected in various others as aspects of the language, such as grammar and working vocabulary (p.2). It can be attributed from this that after the eleventh century French- speaking peoples occupied the islands of Britain (p. 2). Bernal assumes that Egyptians or some bearers of their culture captured the Greek mainland during the second millennium (p. 2). According to Bernal, the Hyskos were the logical invaders and they infiltrated Greece almost two centuries earlier than the Egyptians did (p.3). Bernal also states that the Hyskos entered Greece with elements of own Semitic language and other aspects of Egyptian culture. Bernal made this statement without taking into account the failure of Herodotus in proving that Sesostris’ armies conquered or penetrated into the heart of Greece (p.3).The origin of Greece, in contrast, was contrasted with the Germanic devastation of the Western Roman Empire and the historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth century portrayed it as “Teutons infusing vigor into a Celtic and Roman European population” (p.6) The dimension of Culture and religious rituals Bernal’s account of the Greek knowledge is rather presented in an unsatisfactory way as he fails to point out at the initial stage of his discussion that the Hermetic Corpus that embeds within itself several details of the details of Egyptian wisdom is not at all as ancient as it claims to be, but rather was written in Greek writing in the second century C.E. Bernal refrains himself from going in lines with the authors of Masonic ritual and other Europeans considered to be “Egyptian” knowledge was in fact thoroughly influenced from the Greek culture (p.2). Bernal’s representation can be mainly assumed to be Greco- Egyptian and introduced or reproduced the view of Afrocentric analysis. Bernal have appreciated the works of G. G. M. James’s in his book, Stolen Legacy where James cites a case where the Greek science and philosophy has been seen to be borrowed from rigorously from the Egypt (p.2). But unlike James and other Afrocentric authors, Bernal overlooks or neglects the eastern Semitic cultures in favor of the Egyptian and has emphasized more on the Greek borrowings rather than the Egyptian influences (p.2). The Broad Aryan Model denies the Egyptian influence on the Greek society but shows the predominance of the Phoenician influence on the Greek society. The best known colonization of the Greece from Egypt which was Danaos in Argos was attributed to the Phoenicians (p.8). The Phoenicians were chiefly associated with the Jews with whom they shared common language of “Canaanite” and other religious customs (p.8). Documents and archaeological evidences Bernal criticizes the nineteenth century historians as ‘scientific historians’ and their positive approach towards the scientific experiment (p. 17). He stated that their positivist approach behaved as a rigid mechanism for defending their stance (p. 17). The scientific historians can nullify any opposing theories with the burden of proof or evidences. Bernal stated that these are only means of silencing the actual fact that he has seldom challenged the positivist application of the argument from silence (p. 17). Bernal alleges the Aryanist historians that they reject a good theory if there are no documental evidences even if it has strong circumstantial evidences. Berlinerblau states that, “inevitable gaps between in the archaeological and literary record the absence of evidences pertaining to a good theory does not rule it out” (p.17). But it is a fact that Bernal himself have occasionally used and proposed the argument from silence (p.17). In the early Iron Age Palestine there were no documented evidences of the social and religious lives of the groups in Bronze Age Greece. Barnel believe the legends of the heroic invaders as Danaos and Kadmos can be only regarded as the general indicators of the Aegean settlements by Phoenicians. Bernal himself is also is not in favor of the complete restoration of the Ancient model from the archaeological evidences of the nineteenth and twentieth century historians (p.9). Bernal believes that the Revised Ancient model is closer to the Ancient Model than the Aryan Model (p.9).Since the period of 1960s there have been several attempts in bringing back the Broad Aryan model for examining the origins of Greece. Extreme Aryanists are highly rich in traditional classics and historical linguistics (p.8). However the defenders of the Extreme Aryan model have been weakened and challenged by the transforming climate and the accelerating archaeological evidences of the Egyptian and Levantine influences on Aegean during the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (p.9). The Broad Aryanists are making their strong foothold and are in the path of attaining success. The editors of the Black Athena Revisited accept and adapt the Broad Aryan model (p.8). References Bernal, Martin. “Introduction” Black Athena Writes Back. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2001. Print. Berlinerblau, Jacques. “The Aryan Models.” Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals. New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press, 1999. Print. Lefkowitz, Mary R. “Ancient History, Modern Myths.” Black Athena Revisited. Eds. Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers. Chapel Hill & London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Print. Read More