The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay of Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East

by Henri Frankfort, William A. Irwin, Thorkild Jacobsen

The people in ancient times the phenomenal world was teeming with life; the thunderclap, the sudden shadow, the unknown and eerie clearing in the wood, all were living things. This unabridged edition traces the fascinating history of thought from the pre-scientific, personal concept of a "humanized" world to the achievement of detached intellectual reasoning.

The authors describe and analyze the spiritual life of three ancient the Egyptians, whose thinking was profoundly influenced by the daily rebirth of the sun and the annual rebirth of the Nile; the Mesopotamians, who believed the stars, moon, and stones were all citizens of a cosmic state; and the Hebrews, who transcended prevailing mythopoeic thought with their cosmogony of the will of God. In the concluding chapter the Frankforts show that the Greeks, with their intellectual courage, were the first culture to discover a realm of speculative thought in which myth was overcome.

Genres: History, Religion, Anthropology, Philosophy, Theology, Egyptology

410 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 1946

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could be called out simply for all you historiography nerds out there as a study of ancient "mentalites", a smug, self-righteous term that can only be rendered in French (much the same as "Flitzerkacke" in German).
The Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and the Jewish folks who brought us the Old Testament are featured here and studied in isolation for the most part, though there are correspondences between the first two as far as creation myths and what-not. Topics primly dissected include cosmology, cosmogony and chiliastic cosmetology. Okay, okay, I made that last bit up.
Although quite a slog, since extant texts in all their richness are studied, there is a lot to interest the sliver of humanity who care about such things. I'd say the best bits are how varying minds in the ancient world apprehended life values and morality and couched them in terms of a very creative and alive relationship with the world around, read: nature.

[Jeremy Rios · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid, fascinating book about the thought life of the early world. The introduction and conclusion are excellent, and of the three cultures surveyed the opening section, on the Egyptians, is the best. The Mesopotamian section is also good, but less compelling than the Egyptian. The Hebrews section is the weakest, plagued by progressivism, and heavily dated by trends in early 20th century scholarship.

Still a worthy read.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not read the Israel section, but the Egypt section was quite good and revealing. It seemed the Mesopotamia sections were a little less so. Some good primary source references, but the evolutionary perspective on religion seeps in a bit.

[Toon Pepermans · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction and conclusion are extremely interesting.
The chapters on the Hebrews come across as partial and outdated.

[Minäpäminä · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilson's and Jacobsen's essays, on Egypt and Mesopotamia respectively, were wonderful. Easy to follow, yet full of insights and in the thick of it.

Irwin's essay on the Hebrews was, if not as well written, still informative, but the tone was disturbingly or amusingly, depends on how you look at it, judeophilic. And it was much too lengthy: the content didn't justify 40 pages more compared to the other essays.

The two essays by the Frankforts on mythopoeic thought were the most interesting but unfortunately also the shortest. Guess I'll have to read more of them next, then.

But all in all a well solid exposition on philosophy before philosophy. A must read for anyone interested in the foundations of Occidental thought.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this five stars but there's a part of me that suspects some of the thinking in this book is dated. That said, the theory proposed about the development of intellectual attitudes in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Israel -- coupled with the observations about the Greeks made in the conclusion -- strikes me as quite persuasive. It's also nice to read clear academic writing from the middle of the last century: neither the unnecessarily prolix syntax of the Victorians nor the obfuscating flatulence of the postmoderns.

[Jennifer Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

A racist exercise in claiming no one prior to the Greeks and Romans had abstract thought. I read this book hoping for insight into the thought processes of the Ancients, and all I found were diatribes insisting that Africans, Asians, and Middle Easterners had no concept of abstract thought until White Dudes from Hellenic Greece invented philosophers. I can't recommend this book. Just. Can. Not.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I especially liked the essay by Thorkild Jacobsen.