Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985

Black Athena #1

by Martin Bernal

Classical civilisation, Martin Bernal argues, has deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures. But these Afro-Asiatic influences have been systematically ignored, denied, or suppressed since the eighteenth century - chiefly for racist reasons.

The popular view is that Greek civilisation was the result of the conquest of a sophisticated but weak native population by vigorous Indo-European speakers--or Aryans--from the North. But the Classical Greeks, Bernal argues, knew nothing of this "Aryan model." They did not see their political institutions, science, philosophy, or religion as original, but rather as derived from the East in general, and Egypt in particular.

Black Athena is a three-volume work. Volume 1 concentrates on the crucial period between 1785 and 1850, which saw the Romantic and racist reaction to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the consolidation of Northern expansion into other continents.

In an unprecedented tour de force, Bernal makes meaningful links between a wide range of areas and disciplines--drama poetry, myth, theological controversy, esoteric religion, philosophy, biography, language, historical narrative, and the emergence of "modern scholarship."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Africa, Classics, Ancient History, Race, Greece

575 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1987

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 1 out of 5]

I first heard about this book during my freshman year of college. I was intrigued by the idea of the African roots of European culture, and picked up the book to learn more. Unfortunately, I found Bernal's scholarship to be questionable -- he was making assumptions and claims based on very slender or circumstantial evidence, whether archaeological or philological. It is too bad, because Bernal's poor scholarship obscures the undoubtedly large amount of interaction and influence between Africa, Asia, and Europe in the ferment of the Greek cities in the eastern Mediterranean.

[Ian Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exceptional work, although to a slanted agenda. Bernal builds heavily on the work of Astour, whose ''Hellenosemitica'' catalogued links between the Semitic lands and Archaic Greece, and attempted to show the Greek city-state social structure as derived from a Middle Eastern model. It has also been alleged that he draws on obscure Black American publications from an earlier era. Bernal's research is outstanding, but his conclusions are sometimes absurd. For example, he wishes to establish an Egyptian-linked Mycenaean ruling class, as if the lords were men of colour and the peasants white. He has to acknowledge that Linear-B, the administrative language of the Mycenaeans, is an early form of Greek. His discussion of the origin of the name of Agamemnon, High King of the Greeks during the Trojan War is revealing. He very correctly states that Memnon is an Egyptian Pharoanic name, and in his opinion it shows a derivation of Greek high command fom Egypt. For me, that is like an academic 3000 years from now declaring that Nelson Mandela was the son of an English naval officer and an African woman. There are many such conclusions in the book. But the research material is impressive.

Note: Agamemnon is in Volume II! I had a look through and realised I included ideas from both volumes.

[sologdin · Rating 4 out of 5]

introductory volume to multi-volume study, improperly maligned by critics as the full statement of author's case.

lays out the basic principles of the argument: that there is ancient evidence for the ancient belief that greek civilization owes something to african and asian sources, and that these sources were crudely elided by romanticist vandals in order to prop up their white power macro-narrative.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernal conducts a rather massive search for cultural linkages in the ancient world, with a focus on links to Egypt. His journey is long, detailed, and to me totally fascinating. He does for Egypt what Joseph Needham did for China, exploring vast numbers of contributions to medicine, engineering, astronomy, architecture, agriculture, navigation, and of course mythology. It's the greatest labor of appreciation for Egypt that I've seen.

Perhaps naturally, many people see this book as part of the great ego war of civilizations. We have our claims that all real civilization originates with the Mesopotamians, the Aryans, the Greeks, the Persians, or the Chinese. And in all these cultures it's possible to find roots of all arts and sciences. With typical myopia it's quite easy for us to assume that all real human progress has come from our own people. But maybe instead of firing a salvo in the cause of Afro-genesis, Bernal is just popping some bubbles of ethnocentricity. Maybe he's just encouraging us to enjoy some curiosity about how we've helped each other.

[theblackphilosopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any classicist.

[Kelly Lemieux · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard about this book at the beginning of my college years in San Diego in 1987 and I was excited by its equality theme and its deep message. Now, I have read the darn thing, too, and I am amazed at the author, Martin Bernal's, thorough erudition and voluminous conception. The book establishes that Greece (and I think Etruria and Rome as well) were Western branches of the Near East, a land of Semitic peoples, and Sumerians, and Egyptians, and temples with burning incense and gods run amok. Bernal proves that Phoenicia (Lebanon) and Egypt exerted a powerful influence over ancient Greece/Europe, thus angering racists millennia later. Us whites must be a joke to live places where it snows...

[IDJ]

I haven't read the book yet, but I've check Bernal out in videos on YouTube, it's crazy how all those so called scholars got up set over this book. My guess is.....only the truth can cause this type of upset. Africa had gone through 30 dynasties before anything in Europe existed. One, one thousandth of an inch, deal with it!!

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So unusual, it suggests the populations of Ancient Greece and Rome are systemically the result of migrations from Africa meeting the Fertile Crescent, and his rationale comes from linguistic analysis. It sounds far-fetched but it makes more sense than what the Greeks consider as their origin.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exellent. A brillant work

[Connor]

This book was written by a famous scholar of modern Chinese political history, so egyptology is not really his field. But the main premise is that Germanic peoples liked to equate Greece and Rome to an aryan nordic civilisation that was purely European, but that in fact to was more levantine/North African in nature.
Though I don't really understand why its called 'Black Athena' since no ever North African looked black historically. I think the title of the book is a bit inaccurate to the subject matter, as it fails to mention the stuff about the levantine influence. However, regardless of how accurate the title is to the subject matter, this book is incredibly controversial. It caused a huge outcry in the classics department of Cambridge and caused further outcry among egyptologists who claimed that this book was a product of a political agenda rather than solid scholarship. but, I guess I'll have to wait and see how I regard it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to read a book that caused controversy, this is it. Attributing the roots of Greece to Africa sounds far fetched but then he gives a lot of evidence and one sure does wonder. He does spend a great deal on how the "white" Europe saw Greece as the highlight of civilization and in doing so, changed the skin colour of the Greeks. This explains the racism of Nazi Germany, but I'm not quite convinced since I never saw the Greeks as "White" folks. After all Europa did journey to Africa so there is a possible race connection.

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

D'entrée de jeu, si vous n'avez pas lu beaucoup sur l'histoire, l'histoire de la langue, l'archéologie ou encore les mythes ce livre sera beaucoup trop complexe. Pour donner une idée, j'ai suivi quelques cours d'histoire de la langue (française) et la partie sur l'évolution des langues était très complexe même avec la prononciation phonétique expliquée, mais j'arrivais à suivre l'argument général. Le reste de l'ouvrage n'est pas si compliqué passé cette partie, les arguments sont suffisamment expliqués et étirés avec de nombreux exemples pour que si la première fois, le point n'a pas été saisi, on le comprenne avec un second exemple ou une deuxième figure.

Pour ce qui est de l'ouvrage, je ne peux prendre que l'auteur au mot, je n'ai absolument pas le bagage pour attester de la véracité de quoi que ce soit dans ce livre, je ne peux que voir que la démonstration, quasi-impeccable, sert certainement son propos et est convaincante pour quiconque connaît bien les effets rhétoriques utilisés pour faire passer un mensonge pour véritable. Martin Bernal sait même reconnaître ces tactiques dans un bon nombre d'ouvrages et d'essais du XIX et XXe siècle.

Il serait certainement trop long de résumé l'ouvrage, je ne peux qu'en donner un aperçu grossier (pour un très bon résumé, son introduction en fait office et résume assez bien les trois volumes à travers les angles d'approches qu'il prend). Grosso modo, Bernal propose de repenser le modèle aryen (la Grèce n'a pas subi l'influence des civilisations sémites et égyptiennes) qui a remplacé l'ancien modèle (elle l'a) à travers plusieurs domaines de recherches: le langage (principalement), les mythes, l'alphabet, les conquêtes et échanges commerciaux, les fondations des villes, etc. etc. etc. L'auteur passe aussi un long moment à analyser comment s'est mise en place le modèle aryen à travers une montée de l'anti-sémitisme (et de l'invention de la "race") à partir du 18e siècle jusqu'à la seconde guerre mondiale environ. Il critique immensément le racisme de plusieurs des grands théoriciens qui remettaient en question l'ancien modèle qui assumait l'influence, entre-autre, égyptienne dans les modèles grecs et comment la montée du nazisme, de la "race" dépend du mythe d'une civilisation grecque "pure" et "blanche". Il n'est pas inintéressant de penser que ce débat resurgit avec de nombreuses personnalités de "droite" qui propose un modèle de la civilisation occidentale blanche qui date de l'Antiquité grecque, mais qui se refuse à prendre en compte l'apport des civilisations arabes, africaines et asiatiques dans la philosophie.

Une des critiques, que j'ai pu voir surgir à droite et à gauche sur ce livre, est que l'auteur désire imposer un modèle sur un autre avec seulement des faits anecdotiques. L'auteur est au contraire prudent à l'excès quand à sa modeste proposition (et il n'est pas le seul à le proposer non plus à l'époque de sa rédaction). Chaque fois qu'il recours à des bribes, des mythes, des fragments, des hypothèses, il le mentionne. Sa critique du modèle aryen ne se base pas qu'en accusant ses auteurs de racisme et on montrant la manipulation des faits de ces auteurs (il le fait), il montre des contre-exemples et comment l'hypothèse peut être erronées, inexactes ou même tout simplement hypothétique. Au-delà de la simple figure de rhétorique, il n'hésite pas, à de nombreuses reprises, à demander une grande prudence face aux observations qu'il émet.
Oui, à de nombreuses reprises, on n'a l'impression de n'avoir affaire qu'à une accumulation d'anecdote et de fragments à droite et à gauche, mais la somme de ceux-ci est imposante et ne contredit pas la thèse qu'il défend ni ne vient réellement bousculer des siècles de recherches historiques non plus.

Dans ses propres mots, à la conclusion de l'ouvrage:
"The main point I have been trying to make throughout this book is that the Ancient Model was destroyed and replaced by the Aryan Model not because of any internal deficiencies, nor because the Aryan Model explained anything better or more plausibly; what it did do, however, was make the history of Greece and its relation to Egypt and the Levant conform to the world-view of the 19th century and, specifically, to its systematic racism. [...] if the dubious origin of the Aryan Model does not make it false, it does call into question its inherent superiority over the Ancient Model."

Une lecture qui reste assez fascinante, j'ai fait de nombreuses trouvailles, découvert des civilisations dont je n'avais certainement jamais entendu parler, redécouvert des mythes sous des angles nouveaux et certainement pratiqué ma phonétique :p . C'est une lecture fascinante, aussi une lecture accrochante sur le racisme systémique, ses effets sur la philosophie, mais aussi la lecture de l'histoire! Une redécouverte de la civilisation occidentale antique comme je n'en avais jamais lu.

Même si la lecture était vraiment excellente, bien qu'assez longue, je ne lirais toutefois pas les deux volumes suivants, n'��tant vraiment qu'une poursuite de la démonstration qu'il fait. Peut-être, un jour, lirais-je toutefois un essai plus contemporain pour savoir ce qu'il en advient de la réflexion aujourd'hui.

Bref, une lecture très intéressante, nuancée, qui prend des précautions lorsqu'il avance des idées, mais permet une belle remise en question, explore les impacts du racisme sur la philosophie et l'histoire. Une lecture plutôt inaccessible pour beaucoup de personnes toutefois, même pour une personne qui a étudié ce genre de théorie, certains passages étaient très difficiles.

[Dina Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

حزينة لاني لم اجد علي الموقع نسخة لها بالعربية
كتاب ثري كهذا يعترف بفضل حضارة ( مصر وكنعان وفنيقيا) علي الحضارة الاغريقية ذات التفاخر والتباهي مترامي الاطراف علي مر العصور حتي اليوم
يؤصل جزور الحضارة الاغريقية ويردها لنسبها الاكبر وهو حضارات الشرق الادني القديم
أولي بنا ثم لأولي بنا نحن كعرب ان نقرأه جميعا وندرسه لاولادنا ونحفظه عن ظهر قلب

[David Ravicher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A required must read for anyone in Western Civilization

[Caterina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Korkunç temelsiz varsayımlar üzerine kurulu, kesinlik içermeyen fikirlerden ibaret bir kitap. Bana göre vakit israfı. Yazarın geçmişi ve eğitim durumu araştırılırsa neden böyle söylediğim daha net görülecektir.

Birden fazla cilt olarak planlanan bir serinin ilk kitabı gibi görünüyor. Uzun giriş bölümünde diğer ciltleri de içeren açıklamalar mevcut. İçerikteki anlatılar bir temele oturmadığı gibi dil üzerinden çıkılan yolda "şu ana kadar aksi kanıt bulunmadı öyleyse söylediğim doğru olabilir" havası hakim.

Ayrıca yazarın uzmanlığı dışındaki arkeoloji gibi alanlar için öne sürdüğü görüşler çirkin. Topyekün tarih, arkeoloji bilimi üzerine paylaştığı düşünceler kesinlik içermediği gibi işine geldiği gibi yorumlanmış. Canı istediğinde "bu bizim konumuz değil" diyerek geçiştirmesi de cabası. :)

1. bölüm sonuna kadar sabırla okudum. Sonra "ehhh yeter be" dedim. Eserin girişinde yer alan yayıncının kaleme aldığı bölümde kitap için dünyadaki eleştirilerden bahsedilmiş. o kısmı okumak bile yeterince fikir sahibi olmanıza sebep olacaktır.

Eser yeni bir yayınevinin bünyesi içinde yeniden basım aşamasında. Okuyacak olanların itinalı yaklaşmasında fayda var. Alana hakim bir insan olarak önerim bu kitaptan daha dolu içerikleri olan eserler var.

Özet: Bulaşmayın, uzak durun!

[Debra Harley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tome of scholarship was a challenge. Thankfully, time in quarantine provided me opportunity to delve deeper into the history of my people. "Racism was, from the beginning, an important factor in the down-playing of the Egyptians and the dismissal of the Ancient Model..."

[David Kenvyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Black Athena is one of the seminal works about the origins of European Civilisation that has been produced in the last fifty or so years. Unfortunately, its subtitle “The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization” is somewhat misleading. It says very little about the development of Greek civilization, because that is not the concern of the book. It tells us about the development of scholarly views concerning how the Greeks became civilised. That is a perfectly valid thing to do because those views have changed over the last few hundred years, unquestionably because of the impact of European imperialism and colonialism, and the subsequent growth of racism.
What Bernal does not do is tell us why Greek civilisation is important. Stonehenge is older. Quite clearly the people who built Stonehenge had organisational capacity, understood mathematics and architecture and has a knowledge of astronomy. The peoples of Hallstatt and Le Tene had outstanding artistic abilities. What made the Greeks different was that they left written records, as well as buildings and sculptures. We know what they thought and we can read it today. The Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations were the oldest in Europe and we know from the work of Michael Ventris, who deciphered Linear B, that they spoke Greek.
But it is more than that. The founding of Greek civilisation was heroic. The Greek city-states united to withstand the might of the Persian Empire, which by 490BCE had conquered a whole swathe of territory from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean, including Egypt. The Greek victories at Marathon, Salamis, Plataea, Mycale and the Eurymedon ensured that Greece did not become a province of the Persian Empire, and that included the coastal cities of Asia Minor (or modern-day Turkey). It was, however, the Greek, or rather Spartan, defeat at Thermopylae that gave them heroic status. Films have been made about the 300 Spartans, in the scarlet cloaks, fighting to the last man against the huge Persian army. The Greek victories led to an outburst of confidence that became the foundation stone for European culture and civilisation.
The question that Bernal raises is this: What was the basis for this civilisation? From where did it get its inspiration? Herodotus, in his “Histories” is quite clear about this. He says that the sources of knowledge from which the Greeks built their civilisation were Egypt and Phoenicia, especially the cities of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos. The Greek historical legends confirm this. Thebes was founded by Cadmus, a prince of Tyre and therefore a Phoenician. Argos was founded by Danaus, the brother of Aegyptus. There is an argument about Cecrops, the founder of Athens. Some stories say that he was an Egyptian and some say that he was a native of Attica. One of the things that is beyond dispute is that the Greek alphabet was taken from the Phoenician one, which was Semitic and closely related to Hebrew. This is what Bernal calls the ancient model, because it is the one accepted by the Greeks themselves.
It is very easy to see why racist historians objected to this model, and wanted to replace it with something else. These historians have rejected these accounts on the basis that the Greeks believed in satyrs and centaurs and naiads and who knows what else. There is no evidence that the Greeks believed these stories were actually true. We tell tales of hobbits and magic rings, of vampires and werewolves. Why would the stories of centaurs and the rest be any different?
Bernal, of course, sets out his arguments in much more academic terms, and follows the historiography logically and in detail to show the fallacies, errors and fantasies of those who are putting forward the arguments for Egypt and Phoenicia having little or no influence on the development of Greek civilisation.
The Aryan model is based on the idea that Greek-speaking invaders came from the north, from the ancient Aryan homeland somewhere near the Urals. There are a number of problems with this. First, we know that the Minoans and the Mycenaeans, in Crete and the Peloponnese respectively spoke Greek. This is because Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B. On the basis of Ventris’ work, Cyrus Gordon worked on Linear A, and identified the use of Semitic words, which, given the location of Crete, could only have come from Phoenicia. The land bridge route by the Hellespont (the Dardanelles) does not work in an island in the midst of “the wine dark sea” and which does not have any close neighbouring islands. The second problem about the invasion from the north theory is that a major source for that story is a Greek historical legend “The Return of the Heraclids”. If we are not to believes the historical legends about Cadmus, Danaus and Cecrops, why should we believe the legend about the Return of the Heraclids? The only advantage that the story of the return of the Heraclids has over the other stories is that it came at the end of the Mycenaean age not the beginning, and therefore was nearer in time to the people that recorded these stories in writing. Or to be more accurate, in documents that have survived, because they were written after the invasion, which must have involved a considerable amount of destruction.
There is, of course, a third reason to think that the historical legends may contain a kernel of truth. The excavations of Hermann Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans have proved beyond any possible doubt that Troy, Mycenae and Knossos existed. They were found in the very places that ancient sources, like Pausanias, said they would be found. The archaeological finds at these sites have proved that these were incredibly rich and powerful cities. It is highly unlikely that Schliemann actually did look upon the death mask of Agamemnon, it is not impossible. A gold death mask would only have been made for a very important and powerful man.
Another argument put forward to dismiss the idea of Phoenician and Egyptian influence on Greek civilisation, is that there is no documentary evidence proving that it happened. In other words, silence is proof that it did not happen. It is perfectly possible that the documentary evidence has not survived or has not yet been discovered. It was only in the last century that the Hittite records at Boghazkoy, or the records at Ugarit and Ebla in Syria have been discovered. It is also the case that silence indicates that something is so obvious that it does not need to be said. It is not necessary to include in articles about Prince Charles that he is “heir to the throne”. We all know that. Where I am uneasy about the language that Bernal uses is terms like “colony”. That clearly implies direct rule b y a Viceroy or a Governor. It seems unlikely that the Phoenician city states would have done this any more than the Greek city states that followed them, and possibly followed their example. I do not know enough about Pharaonic sea power of the period to even guess whether direct rule was possible.
Bernal undermines the Aryan model comprehensively, if a lot less crudely than me in the two preceding paragraphs. Unsurprisingly, the Aryan model came to dominate accounts pf the emergence of Greek civilisation at the end of the nineteenth century, as racism and anti-Semitism were becoming the dominant ideology of the imperialist, European powers.
Surprisingly, it was Phoenicia that attracted the vitriol because, as a country, it was unquestionably Semitic. Its cities also had connections to the Jews. Hiram of Tyre had been an ally of David of Jerusalem, and provided Solomon with cedars from Lebanon for the construction of the Temple. [Bernal does not mention this particular link, but he is emphatic that Phoenician and Hebrew were dialects of the same language].
Egypt, on the other hand, was not seen as being specifically African. This was because people dismissed out of hand the idea that the Pyramids or the Temples at Luxor could have been the work of Africans.
This is in many ways a deeply frustrating book. It was written as the first volume of a trilogy. As far as I know, the last two volumes have not been published and I cannot find any evidence in the British Library catalogue that this is not the case. The book itself has promoted a huge debate, but the problem with the book is that it says that arguments will be followed up in the subsequent two volumes, and they do not seem to exist. Whatever its defects, it is still one of the most important books on the origins of Greek and, therefore, European civilisation to be published in the last fifty years.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The viewpoint that Classical civilisation has its roots in the older civilisations of the Ancient Near East has been growing and solidifying for twenty to thirty years now. Nevertheless Bernal's work is a landmark in this school of thought, drawing together evidence of all types and synthesising it together to form a coherent revision of the history of the Classical world. Unfortunately Bernal's writing is very dense (understandable perhaps given that he is dealing with evidence that spans nearly three thousand years of history) and not very accessible for the non-scholar. If you have an interest in Classical civilisation, however, then it is well worth the effort of ploughing through this work to get an alternative viewpoint on Classical history.

[Jose Vidal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro es más interesante por las preguntas y posibilidades que plantea que por sus conclusiones. Estas, desgraciadamente, se basan demasiado a menudo en suposiciones y comparaciones no demostradas (y en muchos casos indemostrables)
Sin embargo su crítica a la visión etnocéntrica de la antigüedad y la sección dedicada a la evolución de la idea de las influencias proximo orientales y africanas en la cultura Greco-latina es muy interesante.
Creo que es una lectura que todo interesado en el periodo debería hacer, aunque sea en muchos casos para no compartir sus conclusiones.

[Lewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fodder for the credulous and unlettered.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE CONTROVERSIAL, THOUGHT-PROVOKING BOOK

Martin Gardiner Bernal (1937-2013) was a British scholar who was a Professor of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, where he taught until 2001. The other books in this series are Black Athena: Volume 2: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence) and Black Athena: Volume 3: The Linguistic Evidence; he also wrote an autobiography, Geography of a Life.

He wrote in the Preface of this 1987 book, “The story behind ‘Black Athena’ is long, complicated and, I believe, sufficiently interesting as a study in the sociology of knowledge to deserve extended treatment… In 1975 I came to a mid-life crisis… Politically… it was related to the end of the American intervention in Indo-China and the awareness that the Maoist era in China was coming to an end. It now seemed to me that the central focus of danger and interest in the world was no longer east Asia but the Eastern Mediterranean. This shift led me to a concern for Jewish history. The scattered Jewish components of my ancestry would have given nightmares to assessors trying to apply the Nuremburg Laws… It was at this stage that I started looking into ancient Jewish history and… into the relationships between the Israelites and the surrounding people…” (Pg. xii-xiii)

He continues, “Clearly there were very profound cultural inhibitions against associating Egypt with Greece… I was staggered to discover that what I began to call the ‘Ancient Model’ had not been overthrown until the early 19th century, and that the version of Greek history I had been taught---far from being as old as the Greeks themselves---had been developed in the 1840s and 50s. [Michael] Astour had taught me that attitudes toward the Phoenicians in historiography were profoundly affected by anti-Semitism; it was therefore easy for me to make a connection between the dismissal of the Egyptians and the explosion of Northern European racism in the 19th century” (Pg. xv)

He explains, “These volumes are concerned with two models of Greek history: one viewing Greece as essential European or Aryan, and the other seeing it as Levantine, on the periphery of the Egyptian and Semitic cultural area. I call them the ‘Aryan’ and ‘Ancient’ models. The ‘Ancient Model’ was the conventional view among Greeks in the Classical and Hellenistic ages. According to it, Greek culture had arisen as the result of colonization, around 1500 BC, by Egyptians and Phoenicians who had civilized the native inhabitants. Furthermore, Greeks had continued to borrow heavily from Near Eastern cultures. Most people are surprised to learn that that the Aryan Model… developed only during the first half of the 19th century… According to the Aryan Model, there had been an invasion from the north---unreported in ancient tradition---which had overwhelmed the local ‘Aegean’ or ‘Pre-Hellenistic’ culture… It is from the construction of this Aryan Model that I call this volume ‘The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985.” (Pg. 1-2)

He continues, “I believe that we should return to the Ancient Model, but with some revisions; hence I call what I advocate… the ‘Revised Ancient Model.’ This accepts that there is a real basis to the stories of Egyptian and Phoenician colonization of Greece set out in the Ancient Model. However, it sees them as beginning somewhat earlier, in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. It also agrees with the latter that Greek civilization is the result of the cultural mixtures created by these colonizations and later borrowings from across the East Mediterranean… it tentatively accepts the Aryan Model’s hypothesis of invasions … from the north… If I am right … it will be necessary not only to rethink the fundamental bases of ‘Western Civilization’ but also to recognize the penetration of racism and ‘continental chauvinism’ into all our historiography… The Ancient Model had no major ‘internal’ deficiencies, or weaknesses in explanatory power. It was overthrown for external reasons.” (Pg. 2)

He acknowledges, “I cannot… PROVE that the Aryan Model is ‘wrong.’ All I am trying to do is show that it is less plausible than the Revised Ancient Model and that the latter provides a more fruitful framework for future research.” (Pg. 9) He also admits, “though I shall discuss many of the linguistic issues in Volume 2, and I have written elsewhere on some other aspects, I cannot provide full evidence here to back up all these contentions.” (Pg. 17)

He argues, “At the end of the 19th century a new … image began to emerge. The Egyptians were now seen to conform to the contemporary European vision of Africans: gay, pleasure-loving, childishly boastful and essentially materialistic. Another way of looking at these changes is to assume that after the rise of black slavery and racism, European thinkers were concerned to keep black Africans as far as possible from European civilization.” (Pg. 30)

He explains, “it is also clear that this first great Greek historian [Herodotus] thought the Egyptians and some Libyans were black. On the other hand, the earliest Greek representation of Athena is that from Mycenae, in which her limbs are painted, in line with the Minoan convention---taken from Egypt---of representing men as red/brown and women as yellow/white. Nevertheless, it is… Herodotus’s awareness of the connection, and his portrayal of the Egyptians as black, that has inspired the title of this series.” (Pg. 52-53) Later, he adds, “The political purpose of ‘Black Athena’ is, of course, to lessen European cultural arrogance.” (Pg. 73)

He notes that “Herodotus was accused by Plutarch, in the 2nd century AD, of being the ‘father of lies’ and tends today to be treated with indulgent condescension by scholars working within the Aryan Modal, who are especially scornful of his ‘credulity.’ However, he did not entirely rely on legends when he derived Greek customs from the East in general and Egypt in particular… Herodotus would seem to have been using reason rather than a blind faith in tradition, and the method of comparative plausibility which would seem entirely appropriate for such a subject. We are not here concerned with the rightness or wrongness of his conclusions, however, but merely with the facts the he himself believed in them and that he was being relatively conventional in doing so.” (Pg. 100)

He observes, “In the earth 4th century, the outstanding spokesman for Panhellenism and Greek cultural pride was the Athenian orator Isokrates… Isokrates admired the caste system, the rulership of the philosophers, and the rigor of the Egyptian philosopher/priests .. education…. Above all, he insisted that … philosophy was, and could only have been, a product of Egypt.” (Pg. 103-104)

He summarizes, “for Plato, if one wanted to return to the ancient Athenian institutions one had to turn to Egypt. In this way he resembled Isokrates… The deeper they went towards the true Hellenic roots of Greece, the closer they came to Egypt... Thus, despite their ambivalence if not hostility to the ideas, the two leading intellectual figures of the early 4th century BC were forced to admit the critical importance of foreign colonization, and massive later cultural borrowing from Egypt and the Levant, in the formation of the Hellenic civilization they both loved so passionately.” (Pg. 107-108)

He points out, “the proponents of the Aryan Modal are unable to quote extensively to back their case.” (Pg. 120) He adds later, “most Renaissance thinkers believed that Egypt was the original and creative source and Greece the later transmitter of some part of the Egyptian and Oriental wisdom, and the veracity of the Ancient Model was not at issue.” (Pg. 160)

He suggests, “In the long run we can see that Egypt was also harmed by the rise of racism and the need to disparage every African culture’ during the 18th century, however, the ambiguity of Egypt’s ‘racial’ position allowed its supporters to claim that it was essentially and originally ‘white.’ Greece, by contrast, benefited from racism, immediately and in every way; and it was rapidly seen as the ‘childhood’ of the ‘dynamic’ European race.” (Pg. 189)

He summarizes, “After the defense of Christianity and the idea of ‘progress,’ racism was, I believe, the third major force behind the overthrow of the Ancient Model; the fourth was Romanticism.” (Pg. 204)

He explains, “To what ‘race,’ then, did the Ancient Egyptians belong? I am very dubious of the concept ‘race’ in general because it is impossible to achieve any anatomical precision on the subject… Research on the question usually reveals far more about the predisposition of the researcher than about the question itself. Nevertheless I am convinced that… the further south, or up the Nile, one goes, the blacker and more Negroid the population becomes, and that this has been the case for the same length of time… I believe that the Egyptian civilization was fundamentally African and that the African element was stronger in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, before the Hyksos invasion, than it later became. Furthermore, I am convinced that many of the most powerful Egyptian dynasties … were made up of pharaohs whom one can usefully call black.” (Pg. 241-242)

He states, “by the outbreak of the Second World War… a paradigm had been established. It was no longer tolerable for a ‘scholar’ to suggest that there had been any significant Egyptian or Phoenician influences on the formation of Greece. Anyone who now did so was---if possible---expelled from the academic community, or at least labelled ‘cranky.’” (Pg. 398-399)

He recalls, “The only likely champions of Ancient Egypt are Copts and small groups of African and American Blacks. The … latter are much more concerned with proving that Egypt is truly African and black than with its influence on Greece… An even more powerful inhibitory factor to the restoration of the Egyptian aspect of the Ancient Model has been the fact that… these black scholars have been outside academia. Thus most of the writing… has been circulated among friends or published in very small editions; rapidly sold out to a passionately concerned public, but not considered as scholarship by academics, and not even stocked by libraries… I had been studying these issues for eight years before I became aware of this literature… I found that my intellectual position was far closer to the black literature than it was to orthodox ancient history… I know that the ideological objections to the Ancient Model can no longer be stated in public. In private they may still be believed in, but I am convinced that even this attitude… is not very frequently found in liberal academia. It seems, then, that the Aryan Modal is being maintained very largely by its own tradition and academic inertia… I am convinced… that the Ancient Model will be restored at some point in the early 21st century.” (Pg. 401-402)

He summarizes, “Thus, as the end of the 1980s, I see continued struggle among black scholars on the question of the ‘racial’ nature of the Ancient Egyptians… Furthermore, there is a general hostility among them to Semitic culture, especially when it is supposed to have affected Egypt. Meanwhile, where white scholars… are increasingly prepared to admit that the West Semites played a substantial part in the creation of Greek culture, there is still a far greater reluctance to admit fundamental Egyptian influence upon it. One aspect of my work is an attempt to reconcile these two hostile approaches.” (Pg. 436-437)

He concludes, “With the intensification of racism in the 19th century there was increasing dislike of the Egyptians, who were no longer seen as the cultural ancestors of Greece but fundamentally alien. A whole new discipline of Egyptology could thus grow up, to study this exotic culture and at the same time maintain and reinforce Egypt’s distance from the ‘real’ civilizations of Greece and Rome. The status of Egypt fell with the rise of racism in the 1820s; that of the Phoenicians declined with the rise of racial anti-Semitism in the 1880s and collapsed with its peak between 1917 and 1939. Thus, by the Second World War, it had been firmly established that Greece had not significantly borrowed culturally or linguistically from Egypt and Phoenicia and that the legends of civilizations were charming absurdities, as were the stories of the Greek wise men having studied in Egypt…” (Pg. 442)

“The main point I have been trying to make throughout this book is that the Ancient Model was destroyed and replaced by the Aryan Model not because of any internal deficiencies, not because the Aryan Model explained anything better or more plausibly; what it did do, however, was make the history of Greece and its relations to Egypt and the Levant conform to the world-view of the 19th century and, specifically, to its systematic racism. Since then the concepts of ‘race’ and categorical European superiority which formed the core of this [world view] have been discredited both morally and heuristically, and it would be fair to say that the Aryan Model was conceived in what we should not call sin and error… All I claim for this volume is that it has provided a case to be answered… the dubious origin of the Aryan Model … does call into question its superiority over the Ancient model.” (Pg. 442-443)

Obviously a provocative and controversial book, this book remains (even after thirty years) “must reading” for anyone interested in the debate about the origin of Greek ideas and culture.

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Athena is best read not as a claim about mass migration, but as a meditation on how civilizations actually transmit influence: via prestige, contact, and imitation. In the Bronze Age, Egypt functioned as the supreme prestige civilization of the eastern Mediterranean (see the Amarna letters, it’s undeniable). Greek memory of Egypt as a source of wisdom emerges from this long world of contact, where Afroasiatic prestige shaped Greek self understanding centuries before classical Greece ever existed.

Modern genetics has now largely ruled out demographic colonization models, and works like Cline’s 1177 BC, which I read a few months ago, reinforce this. Cline’s book supports Black Athena: culture does not require mass migration. Mediterranean civilizations repeatedly absorbed ideas, forms, and institutions without large ancestry transfer. We saw the same mechanism in 19th century France. France was consumed by Egyptomania: the Suez Canal, the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, Egyptian motifs saturating art and architecture, schoolchildren performing “the Egyptian wave” (see McCullough’s Path Between the Seas book on the Panama Canal). Egyptian civilization profoundly shaped French culture with no corresponding movement of people or DNA.

This makes the Eurocentric rebuttal to Bernal feel strangely selective. Critics insist there is “no archaeological evidence” of Egyptian influence on Greece, yet the record is full of it. Early Greek kouroi adopt the rigid, frontal posture and proportions of Egyptian statuary. Architectural motifs and decorative forms display unmistakable parallels. Minoan artifacts incorporate Near Eastern and Egyptian iconography, and Egyptian reliefs at Thebes depict Minoan visitors at court. We can rightly reject mass migration, but where is the nuanced acknowledgment of Egypt’s cultural contribution?

What follows is a familiar pattern: cultural extraction paired with narrative control. What TikTok did to Black creators in 2020 when Charli D’Amelio became the face of the “Renegade” dance while Jalaiah Harmon was erased is precisely what later European scholarship did to Egypt in the story of Greece. Influence flows upward in prestige; credit flows downward in power.

Bernal’s own reception exposes this dynamic. Even as a white, elite Cornell professor, he faced extraordinary backlash because his work threatened a foundational myth of Western exceptionalism. By contrast, Ivan Van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus, though far less rigorously evidenced, was more easily dismissed as “fringe,” in part because its author lacked access to the same institutional protections. Academic debates are governed as much by gatekeeping as by evidence, and challenges to civilizational origin stories are filtered through race, prestige, and power.

Recognizing that foundational cultures are inherited and hybrid destabilizes the story of civilizational purity. That is why the reaction to Bernal remains so charged. The same emotional and political reflex appears every time.

Bernal is worth reading.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book to bridge between the postcolonial studies and Greek history that I've been reading recently. Bernal's work does do that, but it's important to acknowledge that his thesis is a controversial one. I can't claim to be an expert, but the Wikipedia page for Black Athena makes it clear that his proposed Egyptian colonisation of Greece is not universally accepted. Whatever etymological evidence there may be (and I'm not qualified to judge) there is clearly limited support in the archaeological record for Bernal's position.

Which means that I don't think this book can be read as a straight statement of historical truth - of course you should always be aware of a writers biases, but in Bernal's case I think it's important to know that much of orthodox classic scholarship doesn't support his conclusions.

That said, I don't think the real value of Bernal's book is in whether his thesis about the impact of Egyptian and Phoenician colonisation on the development of Greek culture is true or not. It's much more significant as a detailed working through of the impact society has on the writing of history. From classical historians all the way through to the postwar twentieth century Bernal examines the ways in which contemporary social attitudes have impacted the view of classical Greek culture, how each era has projected its own interests on to their view of the Greek world, leading to the acceptability of Egyptian influence on Greek culture waxing and waning. Whether the outcome of this is strictly 'true' or not, the important bit is the challenge to conventional thinking we are encouraged to make.

So good book, a challenging and interesting read, but perhaps one to read in the context of a wider reading of both postcolonial thinking and classical Greek history.

[Whitlaw Tanyanyiwa Mugwiji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, by Martin Bernal is thought-provoking and highly controversial work that challenges the racist Eurocentric narrative on the origins of Greek civilization. Bernal argues that Greece has deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures, which have been systematically ignored, denied and suppressed since the eighteenth century at the height of racism in Europe.

Bernal's main thesis is that the ancient classical Greeks themselves saw their own political institutions, science, philosophy and religion as derived from Phoenicia and particularly from Egypt. This he termed the ancient model. However, these ancient sources were suppressed, discarded and eventually the Greek history was white washed. Analysing the sociology of knowledge. New knowledge could not be divorced from the environment in which it was being created, an environment where racism and European exceptionalism was it its peak. Hence, a new model was developed, which Bernal termed the Aryan model. In this model, Greece´s development became autochthonous and Egypt and Phoenicia ‘contributions were completely ignored.

The book is a comprehensive and detailed exploration of the cultural linkages between ancient Greece and Afro-Asiatic cultures. Bernal's research spans across various disciplines, including drama, poetry, myth, theology, religion, philosophy, language and historical narrative. thus making the book a difficult read. Perhaps the book was not meant for popular reading, because it was so difficult for me.

I recommend Black Athena as an essential read for anyone interested in the history of Greece and its cultural interactions with Africa and Asia minor. The book teaches and encourages readers to reconsider the origins of the Greek civilization and to appreciate the contributions of Afro-Asiatic cultures to the development of Western civilization.

[Shira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting stuff. I can't remember who recommended this one to me but I really liked it. I overlapped at Cornell with Martin Bernal but was not aware of him at the time. I took a historiography class about China, and it seems weird that I didn't know more about him. Not knowing much about this subject area I was curious to see whether his positions were considered controversial now - and it seems yes, they are controversial even now. I'm not sure whether I have the interest to dig in more, but I think the larger point about "don't take anything for granted - a lot of the intellectual wisdom we take for granted as objective truth was generated within a racist system and is anything but." The intro section about why outsiders often advance disciplines is a must-read for all. I'll send you the PDF I made of it if you like.

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Controversial, occasional lack of focusing or detailing in the explanation, but absolutely breathtaking. This book has broken the entire paradigm built from the basis of eurocentrism and hellenocentrism imposed by racist anthropology during the last four centuries. It's difficut to think outside our selfish and categorizing vission and this work helps linking different civilization and their respectives cultures, putting in place an interconnected ancient context.

[Ceegeez1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brief statement as in future I will revisit comments.

Martin Bernal's, BLACK ATHENA (Volume 1-1987); most crucial contribution is as a foundational frame for greater comprehension ~ however absolutely accurate; of the anglocentric societal structural context of African origination as hamartic stigma for inhumane objectification.

To be continued.

[çiğdem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hayatımda okuduğum en zor kitaptı. Yazar Yunanlıların tarihini savaşlara ve coğrafyaya girmeden kültür üzerinden anlatıyor. Bunu yaparken de kelime çözümlemelerinden astrolojiye, ırkçılıktan antik çağ kitaplarına kadar birçok farklı kaynaktandan, bilgiden yararlanıyor. Ancak bu durum beni kitabı okurken çok zorladı. Yazar çok şey vermeye çalışırken çok az şey vermiş oldu.

[Haider Sleem · Rating 4 out of 5]

عشت ١٢ يوم من المتعه بين صفحات الدراسه دي
أتمنى أقدر ألاقي الجزء التاني والتالت كمان
ساعدني شويه على الفهم إني قاري عن تاريخ مصر القديمة
لكن للأسف الدراسه دي محتاجه إن كمان يكون الواحد قاري عن التاريخ اليوناني والروماني علشان يكون ملم بالموضوع أكتر
خلاصه الدراسه : إن التاريخ غير التأريخ ، إنما يؤرخ للتاريخ على حسب ميول وإعتقادات والتوجهات التي يتبناها كاتبه

[Klaas · Rating 4 out of 5]

After first having read Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James this subject interest me a lot and this book his even given me more reason to continue research this. It is nice to read a complete new view on who are the real people behind our western civilisation. It would not be the first time that scientist have to reverse their initial assumptions.