Black Athena
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Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (Rutgers University
Press 1987, ISBN 0-8135-1277-8) is a work by Martin Bernal. It expounds a
controversial hypothesis that ancient Greece, and hence Western civilization, derived
much of its cultural roots from Afroasiatic (Egyptian and Phoenician) cultures. The
work was published in three volumes:
Volume I, The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985 (1987)
Volume II, The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence (1991)
Volume III, The Linguistic Evidence (2006)
Since Bernal specialized in the study of the evolution of the Chinese language, in
Black Athena he takes a language-oriented approach to understanding cultural
influences, and rejects to some degree archaeological evidence and historical
accounts.
Conflicting views
According to Bernal, there are two main theories of the origin of Greek civilization:
the "Aryan theory" and the "Phoenician theory". The Aryan theory is that the early
settlement of Greece was from the north-west (i.e. central Europe) which he further
sub-divides into two versions: "Strong" and "Weak". The Strong theory holds that the
area of Greece was uninhabited before the arrival of the Aryans. The Weak theory
holds that the area had natives before the Aryans arrived.
Bernal rejects the Aryan theory of colonization based on supposed lack of evidence.
He cites Greek historians to prove that the Greeks of the time of Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle believed that Phoenician civiliation colonized Greece. Based on this, he
creates a new theory of Greek origins, namely, that Greece was colonized by northern
invaders mixing with a colony established by Phoenicia. In the midst of this theory he
takes pains to convince the reader that Egyptians and Phoenicians were mostly of
African instead of Mediterranean descent.
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Origins of research
Going on to explain the historiography of Egypt and North Africa, he shows the
reader many examples of great "Western" leaders expressing interest or open
admiration of Egypt and the Near East.
While it is widely accepted that the Classical Greek language arose from the
Proto-Greek language with influences from the Anatolian languages that were spoken
nearby, and the culture is assumed to have developed from a comparable
amalgamation of 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). The book had enormous impact
on African American Afrocentrist movements, because of its de-centering impact on
classical images of the West.
Bernal proposes that Greek evolved from the contact between an Indo-European
language and culturally 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.
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Reception
Black Athena has provoked a series of published works debating it (positively and
negatively), including:
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.
Jacques Berlinerblau, Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and
the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals 1999.
Some subsequent writers have been heavily critical of what they consider to be
Bernal's confusion of culture, ethnicity and race; and what they take to be
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.
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Selected publications
What follows is a is list of relevant publications listed on the now inactive
www.blackathena.com website.
1976 Chinese Socialism Before 1907, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
1987 Black Athena The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization 1: The Fabrication
of Ancient Greece 1785-1985. London: Free Association Books. and New Brunswick:
Rutgers University.
1988 "The British Utilitarians, Imperialism and the Fall of the Ancient Model,"
Culture and History 3: 98-127.
1989 "Classics in Crisis: An Outsider's View In," Classics: A Discipline and
Profession in Crisis? Ed. P. Culham and L. Edmunds. University Press of America. Pp.
67-76.
"Black Athena and the APA." in "The Challenge of Black Athena" Special issue of
Arethusa. Pp.17-37.
1990 "Responses to Critical Reviews of Black Athena: Volume I: in the Journal of
Mediterranean Archaeology 3/1:111- 137.
Cadmean Letters: The Westward Diffusion of The Semitic Alphabet Before 1400 B.C.
Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
1991 Black Athena 2: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence. London, Free
Association Books; New Brunswick: Rutgers University.
1992 "Animadversions on the Origins of Western Science," Isis 83, 4 (December):
596-607.
1993 "Response", to "Dialogue: Martin Bernal's Black Athena." Journal of Women's
History 4.3, (Winter):119-135.
"Phoenician Politics and Egyptian Justice in Ancient Greece." in Kurt Raaflaub ed.
Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike: nahöstliochen Kulturen und die Griechen.
Schriften des Historischen Kollegs. Kolloquien 24. München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag.
Pp.241-252.
"Reply to L. A. Trittle," Liverpool Classical Monthly 18.2: whole issue.
1994 "Response to Robert Palter," History of Science 32:1-20.
1995 "Race, Class and Gender in the Formation of The Aryan Model of Greek
Origins." South Atlantic Quarterly. 94.4. (Fall): 987-1008.
"Politically Correct: Mythologies of Neo-Conservatism in the American Academy,"
New Political Science. 38/39:17-28.
1997 "Responses to Black Athena." Black Athena: Ten Years After. Special edition of
Talanta vols. 28 and 29. pp.65-99;165-173 and 209-219.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Athena