Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe? An Interview with Richard Poe

by Hisham Aidi

Ancient Egypt has long held tremendous fascination and symbolism for African Americans as a source of identification and pride. Ancient Egyptian imagery appears in African American popular culture and religion, and narratives of ancient Egyptian grandeur and glory hold a special resonance for many African Americans. On any given day on Harlem's bustling 125th Street, for example, one might encounter a religious group called the Islamic Hebrew Nubians who don "Pharaonic" robes and turbans and preach to pedestrians about the lost tribes of Egypt, while young African Americans shop for clothing at Nefertiti Fashions or marvel at the artifacts displayed in a store called Yaiqab's Treasures of Egypt.

Although many African Americans seem to take Egypt's African heritage for granted, scholars have long debated the origins of ancient Egyptian culture and society. Confronted with the archaeological remains of an obviously impressive and advanced ancient culture in Africa, many 19th century European scholars insisted that Egyptian civilization must have originated in Europe or the Near East. This idea has been challenged by many subsequent researchers, perhaps most influentially by Martin Bernal, whose Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol. 1 (Rutgers University Press, 1989) triggered numerous debates. Bernal not only rejected the idea that ancient Egypt was a poor cousin to ancient Greece, as had often been proposed, he argued that in fact, Greek civilization was massively indebted to African and Asian influences, primarily to the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Recently, Bernal's thesis has received strong support from unlikely quarters, from conservative political commentator Richard Poe.

In Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe? (Prima Publishing, 1999), Poe, an award-winning author, follows historical and archaeological clues from southern Egypt as far north as ancient Colchis, the modern nation of Georgia. He demonstrates that the ancient Egyptians were a seafaring people, who traveled as far as southern Russia and colonized parts of southern Europe, including Greece. Poe scrutinizes the words of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (450 BC), who observed that the Colchians looked like the Egyptians (he described them as "melagchroes," which means "black-skinned," and "onlotriches," which means "woolly-haired") and, like them, practiced circumcision. Poe discusses archeological evidence including Colchian linen, which, like Egyptian linen, was woven on "a vertical two-beam loom, whose distinctive pyramid-shaped weights have been found in abundance in Georgian archaeological sites." In light of such evidence, Poe asks, "If the Egyptians would sail 250 miles to buy pine wood in Byblos, and 900 miles to obtain gold, incense, and exotic beads of Ethiopia, why would they not have sailed 560 miles to Greece in whose markets all the riches of Europe could be found? Scholars have never provided a satisfactory answer to this question." Poe draws our attention to astonishing evidence of an Egyptian presence in ancient Greece, including the Pyramid of Amphion. Towards the latter part of his 500-page book, Poe addresses another explosive topic: the race of the ancient Egyptians. "Were the Egyptians black?" Poe asks, echoing a question long debated by scholars. The answer to this question, Poe argues, depends on what standard or definition of blackness is adopted; if the "one-drop rule" commonly used in the US is used, then most Egyptians would have qualified as black, he argues. He states emphatically, however, that the ancient Egyptians were "biologically African," and musters cultural, archaeological, and scientific evidence to demonstrate that the original Egyptians evolved in Africa, not, as had been argued by some scholars, in the Near East or Mediterranean. Poe also highlights Egyptian customs which came from regions further south, including the Egyptian habit of mummifying the dead, ancestor worship, circumcision, and clapping and wearing animal masks during religious rites. "The evidence is strong -- and stronger all the time -- that large portions of Egyptian culture can indeed be traced to the heart of Africa," Poe writes.

Finally, Poe argues that since white Americans often tend to lay claim to ancient Greece, African Americans should have every right to identify with ancient Egypt, offering a powerful rebuttal of conservative and liberal attacks on Afrocentrism. Prof. Molefi Asante of Temple University, one of Afrocentrism's key theorists, has described Poe's book as "Brilliant...a classic volume." I recently spoke to Richard Poe by phone in New York City.

Black Spark, White Fire is an intriguing, powerfully argued book, but one of the things that made it particularly interesting to me, and which readers may not know, is that you're a self-proclaimed conservative. Is that right?

I am a conservative. I'm a libertarian -- I believe that government is best which governs least.

How has Black Spark, White Fire been received by the public in general, and the African American community in particular?

As Martin Bernal says, there are different phases of reaction to a controversial idea. The first step is: ignore. The major media, the New York Times Book Review and other major publications, have ignored the book, which is noteworthy because I had some glowing academic reviews. The book was warmly received in the black community, for which I am very grateful. However, I envisioned the book for an audience far beyond the black community, reaching a white audience.

The book is designed to convince the most skeptical European-American. As a conservative, I know people who are virulently opposed to these ideas. The book is trying to defuse and disarm the critics but it's not getting mass media publicity.

The main criticism leveled at Bernal's argument, which can also be said of your book, is that you both rely heavily on myth and legend, for example, in your use of Herodotus.

That is a bogus criticism. Neither Bernal nor I rely on legends. We use legends as a line of inquiry to corroborative evidence. British anthropologist Arthur Evans discovered the Palace of Minos in the same way. He was led in part by the legends and folk beliefs of the Cretan people. Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of Troy was guided by Homer.

Your discussion of the Pyramid of Amphion in Greece is fascinating - why haven't the pyramids of Greece received more attention from Afrocentrists or scholars of other persuasions?

The Greek archaeologist Theodore Spyropoulos showed us around one pyramid. It occupies a commanding position overlooking the plain of Argos, where many legends took place. On the highway outside Argos, a sign says, "The Pyramid of Elenizo," but no explanation is given. They say it's a mystery who built it. The site itself, unlike others, is overgrown with grass. Spyropoulos thinks the pyramid is being deliberately ignored for political reasons. Greeks don't like the idea of others having built their civilization. There's a "we did everything" attitude, a knee-jerk nationalism, not so much racism.

While excavating in a pyramidal structure near Thebes, Spyropoulos found areas underground, subterranean tunnels and channels, which he felt were tombs. He thought he could find belongings and royal treasures but he was prevented from proceeding. This was the 1970s, a dictatorship was in power, and he was ordered to leave Thebes. Most Afrocentrists are not even aware of the Greek pyramids. I give credit to Bernal who mentions them in Black Athena II. There is a book out in Greek called The Pyramids of Greece. I haven't read the book, but I'm told it is skeptical and downplays Egyptian influence.

You say there's a double standard at work when white critics of Afrocentrism say it's wrong for black Americans to identify with ancient Egypt. As you write, "an Anglo-Saxon descended from wild Germanic tribes could legitimately take pride in his cultural inheritance -- however distant and tenuous -- from ancient Greece. But a black African must not take pride in ancient Egypt." Can you elaborate on this point?

The standard talking point of people who attack Afrocentrism is, "I'm Scottish, I don't claim a Greek civilization." That's a lie. Speaking as a European American myself, the European Americans who say they don't think of themselves as European, as not considering Europe as their heritage, are lying through their teeth. Every white European American has a claim to every European civilization.

In the introduction to Black Spark, White Fire, I say I'm proud of European culture. I say that in my opinion, The Iliad and The Odyssey are the two greatest works of literature. I don't set out to beat up on either of the two cultures [European and African]. Any person who does not have self-respect, respect for their own heritage, cannot respect others.

You address the question of whether the Egyptians were "black," and you conclude that whether the ancient Egyptians were "black" depends on how you define black. But you make a strong case that the Egyptians were "biologically African." Can you discuss this distinction?

Africa is a distinct entity. Historically there has been limited access to the continent. People on the African continent are genetically distinct. The fact that people look different -- that there is a gradation in skin color and hair fuzziness the more north you get - is less important than the evidence provided by Shomarka Keita [a bio-anthropologist at Howard University] that Egyptians evolved in Africa, and have more in common with other Africans than with non-Africans from Asia or Europe.

Sickle cell anemia, thought to be limited to Africa, comes up in southern Europe. Cases have come up in Greece and Italy. So are North Africans more like Europeans or are Europeans more like North Africans? Europe was peopled by Africans, who have been seafaring since the Stone Age. So, of course, it all comes down to one's definition of blackness and that's where anti-Afrocentric arguments become problematic.

Loring C. Brace is often cited as someone who's proven that the ancient Egyptians weren't black. He measures skulls and runs craniological evidence through computers, and concludes that sub-Saharan Africans are black, and Egyptians are in a group more similar to Europeans -- but he also considered Nubians and Somalis more like Europeans. And yet the evidence is there to be seen. Many modern Egyptians, many of them descendants of ancient Egyptians, look black. Why measure skulls and use a computer for this conclusion? Ethiopians and Somalis have been described as Caucasoid before; there is a double standard here, too.

Scholars cannot have more than one definition of blackness - the one-drop rule for the US, and for Africa the 19th century standard of the "true Negro" of the original black race with the darkest of complexions and the most Negroid of features. In the 19th century, people in Africa without the most pronounced Negro features were not considered black. The Somalis were considered Hamitic. The differences you see in Africa were not caused by marriage with [non-African] outsiders -- Africans evolved that way. Do Somalis look more European with their features or do Europeans look more like Somalis?

Would you call yourself an Afrocentrist?

I'm wary of the phrase "Afrocentrist," just as I'm wary of any political label. I wouldn't call myself an Afrocentrist. I'm not about being Afro-centered. I'm Euro-centered. My book is Eurocentric, it's about the colonization of Europe by Egyptians. Europe is the center of my intellectual world. But my book is sympathetic to Afrocentrism. And again, you don't have to beat up on another culture to be proud of your own. I'm proud to be Russian Jewish and Mexican American, and I have no problem with the idea that Africa colonized much of Europe.

About the Author

Photo: Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe? (Prima Publishing, 1999), by Richard Poe. Courtesy of Prima Publishing.

http://www.africana.com/images/articles/tt_pic487.jpg (http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/index_20000522.asp)

Ancient Egyptian ethnographic "mural of the races" found in the tomb of Rameses III - Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia by Karl Richard Lepsius (German: Denkmaler aus Agypten und Athiopian). French Egyptologist Champollion found similar murals in other royal tombs.

http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/Egypt_files/image004.jpg
The hieroglyphics to the right of each figure labels each one, from left to right:

(Ref: The Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Vols 1&2, E.A. Budge, Dover.)

Egyptian, Ret (page 435a,b) = Men: We also have "ret na romé" or "We men above mankind." This ideology allows us to understand that there are actually only three races represented here; Black, White, and Semitic since the Egyptians considered themselves in a class of their own, while still showing that they belonged to the Black racial group.

Semite, Namu (page 373b) =Travelers or wanderers: We also have "Namu Sho" or "People who travel the sands": Nomads or Bedu.

Other Africans, Nahasu (pages 344a/386b) = Strangers or barbarians: In Wolof (Senegal), a language as close to the Ancient Egyptian language as modern Egyptian, "nahas" means "good for nothing; worthless."

European, Tamhu (page 855a) = Red people: Tamh = hematite; reddish iron ore; ochre or pale yellow to red.

yawn

Ancient Egyptians were negroes, and started civilization in Europe. Well, it's a thought, not a good one, but still a thought.

Ancient Egyptians were negroes, and started civilization in Europe. Well, it's a thought, not a good one, but still a thought.
I.e., it's backed up by overwhelming evidence, but you don't like it, so you'll pretend it's just a thought.

Overwhelming evidence? You mean that one crackpot scientist coming up with some theory taken serious by no single RESPECTED historian anywhere? I've read dozens of these laughable afrocentric fairytales. It's amazing how most negroes still were confronted with slavery and cannibalism in the 19th century while their ancestors slightly more to the north supposedly civilized Europe. Odd. I guess recorded history must be racist.

Overwhelming evidence?
Yes.

You mean that one crackpot scientist coming up with some theory taken serious by no single RESPECTED historian anywhere?
You have it exactly backwards. The crackpots are the ones saying ancient Egyptians were white. Tell me: does King Tutankhamen look white to you? Do his facial features look European?

http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/tutankhamen.jpg

To say yes is to lie, brazenly and stupidly. I suppose the ancient Egyptians saw forward in time and wanted to deceive skinheads? It's all a conspiracy, hehe.

Here is a Beja girl. Most scholars recognize that the Beja are descended from the ancient Egyptians, as they are indigenous to the area. Their language and physical features match very closely with the ancient Egyptians. Tell me, does she look white to you?

http://www.lost-oasis.org/photos/big/bw2.jpg

Lovely how you managed not to answer my statement at all.

Whether or not the Egyptians were white or black is immaterial, despite the probability that they were either both or neither.

What evidence is there that the Egyptians colonized Europe? That is the issue.

And besides, most Afrocentric stuff is just compensation for a lousy historical showing. Understandable, akin to a man worried about the size of his penis buying a big car.

A man with a big car has a big car, no matter what else. But negroes do not have ancient Egypt.

Whether or not the Egyptians were white or black is immaterial,
You must be joking. That Egyptians were black falsifies the white racist fantasy that blacks are congenitally incapable of high civilization.
despite the probability that they were either both or neither.
Did you pull this "probability" out of your nether orifice? There is a broad consensus among the experts that ancient Egyptians were black. This should even be obvious to a layman like yourself, were you not blinded by ideology. Just look at King Tut: does he look European at all? Clearly not; his facial features are classically black.

What evidence is there that the Egyptians colonized Europe? That is the issue.
Apparently you didn't read the article.

And besides, most Afrocentric stuff is just compensation for a lousy historical showing.
And white racists spout such stupidity because they're ashamed to live in trailers. Insults are easy. Sadly for you, blacks did not have a lousy historical showing. Ancient Egypt is an example of a remarkable black civilization, of incomparable high art, vastly influential to neighboring cultures, lasting two thousand years as a unified state. I could see only an uneducated skinhead dismiss that as a "lousy historical showing." Tell me: can you point to a pre-Christian Irish civilization of comparable achievements? I won't be holding my breath.

A man with a big car has a big car, no matter what else. But negroes do not have ancient Egypt.
Just keep stomping your feet and repeating that lie. It's all you have.

Ancient Egyptian madness began in the Western world in the 18th century. It was the result of Western 'Egyptologists' (white folks) unlocking the keys to what turned out to them to be a fantastic civilization. This civilization seemed so remarkable that Westerners (white folks) began to portray their new gods, the Egyptians, in their own (white folks) image. Everybody else in the world had long taken it for granted that Ancient Egypt was a black civilization, just as they had taken it for granted that the Greeks were white, and the Chinese were...well, Chinese. Of course, everybody else had to be shown the error of one's common sense. Alas.

One of the ironies of this madness is that when these same white folks visit Egypt today, the locals immediately recognize them as Khawaaga or foreigners. On the other hand, African Americans traveling in Egypt are very often mistaken for native Egyptians, and are usually referred to as Masri or Egyptians. That is because...

The simple truth is that Egypt is, and always has been a black African nation. Once you leave the great Arab cities of Cairo and Alexandria, and go into the Nile valley, you are in black Africa. Now, Egypt has been ruled by an Arab minority since the 9th century A.D., a minority that is extremely sensitive to race, and one which behaves in the manner chided by Ahmed Ben Bella, the late president of Algeria - "We (Arabs) have been in Africa for 1200 years, and yet we still behave as colonialists."

This Arab minority ruling class has also colluded with white folks in their Egyptian madness. For centuries Egypt made money by selling mummies to Europeans. By the 18th century there was even a thriving business in fake mummies, as powdered mummy became the rage as a medicinal cure all. The Egyptian government put heavy taxes on the export of mummies and did nothing to discourage the trade. It also banned the Egyptian language from public usage, but the natives kept it alive in the liturgy of the Coptic (Gyptic) church. It meant to Arabize the population, much as the government of the Sudan is now attempting to do in Sudan. This is partially based upon the Arab ideology that states that if the father of a child is an Arab then so too is the baby. The reality of genetics does not cloud this issue. Black Sudanese think they're Arabs too!

We are reminded of the well intended but naive appeal to the Arab Egyptian government by some African Americans to have it officially proclaim that Egypt was (is) a black nation. The Arab minority ruling class is not about to open that can of worms. Witness its hysterical reaction to the portrayal of black Anwar Sadat by the black Lou Gossett, Jr.

And all those black folks in the Nile valley are not Nubians! There are, at best, only one million Nubians on the planet and guess where they live mostly? Yep, in Nubia.

Small wager...even if it were possible to transport someone who suffers this affliction, back to the Egypt of the Pharaohs, to this vibrant black culture, you probably would still get an argument. Chances are good that the individual would declare that this must be the period of Ethiopian rule! Sad...

http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/egypt_mad.html

Do you have any source other than a copy and paste? Generally, Geocities websites are above only graffiti in restrooms on the reliability of information scale.

blablabla negroes invented civilization blablabla tons of evidence blablabla

nonsense


King Tut looks like the average mixed blood north african. The ancient egyptians likely had some negroblood, but then again, they also had caucasian and arabian blood. Even if we accept for the sake of the argument that they were real fullblood negroes there still is zero evidence that they sparked civilization in Europe. Your crackpot historian here is a nobody who gets zero respect from his peers.

Second: it might be news to you, but the Minoan civilization predates the Egyptian, but I suppose you'll tell me the Minoans were negroes too.

Third: Siclair is far from a neonazi, you calling him that shows more about your mindset than of his.

Virtually all Egyptologists and anthropologists agree that the Ancient Egyptians belonged to the same ethnic sub grouping, usually referred to as 'Hamites,' as the Somali, Galla (Oromo), Beja, Afar (Danakil), etc. - peoples of northeast Africa. We would also include the Wolof of Senegal, and of course modern Egyptians of the Nile Valley, especially the Fellaheen or Rural Egyptians, and the Nubians.

Afar:
http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/Afar-lady-black-dress.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/00000000afargirl.jpg

Somali:
http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/Somali-lady1a.jpg

Beja:
http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/00000beja5.jpg

Wolof:
http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/000000sen1.jpg

Wow, these Egyptian folks really look lily-white! Can't get much whiter than this... :rolleyes:

Do you have any source other than a copy and paste? Generally, Geocities websites are above only graffiti in restrooms on the reliability of information scale.
Read the original article I posted.

Again you're not answering.

Your crackpot historian here is a nobody who gets zero respect from his peers.
Actually his book has been acclaimed by many preeminent experts in the field. You are too twisted by ideology to admit the truth. Only crackpot non-historians like Arthur Kemp believe the ancient Egyptians were white.

Whilst saying the egyptions were not black, they were not nordic either. I don't care much for egypt anyway.

His book has been acclaimed by Jack Shit and you know it, so be a big girl and admit it.

I don't see anyone here taking the 'they were pure whites' line, so you can put that cute little non-argument back in your ass where you pulled it out of.

His book has been acclaimed by Jack Shit and you know it
Oh yeah?

Black Spark, White Fire has been praised by experts as varied as Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante, Cornell University historian Martin Bernal and Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. The book makes an excellent, meticulously researched case that not only were the ancient Egyptians black, they were also instrumental in sparking what we know today as European civilization. The truth won't go away just because you dislike it.

- "Black Spark, White Fire has been praised by experts as varied as Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante, Cornell University historian Martin Bernal and Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl".


By Heyerdahl? Really? Do you have any links or other sources for this?


Petr

I was about to ask the same Petr. First troll, show me the evidence for this, then point out what Heyerdahl's exploration has to do with genetic science and anthropology, and how it gives him any expertise in this matter.

By Heyerdahl? Really? Do you have any links or other sources for this?
Petr

Thor Heyerdahl and the Pyramids of Greece

By Richard Poe

April 26, 2002

WITH ALL THE WAR NEWS blaring from our TV sets, few Americans found time last week to mark the passing of 87-year-old Thor Heyerdahl. Yet his death haunts and accuses us, like a dagger pointed at our hearts.

The great Norwegian explorer lived as few men dare to live in this effeminate age. Heyerdahl roamed the seas in primitive, handmade craft, as intimate with death as his Viking forebears had been.

In 1947, he sailed more than 4,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean in a balsa-log raft named Kon-Tiki. He crossed the Atlantic in 1970, in a ship of reeds, modeled after those of the pharaohs.

Armchair critics sneered, dismissing Heyerdahl’s exploits as publicity stunts, devoid of scientific merit. A shameless few even mock the great man in death.

"History Isn’t Made By Daft Men on Rafts," reads the headline of an article by Ross Clark in the London Sunday Telegraph of April 21.

"The flaw in the Heyerdahl approach is that it provides rather more entertainment than it does enlightenment," sniffs Clark. "Thanks to Kon-Tiki, almost every layman now believes that… the Polynesians jumped onto balsawood rafts and crossed the Pacific. Heyerdahl did it and so, therefore, must the Polynesians. But all Heyerdahl showed was that it was possible to sail for 4,500 miles on a raft… "

Well, yes. That is "all" that Heyerdahl showed. But for many of us, that is enough.

Safety first is the motto of our age. We prefer full-body searches at the airport and national ID cards imprinted with our DNA codes to the scary possibility of maybe tangling with a terrorist at 30,000 feet.

Heyerdahl thought differently. He was a man from another age.

Stone Age tribes – the ancestors of today’s Australian aborigines – once crossed from Southeast Asia to Australia by boat or raft, far from sight of any land. A similar spirit drove the Stone Age seafarers who settled Malta, Crete and the misty British Isles.

Of prehistoric mariners, Norwegian archaeologist A.W. Brogger declared, "Distance was no object… they knew no frontiers, needed no passport or identity papers or tickets. The earth was free, the world lay open, and they wandered across it as though a thousand miles was nothing but a joyous adventure."

That was the spirit of Thor Heyerdahl.

I corresponded briefly with Heyerdahl in 1997. At the time, I was writing Black Spark, White Fire, a book which examines the theory that Egyptian seafarers may have landed in Greece during the Bronze Age, planted colonies, founded royal dynasties and helped kindle Western civilization.

Greek legend holds that an Egyptian king named Danaos sailed a war fleet to the Peloponnese, conquered Greece and ordered the natives to call themselves "Danaans" in his honor.

A number of pyramids dot the Greek landscape to this day, structures of great antiquity and mysterious origin. Greek archaeologist Theodore Spyropoulos links them to the royal house of Danaos.

Spyropoulos’ theory is understandably controversial. But conventional scholars treat it with far more contempt than it deserves. They claim that Egyptians were poor sailors, incapable of reaching Greece.

Oddly, no one disputes that Egyptian vessels made regular stops in Crete, Lebanon, and even Ethiopia. If they could sail 900 miles down the Red Sea, why not a mere 560 miles to Greece?

I thought a quote from Heyerdahl would lend weight to my argument. Tracking him down to the Canary Islands, I interviewed the great man by fax.

"[The Egyptians] could very easily have sailed from Egypt to Greece… " Heyerdahl responded. An Egyptian reed boat could probably make the crossing in, "a week on average," he estimated.

I will never forget the moment when those blessed words, under Heyerdahl’s letterhead, fell gently into my fax tray.

And now let me make a confession.

Sometimes I dream of duplicating Danaos’s voyage in an Egyptian-style vessel – just as Heyerdahl might have done. Go ahead. Laugh. It’s a silly dream, I know, especially for a man like me, whose greatest nautical feat to date has been circumnavigating Manhattan by kayak.

Yet, every gust of salt air from the East River sends my mind roaming. Maybe I’ll never muster the courage or money to organize such an expedition. But because of Heyerdahl, I dreamed of it.

Heroes, conquerors, explorers and knaves – all alike must die. But the greatest men leave something behind. The very lives they lived cause other men to dream. They make our puny lives greater, if only in our imaginations.

Such a man was Thor Heyerdahl.

http://www.richardpoe.com/column.cgi?story=95

More later.

This is basically the sort of fringe pseudoscholarship that gets taught these days in "African-American Studies" classes. There is an obvious parallel to some of the more absurd revisionist claims floating around on the internet.

By Heyerdahl? Really? Do you have any links or other sources for this?I have that book. I bought it when I had precisely this debate several years ago. Its a piece of garbage, simply put.

Is it your argument that blacks are more intelligent and civilized the whites?

The Red Sea is quite calm, the Medditerranean isn't. At all. Ancient triremes, such as the Egyptians had, were forced to sail the coasts in order not to get lost at sea on the Medditerranean. You can't compare distances at sea without adding other factors. So, what you proved now is that either Heyerdahl assumed it wasn't impossible without having evidence for it, or that your crackpot put words in a dead man's mouth. Let's assume for the sake of the argument that the first option is the real one, then it merely points out that one man thinks it might have been possible, not that it was possible, and certainly not that it actually happened.

This is basically the sort of fringe pseudoscholarship that gets taught these days in "African-American Studies" classes.
How so? That the ancient Egyptians were black is a mainstream view, not a fringe one. Are all the primary sources which show Egyptian influence in Europe "fringe pseudoscholarship"? Was Herodotus a hack? Ancient Egypt lasted two thousand years as a unified state. It was a maritime civilization whose art and architecture left an indelible impact upon surrounding cultures, including those in Europe. What is "fringe" about accepting these rather obvious facts?

I have that book. I bought it when I had precisely this debate several years ago. Its a piece of garbage, simply put.
Why do you say so?

Does Thor say anywhere that the Egyptians were blacks?

Is it your argument that blacks are more intelligent and civilized the whites?
Only that blacks are also capable of high civilization. Ancient Egypt, for one, demonstrates as much. There are savages of all races.

Does Thor say anywhere that the Egyptians were blacks?
He praised the book which accepts that fact. Then again, historians in general accept that the ancient Egyptians were black. Only a few fringe loonies like Arthur Kemp say they were white.

Look, I can copy and paste articles off the internet too!

By the way, the book Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History by Mary lefkowitz, refutes ALL of the "arguments" put forth in your articles.

Was Greek Culture Stolen from Africa?
Modern myth vs. ancient history

Excerpted from her Book Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History

http://www.wellesley.edu/CS/Mary/contents.html

Why I wrote the book. In the fall of 1991 I was asked to write a review-article for The New Republic about Martin Bernal's Black Athena and its relation to the Afrocentrist movement. The assignment literally changed my life. Once I began to work on the article I realized that here was a subject that needed all the attention, and more, that I could give to it. Although I had been completely unaware of it, there was in existence a whole literature that denied that the ancient Greeks were the inventors of democracy, philosophy, and science. There were books in circulation that claimed that Socrates and Cleopatra were of African descent, and that Greek philosophy had actually been stolen from Egypt. Not only were these books being read and widely distributed; some of these ideas were being taught in schools and even in universities.

Ordinarily, if someone has a theory which involves a radical departure from what the experts have professed, he is expected to defend his position by providing evidence in its support. But no one seemed to think it was appropriate to ask for evidence from the instructors who claimed that the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt.

Normally, if one has a question about a text that another instructor is using, one simply asks why he or she is using that book. But since this conventional line of inquiry was closed to me, I had to wait till I could raise my questions in a more public context. That opportunity came in February 1993, when Dr. Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan was invited to give Wellesley's Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial lecture. Posters described Dr. ben-Jochannan as a "distinguished Egyptologist," and indeed that is how he was introduced by the then President of Wellesley College. But I knew from my research in Afrocentric literature that he was not what scholars would ordinarily describe as an Egyptologist, that is a scholar of Egyptian language and civilization. Rather, he was an extreme Afrocentrist, author of many books describing how Greek civilization was stolen from Africa, how Aristotle robbed the library of Alexandria, and how the true Jews are Africans like himself.

After Dr. ben-Jochannan made these same assertions once again in his lecture, I asked him during the question period why he said that Aristotle had come to Egypt with Alexander, and had stolen his philosophy from the Library at Alexandria, when that Library had only been built after his death. Dr. ben-Jochannan was unable to answer the question, and said that he resented the tone of the inquiry. Several students came up to me after the lecture and accused me of racism, suggesting that I had been brainwashed by white historians. But others stayed to hear me out, and I assured Dr. ben-Jochannan that I simply wanted to know what his evidence was: so far as I knew, and I had studied the subject, Aristotle never went to Egypt, and while the date of the Library of Alexandria is not known precisely, it was certainly only built some years after the city was founded, which was after both Aristotle's and Alexander's deaths.

A lecture at which serious questions could not be asked, and in fact were greeted with hostility -- the occasion seemed more like a political rally than an academic event. As if that were not disturbing enough in itself, there was also the strange silence on the part of many of my faculty colleagues. Several of these were well aware that what Dr. ben-Jochannan was saying was factually wrong. One of them said later that she found the lecture so "hopeless" that she decided to say nothing. Were they afraid of being called racists? If so, their behavior was understandable, but not entirely responsible. Didn't we as educators owe it to our students, all our students, to see that they got the best education they could possibly get? And that clearly was what they were not getting in a lecture where they were being told myths disguised as history, and where discussion and analysis had apparently been forbidden.

Good as the myths they were hearing may have made these students feel, so long as they never left the Afrocentric environment in which they were being nurtured and sheltered, they were being systematically deprived of the most important features of a university education. They were not learning how to question themselves and others, they were not learning to distinguish facts from fiction, nor in fact were they learning how to think for themselves. Their instructors had forgotten, while the rest of us sat by and did nothing about it, that students do not come to universities to be indoctrinated --at least in a free society.

Was Socrates Black?

I first learned about the notion that Socrates was black several years ago, from a student in my second-year Greek course on Plato's Apology, his account of Socrates' trial and conviction. Throughout the entire semester the student had regarded me with sullen hostility. A year or so later she apologized. She explained that she thought I had been concealing the truth about Socrates' origins. In a course in Afro-American studies she had been told that he was black, and my silence about his African ancestry seemed to her to be a confirmation of the Eurocentric arrogance her instructor had warned her about. After she had taken my course, the student pursued the question on her own, and was satisfied that I had been telling her the truth: so far as we know, Socrates was ethnically no different from other Athenians.

What had this student learned in her course in Afro-American studies? The notion that Socrates was black is based on two different kinds of inference. The first "line of proof" is based on inference from possibility. Why couldn't an Athenian have African ancestors? That of course would have been possible; almost anything is possible. But it is another question whether or not it was probable. Few prominent Athenians claim to have had foreign ancestors of any sort. Athenians were particularly fastidious about their own origins. In Socrates' day, they did not allow Greeks from other city-states to become naturalized Athenian citizens, and they were even more careful about the non-Greeks or barbaroi. Since Socrates was an Athenian citizen, his parents must have been Athenians, as he himself says they were.

Another reason why I thought it unlikely that Socrates and/or his immediate ancestors were foreigners is that no contemporary calls attention to anything extraordinary in his background. If he had been a foreigner, one of his enemies, or one of the comic poets, would have been sure to point it out. The comic poets never missed an opportunity to make fun of the origins of Athenian celebrities. Socrates was no exception; he is lampooned by Aristophanes in his comedy the Clouds. If Socrates and/or his parents had had dark skin, some of his contemporaries would have been likely to mention it, because this, and not just his eccentric ideas about the gods, and the voice that spoke to him alone, would have distinguished him from the rest of the Athenians. Unless, of course, he could not be distinguished from other Athenians because they all had dark skin; but then if they did, why did they not make themselves bear a closer resemblance the Ethiopians in their art?

Was Cleopatra Black?

Until recently, no one ever asked whether Cleopatra might have had an African ancestor, because our surviving ancient sources identify her as a Macedonian Greek. Her ancestors, the Ptolemies, were descended from one of Alexander's generals. After Alexander's death in 323 B. C., these generals divided up among themselves the territory in the Mediterranean that Alexander had conquered. The name Cleopatra was one of the names traditionally given to women in the royal family; officially our Cleopatra (69-30 BC) was Cleopatra VII, the daughter of Ptolemy XII and his sister. Cleopatra VII herself followed the family practice of marrying within the family. She married her two brothers (Ptolemy XIII and XIV) in succession (after the first died in suspicious circumstances, she had the second murdered). Her first language was Greek; but she was also the first member of the Ptolemaic line who was able to speak Egyptian. She also wore Egyptian dress, and was shown in art in the dress of the goddess Isis. She chose to portray herself as an Egyptian not because she was Egyptian, but because she was ambitious to stay in power. In her surviving portraits on coins and in sculpture she appears to be impressive rather than beautiful, Mediterranean in appearance, with straight hair and a hooked nose. Of course these portraits on metal and stone give no indication of the color of her skin.

The only possibility that she might not have been a full-blooded Macedonian Greek arises from the fact that we do not know the precise identity of one member of her family tree. We do not know who her grandmother was on her father's side. Her grandmother was the mistress (not the wife) of her grandfather, Ptolemy IX. Because nothing is known about this person, the assumption has always been that she was a Macedonian Greek, like the other members of Ptolemy's court. Like other Greeks, the Ptolemies were wary of foreigners. They kept themselves apart from the native population, with brothers usually marrying sisters, or uncles marrying nieces, or in one case a father marrying his daughter (Ptolemy IX and Cleopatra Berenice III). Because the Ptolemies seemed to prefer to marry among themselves, even incestuously, it has always been assumed that Cleopatra's grandmother was closely connected with the family. If she had been a foreigner, one of the Roman writers of the time would have mentioned it in their invectives against Cleopatra as an enemy of the Roman state. These writers were supporters of Octavian (later known as Augustus) who defeated Cleopatra's forces in the battle of Actium in 31 B.C.

Does Racial Identity Matter?

The question of race matters only insofar as it is necessary to show that no classicists or ancient historians have tried to conceal the truth about the origins of the Greek people or the ancestry of certain famous ancient figures. It has been suggested that classicists have been reluctant to ask questions about Greek origins, and that we have been so "imbued with conventional preconceptions and patterns of thought" that we are unlikely to question the basic premises of our discipline. But even though we may be more reluctant to speculate about our own field than those outside it might be, none of us has any cultural "territory" in the ancient world that we are trying to insulate from other ancient cultures.

Did ancient Greek religion and culture derive from Egypt?

The idea that Greek religion and philosophy has Egyptian origins derives, at least in part, from the writings of ancient Greek historians. In the fifth century BC Herodotus was told by Egyptian priests that the Greeks owed many aspects of their culture to the older and vastly impressive civilization of the Egyptians. Egyptian priests told Diodorus some of the same stories four centuries later. The church fathers in the second and third centuries AD also were eager to emphasize the dependency of Greece on the earlier cultures of the Egyptians and the Hebrews. They were eager to establish direct links between their civilization and that of Egypt because Egypt was a vastly older culture, with elaborate religious customs and impressive monuments. But despite their enthusiasm for Egypt and its material culture (an enthusiasm that was later revived in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe), they failed to understand Egyptian religion and the purpose of many Egyptian customs.

Classical scholars tend to be skeptical about the claims of the Greek historians because much of what these writers say does not conform to the facts as they are now known from the modern scholarship on ancient Egypt. For centuries Europeans had believed that the ancient historians knew that certain Greek religious customs and philosophical interests derived from Egypt. But two major discoveries changed that view. The first concerned a group of ancient philosophical treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus; these had throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance been thought of as Egyptian and early. But in 1614 the French scholar Isaac Casaubon demonstrated that the treatises were actually late and basically Greek. The second discovery was the decipherment of hieroglyphics, the official system of Egyptian writing, completed by 1836. Before decipherment, scholars had been compelled to rely on Greek sources for their understanding of Egyptian history and civilization. Once they were able to read real Egyptian texts, and could disregard the fanciful interpretations of hieroglyphics that had been circulating since late antiquity, it became clear to them that the relation of Egyptian to Greek culture was less close than they had imagined. Egyptian belonged to the Afroasiatic language family, while Greek was an Indo-European language, akin to Sanskrit and European languages like Latin.

On the basis of these new discoveries, European scholars realized that they could no longer take at face value what Herodotus, Diodorus, and the Church fathers had to say about Greece's debt to Egypt. Once it was possible to read Egyptian religious documents, and to see how the Egyptians themselves described their gods and told their myths, scholars could see that the ancient Greeks' accounts of Egyptian religion were superficial, and even misleading. Apparently Greek writers, despite their great admiration for Egypt, looked at Egyptian civilization through cultural blinkers that kept them from understanding any practices or customs that were significantly different from their own. The result was a portrait of Egypt that was both astigmatic and deeply Hellenized. Greek writers operated under other handicaps as well. They did not have access to records; there was no defined system of chronology. They could not read Egyptian inscriptions or question a variety of witnesses because they did not know the language. Hence they were compelled to exaggerate the importance of such resemblances as they could see or find.

On the Origins of the Egyptians Recent work on skeletons and DNA suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North. See Bruce G. Trigger, "The Rise of Civilization in Egypt," Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), vol I, pp 489-90; S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54.

Did the theory of the transmigration of souls come from Egypt?

Because he tended to rely on such analogies as he could find, Herodotus inevitably made some false conjectures. Herodotus thought that Pythagoras learned about the transmigration of souls from Egypt, when in fact the Egyptians did not believe in the transmigration of souls, as their careful and elaborate burial procedures clearly indicate. Herodotus tells us that he wrote down what the Egyptians told him; but when they spoke, what did he hear? Since he did not know Egyptian, his informants could have been Greeks living in the Greek colony of Naucratis in the Nile Delta, or Egyptians who knew some Greek. How well-informed were his informants? On the question of origins, at least, it seems that neither group had any more than a superficial understanding of the other's culture. Perhaps someone explained to him about the Egyptian "modes of existence," in which a human being could manifest itself both materially, or immaterially, as ka or ba or a name, and that death was not an end, but a threshold leading to a new form of life. Belief in these varied modes of existence required that bodies be preserved after death, hence the Egyptian practice of mummification. Greeks, on the other hand, believed that the soul was separated from the body at death, and disposed of bodies either by burial or cremation. In any case, there is no reason to assume that Pythagoras or other Greeks who believed in transmigration, like the Orphics and/or the philosopher-poet Empedocles, got their ideas from anyone else: notions of transmigration have developed independently in other parts of the world.

Did Plato Study in Egypt?

Plato never says in any of his writings that he went to Egypt, and there is no reference to such a visit in the semi-biographical Seventh Epistle. But in his dialogues he refers to some Egyptian myths and customs. Plato, of course, was not a historian, and the rather superficial knowledge of Egypt displayed in his dialogues, along with vague chronology, is more characteristic of historical fiction than of history. In fact, anecdotes about his visit to Egypt only turn up in writers of the later Hellenistic period. What better way to explain his several references to Egypt than to assume that the author had some first-hand knowledge of the customs he describes? For authors dating from the fourth century and earlier, ancient biographers were compelled to use as their principal source material the author's own works. Later biographers add details to the story of Plato's Egyptian travels in order to provide aetiologies for the "Egyptian" reference in his writings. The most ironic anecdote of all is preserved by Clement of Alexandria: Plato studied in Egypt with Hermes the "Thrice Great" (Trismegistus). This is tantamount to saying that Plato studied with himself after his death. The works of Hermes could not have been written without the conceptual vocabulary developed by Plato and Aristotle, and is deeply influenced not just by Plato, but by the writings of Neoplatonist philosophers in the early centuries AD. In any case, whoever these teachers were, Plato seems never to have learned from them anything that is characteristically Egyptian, at least so far as we know about Egyptian theology from Egyptian sources. Instead, Plato's notion of the Egyptians remains similar to that of other Athenians; he did not so much change the Athenian notion of Egyptian culture as enrich and idealize it, so that it could provide a dramatic and instructive contrast with Athenian customs in his dialogues.

Was there ever such a thing as an "Egyptian Mystery System?"

Even after nineteenth-century scholars had shown that the reports of Greek visitors to Egypt misunderstood and misrepresented what they saw, the myth that Greek philosophy derived from Egypt is still in circulation. The notion of an Egyptian legacy was preserved in the literature and ritual of Freemasonry. It was from that source that Afrocentrists learned about it, and then sought to find confirmation for the primacy of Egypt over Greece in the fantasies of ancient writers. In order to show that Greek philosophy is in reality stolen Egyptian philosophy, Afrocentrist writers assume that there was in existence from earliest times an "Egyptian Mystery System," which was copied by the Greeks. The existence of this "Mystery System" is integral to the notion that Greek philosophy was stolen, because it provides a reason for assuming that Greek philosophers had a particular reason for studying in Egypt, and for claiming that what they later wrote about in Greek was originally Egyptian philosophy. But in reality, the notion of an Egyptian Mystery System is a relatively modern fiction, based on ancient sources that are distinctively Greek, or Greco-Roman, and from the early centuries AD.

In their original form, ancient mysteries had nothing to do with schools or particular courses of study; rather, the ritual was intended to put the initiate into contact with the divinity, and if special preparation or rituals were involved, it was to familiarize the initiate with the practices and liturgy of that particular cult. The origin of the connection of Mysteries to education in fact dates only to the eighteenth century. It derives from a particular work of European fiction, published in 1731. This was the three-volume work Sethos, a History or Biography, based on Unpublished Memoirs of Ancient Egypt, by the Abbé Jean Terrasson (1670-1750), a French priest, who was Professor of Greek at the Collège de France. Although now completely forgotten, the novel was widely read in the eighteenth century..Of course Terrasson did not have access to any Egyptian information about Egypt, since hieroglyphics were not to be deciphered until more than a century later.

Why claim that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt?

Perhaps the most influential Afrocentrist text is Stolen Legacy, a work that has been in wide circulation since its publication in 1954. Its author, George G. M. James, writes that "the term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence." He argues that the Greeks "did not possess the native ability essential to the development of philosophy." Rather, he states that "the Greeks were not the authors of Greek philosophy, but the Black people of North Africa, The Egyptians." It is not hard to understand why James wishes to give credit for the Greek achievement to the Egyptians, even if there is little or no historical foundation for his claims. Like the other nationalistic myths, the story of a "Stolen Legacy" both offers an explanation for past suffering, and provides a source of ethnic pride.

But although the myth may encourage and perhaps even "empower" African-Americans, its use has a destructive side, which cannot and should not be overlooked. First of all, it offers them a "story" instead of history. It also suggests that African-Americans need to learn only what they choose to believe about the past. But in so doing, the Afrocentric myth seeks to shelter them from learning what all other ethnic groups must learn, and indeed, face up to, namely the full scope of their history.

What people on earth have had a completely glorious history? While we point to the great achievements of the Greeks, anyone who has studied ancient Greek civilization knows that they also made terrible and foolish mistakes. Isn't treating African-Americans differently from the rest of humankind just another form of segregation and condescension? Implied discrimination is the most destructive aspect of Afrocentrism, but there are other serious problems as well. Teaching the myth of the Stolen Legacy as if it were history robs the ancient Greeks and their modern descendants of a heritage that rightly belongs to them. Why discriminate against them when discrimination is the issue? In addition, the myth deprives the ancient Egyptians of their proper history and robs them of their actual legacy. The Egypt of the myth of the Stolen Legacy is a wholly European Egypt, as imagined by Greek and Roman writers, and further elaborated in eighteenth-century France. Ancient Egyptian civilization deserves to be remembered (and respected) for what it was, and not for what Europeans, ancient and modern, have imagined it to be.

What is the evidence for a "Stolen Legacy?"

James's idea of ancient Egypt is fundamentally the imaginary "Mystical Egypt" of Freemasonry. He speaks of grades of initiation. In these Mysteries, as the Freemasons imagined them, Neophyte initiates must learn self-control and self-knowledge. He believes that Moses was an initiate into the Egyptian mysteries, and that Socrates reached the grade of Master Mason. In his description of the Greek philosophy, he emphasizes the Four Elements that play such a key role in Terrasson's Memphis and Masonic initiation ceremonies. He speaks of the Masonic symbol of the Open Eye, which based on an Egyptian hieroglyph but in Masonry has come specifically to represent the Master Mind. As in the University/Mystery system invented by Terrasson, Egyptian temples are used as libraries and observatories.

What then are the Greeks supposed to have stolen from the Egyptians? Are there any texts in existence that be found to verify the claim that Greek philosophy was stolen from Egypt? How was the "transfer" of Egyptian materials to Greece accomplished? If we examine what James says about the way in which the "transfer" was supposed to have been carried out, we will find that that few or no historical data can be summoned to support it. In fact, in order to construct his argument, James overlooked or ignored much existing evidence.

Did Aristotle raid the Library at Alexandria?

No ancient source says that Alexander and Aristotle raided the Library at Alexandria. That they do not do so is not surprising, because it is unlikely that Aristotle ever went there. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor when Alexander was young, but he did not accompany him on his military campaign. Even if he had gone there, it is hard to see how he could have stolen books from the library in Alexandria. Although Alexandria was founded in 331 BC, it did not begin to function as a city until after 323. Aristotle died in 322. The library was assembled around 297 under the direction of Demetrius of Phaleron, a pupil of Aristotle's. Most of the books it contained were in Greek.

Did Aristotle plagiarize Egyptian sources?

If Aristotle had stolen his ideas from the Egyptians, as James asserts, James should be able to provide parallel Egyptian and Greek texts showing frequent verbal correspondences. As it is, he can only come up with a vague similarity between two titles. One is Aristotle's treatise On the Soul, and the other the modern English name of a collection of Egyptian texts, The Book of the Dead. These funerary texts, which the Egyptians themselves called the Book of Coming Forth by Day, are designed to protect the soul during its dangerous journey through Duat, the Egyptian underworld, on its way to life of bliss in the Field of Reeds. Both Aristotle and the Egyptians believed in the notion of a "soul." But there the similarity ends. Even a cursory glance at a translation of the Book of the Dead reveals that it is not a philosophical treatise, but rather a series of ritual prescriptions to ensure the soul's passage to the next world. It is completely different from Aristotle's abstract consideration of the nature of the soul. James fails to mention that the two texts cannot be profitably compared, because their aims and methods are so different. Instead, he accounts for the discrepancy by claiming that Aristotle's theory is only a "very small portion" of the Egyptian "philosophy" of the soul, as described in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. On that basis, one could claim that any later writer plagiarized from any earlier writer who touched on the same subject. But why not assume instead that the later writer was influenced by the earlier writer, or even came up with the some of the same ideas independently, especially if those ideas are widespread, like the notion that human beings have souls?

James also alleges that Aristotle's theory of matter was taken from the so-called Memphite Theology. The Memphite Theology is a religious document inscribed on a stone tablet by Egyptian priests in the eighth century BC, but said to have been copied from an ancient papyrus. The archaic language of the text suggests that the original dates from sometime in the second millennium BC. According to James, Aristotle took from the Memphite theology his doctrine that matter, motion, and time are eternal, along with the principle of opposites, and the concept of the unmoved mover. James does not say how Aristotle would have known about this inscription, which was at the time located in Memphis and not in the Library of Alexandria, or explain how he would have been able to read it. But even if Aristotle had had some way of finding out about it, he would have had no use for it in his philosophical writings. The Memphis text, like the Egyptian Book of the Dead, is a work of a totally different character from any of Aristotle's treatises.

The Memphite text describes the creation of the world as then known (that is, Upper and Lower Egypt). It relates how Ptah's mind (or "heart") and thought (or "tongue") created the universe and all living creatures in it: "for every word of the god came about through what the heart devised and the tongue commanded." From one of his manifestations, the primordial waters of chaos, the sun-god Atum was born. When Ptah has finished creating the universe, he rests from his labors: "Ptah was satisfied after he had made all things and all divine words."

In form and in substance this account has virtually nothing in common with Aristotle's abstract theology. In fact, in Metaphysics Book 11, Aristotle discards the traditional notion of a universe that is created by a divinity or divinities, in favor of a metaphysical argument. If there is eternal motion, there is eternal substance, and behind that, an immaterial and eternal source of activity, whose existence can be deduced from the eternal circular motion of the heavens. The source of this activity is what is called in English translation the "unmoved mover."All that this theory has in common with the Memphite theology is a concern with creation of the universe. On the same insubstantial basis, it would be possible to argue that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the story of creation in the first book of Genesis.

Is there a diversity of truths?

There are of course many possible interpretations of the truth, but some things are simply not true. It is not true that there was no Holocaust. There was a Holocaust, although we may disagree about the numbers of people killed. Likewise, it is not true that the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt; rather, it is true that the Greeks were influenced in various ways over a long period of time by their contact with the Egyptians. But then, what culture at any time has not been influenced by other cultures, and what exactly do we mean by "influence"? If we talk about Greek philosophy as a "Stolen Legacy," which the Greeks swiped from Egyptian universities, we are not telling the truth, but relating a story, or a myth, or a tall tale. But if we talk about Egyptian influence on Greece, we are discussing an historical issue.

In historical and scientific discussions it is possible to distinguish degrees, and to be more or less accurate. As a classicist, I may overemphasize the achievement of the Greeks because I do not know enough about the rest of the Mediterranean world; Egyptologists may be inclined to make the same mistake in the opposite direction. We recognize that no historian can write without some amount of bias; that is why history must always be rewritten. But not all bias amounts to distortion, or is equivalent to indoctrination. If I am aware that I am likely to be biased for any number of reasons, and try to compensate for them, the result should be very different in quality and character from what I would say if I were consciously setting about to achieve a particular political goal.

Drawing a clear distinction between motivations and evidence has a direct bearing on the question of academic freedom. When it comes to deciding what one can or cannot say in class the question of ethnicity or of motivations, whether personal or cultural, is or ought to be irrelevant. What matters is whether what one says is supported by facts and evidence, texts or formulae. The purpose of diversity, at least in academe, is to ensure that instruction does not become a vehicle for indoctrinating students in the values of the majority culture, or for limiting the curriculum to the study of the history and literature of the majority culture. That means that it is essential for a university to consider developments outside of Europe and North America, and to assess the achievements of non-European cultures with respect and sympathy.

It is another question whether or not diversity should be applied to the truth. Are there, can there be, multiple, diverse "truths?" If there are, which "truth" should win? The one that is most loudly argued or most persuasively phrased? Diverse "truths are possible only if "truth" is understood to mean something like "point of view." But even then not every point of view, no matter how persuasively it is put across, or with what intensity it is argued, can be equally valid. The notion of diversity does not extend to truth.

Students of the modern world may think it is a matter of indifference whether or not Aristotle stole his philosophy from Egypt. They may believe that even if the story is not true, it can be used to serve a positive purpose. But the question, and many others like it, should be a matter of serious concern to everyone, because if you assert that he did steal his philosophy, you are prepared to ignore or to conceal a substantial body of historical evidence that proves the contrary. Once you start doing that, you can have no scientific or even social-scientific discourse, nor can you have a community, or a university.

That doesn't refute anything I posted. No one claimed that Egyptians created Greek culture, in toto. The fact is that they seriously influenced it. Likewise where did Poe or myself claim that Socrates was black, etc.? You're just wasting your time by attacking strawmen. I also note that even the notorious racist you quote never denies that the ancient Egyptians were black.

Funny how Raina isn't online right now...

Anyhow, care to explain how the fact that Heyerdahl may or may not have said it isn't impossible to reach Greece with an Egyptian boat proves this voyage actually happened?

How so? That the ancient Egyptians were black is a mainstream view, not a fringe one.Actually, this isn't the case at all. It is a fringe view and it is propagated by discredited charlatas like Martin Bernal.
Are all the primary sources which show Egyptian influence in Europe "fringe pseudoscholarship"? I have read Richard Poe's book. As I said before, its trash. His case is basically hearsay. Actually, I have it right here in my library because every so often people like you come through this website to spread your lies.
Was Herodotus a hack? Herodotus is not what we would describe as a 'historian' by any stretch of the imagination. Neither is Homer. Has anyone ever found the Cyclops the Greeks talked about?
Ancient Egypt lasted two thousand years as a unified state. It was a maritime civilization whose art and architecture left an indelible impact upon surrounding cultures, including those in Europe.I never said Egypt did not influence its neighbors. I will make the argument, however, that Afrocentrists have made preposterous accusations about Ancient Greece which have long been discredited.
What is "fringe" about accepting these rather obvious facts?Black Spark, White Fire is not about facts at all. Its another example of revisionist pseudoscholarship. Richard Poe is not a historian either.

He praised the book which accepts that fact. Then again, historians in general accept that the ancient Egyptians were black. Only a few fringe loonies like Arthur Kemp say they were white.Afrocentrists calling Arthur Kemp a fringe loonie. That's funny.

Actually, this isn't the case at all. It is a fringe view and it is propagated by discredited charlatas like Martin Bernal.
Really? Funny, but the ancient Egyptians portrayed themselves as black in their art. Or do you believe King Tut looks European? LOL I guess the Egyptians were lying just to screw over white racists.
I will make the argument, however, that Afrocentrists have made preposterous accusations about Ancient Greece which have long been discredited.
I suppose it's just a coincidence that so many places in Greece have Egyptian names? I guess the pyramids in Greece are all an elaborate hoax. Facts can be inconvenient things.

Really? Funny, but the ancient Egyptians portrayed themselves as black in their art.Yawns. You people make EXACTLY the same argument that Arthur Kemp does and you rely upon the EXACT same fallacy. You look at a painting on a pot or a wall, arbitrarily chosen of course, and then infer the amazing spurious conclusion that the Egyptians were black. I can go to Sweden and find a Negro in a magazine. By the very same fallacious reasoning, I could prove that the Swedes are black too.
Or do you believe King Tut looks European? LOL I guess the Egyptians were lying just to screw over white racists.Does Tiger Woods look European to you? Oh wait. This proves that I am black because I am also an American. Or better yet, does Condolezza Rice look European to you? This proves that robinder is of Negroid ancestry.
I suppose it's just a coincidence that so many places in Greece have Egyptian names?Lets see some actual hard evidence from reputable historians that the Egyptians colonized Greece.
I guess the pyramids in Greece are all an elaborate hoax. Facts can be inconvenient things.I guess the Arab dirhams that can be found today in Scandinavia PROVE that Early Medieval Scandinavia was a part of the Abbasid Caliphate. This is information that The Establishment doesn't want you to know. I especially liked that absurd argument by Bernal about freemasonry.

I suppose it's just a coincidence that so many places in Greece have Egyptian names?

"Did the Greeks not wish to draw attention to their foreign origins, 'for reasons of cultural pride'? So argues Martin Bernal in volume I of Black Athena. Like Diop, he imagines that the myths of Danaus and Cecrops reflect actual historical events: "I am convinced that all legends contain interesting kernels of historical truth". Like Diop, he argues that Egyptian culture and language were brought to Greece by the Semitic group of people known as the Hyksos in the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries B.C. He even imagines that the name Hyksos is related to the Greek word for suppliant (Hiketis, the word from which Aeschylus's play about the daughters of Danaus takes it's tithe). But as we have seen, recent archaelogical discoveries suggest that the Hyksos came from Greece to Egypt rather than vice-versa, and the proposed etymology of Hiketis from Hyksos simply does not work. In fact, it is no more likely than Diop's fanciful attempt to link the Egyptian word ba (soul) with the Greek word bia (might, force). If anyone could prove to the satisfaction of other scholars that a large number of Greek words were derived from Egyptian, he or she would be credited with a new and important discovery. But vague similarities do not prove any connection between words. The sound qualities of vowels and consonants alike change when words are gradually assimilated from one language to another, and even loanwords are transformed: for example, the Latinized Greek word episcopus became bishop in the mouths of Saxon converts in the ninth century A.D. Linguists have long since noted the relatively few words of Egyptian origin that have made their way into Greek. They object to Bernal's etymologies of Hyksos and many other words because he ignores other and more likely etymologies in favor of those that will best suit the purpose of his argument."

Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History, p.23-24

Here is something rather hilarious that Afrocentrists forget when they push the idea that blacks went to Europe:

The idea that blacks invaded (euphemism 'civilized') Europe before Europeans did Africa, makes blacks the first imperialist perpetrator race! So, can we all stop wailing about who started what and who owes whom?

In fact, I'll go a step farther than this. I'll call the white invasions of Africa a result of the chickens coming home to roost, and the hate that hate produced. :p

Consider your slavery and colonization kind reparations, our way of saying, "Hey thanks for slithering into our homelands you black piece of shit!"

http://www.lost-oasis.org/photos/big/bw2.jpg
Despite her complexion (skin color), she doesn't look really "African" actually. Or am I just trying to be annoying now?

Explain me one thing: If Africans are so great, magnificent etc. etc. How come it all ended after the Egyptian civilisation? (If the ancient Egyptians were actually negroids). And how come Africa is the most backward and underdeveloped continent on earth?

Here is something rather hilarious that Afrocentrists forget when they push the idea that blacks went to Europe:

The idea that blacks invaded (euphemism 'civilized') Europe before Europeans did Africa, makes blacks the first imperialist perpetrator race! So, can we all stop wailing about who started what and who owes whom?

In fact, I'll go a step farther than this. I'll call the white invasions of Africa a result of the chickens coming home to roost, and the hate that hate produced. :p

Consider your slavery and colonization kind reparations, our way of saying, "Hey thanks for slithering into our homelands you black piece of shit!"
Have my children cheese.

Whether or not the Egyptians were white or black is immaterial, despite the probability that they were either both or neither.


Neither is correct.

Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. New York: New Republic and Basic Books, 1996. $24.00. ISBN 0-465-09837-1.

Reviewed by Martin Bernal, Cornell University.

When Mary Lefkowitz first encountered Afrocentrism in 1991, she was appalled. She discovered that there were people writing books and teaching that Greek civilization had derived from, or had even been "stolen" from Egypt. They were making claims that the Ancient Egyptians were black, as were Socrates, Cleopatra, and other important cultural figures in the Ancient World. They maintained that Greece had been invaded from Africa in the Middle of the 2nd millennium, that Greek religion and mystery systems were based on Egyptian prototypes and that what was called "Greek" philosophy was in fact the secret wisdom of Egyptian lodges of a Masonic type. She also discovered that these arguments were being supported by gross errors of fact, such as the idea that Aristotle had plundered the Egyptian library at Alexandria as a basis for his own massive philosophical and scientific writings. In fact, of course, the library at Alexandria was founded by Macedonian Greeks at least 30 years after Aristotle's death.

If Mary Lefkowitz knew that this was all fantasy and did not conform to the facts as painstakingly assembled by modern classicists and ancient historians, why did she bother to confront it at all? She explains that it was because Afrocentric literature was widely read and that it was being taught, not merely in a number of school districts but also in some universities. Furthermore, when she had attempted to question Afrocentric speakers on her own campus (Wellesley) she had been rudely rebuffed. Even worse, when she appealed to colleagues for help they often failed to support her. Their ostensible grounds for this reluctance was the relativist position that as all history is fiction, there was room for many different stories. Thus, for them Afrocentrist history was no less true than the classicists' version of the roots of Greek civilization. However, Mary Lefkowitz believes that another and more significant reason why her colleagues let her down, was the fear of being labeled as racist.

She sees the Afrocentrists as living in a sealed off intellectual ghetto, impervious to outside information, where they pay no attention to the truth of their propositions but are purely concerned with the "feel good" factor and boosting the low self-esteem of African-Americans. While she has some respect for this motive, she denies that it has any place in the writing and teaching of history which must always remain objective. Thus, she has felt obliged to stand up and be counted against what she sees as the Afrocentrist assault on the basic principles of education, respect for the facts, logical argument and open debate.

For this reason, she wrote a series of overlapping articles on these "myths". This book is a compilation from these with added material and argument. Its purpose is to expose Afrocentric absurdities once and for all, but its length is required because their demolition has turned out to be rather more complicated than she first supposed.

Before going any further, I should like to look at what is meant by "Afrocentrism." As Mary Lefkowitz points out, the term was invented by Molefi Asante, who sees it as a way to escape Eurocentrism and its extensions, by looking at the world from an African standpoint. Since then, the label "Afrocentrist" has been attached to a number of intellectual positions ranging from "All good things come from Africa," or as Leonard Jeffries puts it: "Africa creates, Europe imitates," to those, among whom I see myself, who merely maintain that Africans and peoples of African descent have made many significant contributions to world progress and that for the past two centuries, these have been systematically played down by European and North American historians.

Mary Lefkowitz dislikes the whole gamut. She swipes at Frederick Douglass, Edward Blyden and W.E.B. Du Bois for maintaining that African Americans shared a common African heritage with Ancient Egypt. However, her principal objection is to the 20th century group that some African-Americans refer to as "Nilocentric," because of its relative neglect of other African regions and civilizations, and its focus on the Nile Valley and Egypt. I too am included in her attacks but her rogues' gallery consists of John Henrik Clark, Cheikh Anta Diop, Yosef Ben-Yochannan and above all George G.M. James.1

That Afrocentrists should make so many mistakes is over-determined. They have the sense of being embattled in a hostile world and of possessing an absolute and general truth, which makes one have less concern about details. More important than these reasons, however, are the extraordinary material difficulties they have faced in acquiring training in the requisite languages, in finding time and space to carry on research, money to buy books or even gain access to libraries, let alone finding publishers who could provide academic checks and competent proof readers. None of these difficulties applies to Mary Lefkowitz, who has been thoroughly educated in Latin and Greek (though not in Ancient Egyptian), has for many years been tenured at a rich college and has received financial grants from massive foundations in order to write her attacks on Afrocentrism. That Professor Lefkowitz should make so many factual errors is much more intriguing.

For instance: Pelops was not, as she writes (p. 13), the legendary founder of Argos. His activities in Greece were focused on Elis and Pisa not the Argolid. She states that hieroglyphics were deciphered in 1836 (p. 35). In fact, Champollion, the man who deciphered them, had died in 1831. The dates generally given for the decipherment are 1821-2, when he made the breakthrough or 1824 when he published his Precis du systeme hieroglyphique ... She writes that the theory that the Nile flood is the result of snow melted by South Winds "was not far from the truth" (p. 77). In fact, it is false and, as the great Greek scientist Eudoxos realized, it was the result of rains in Ethiopia.

We are all capable of this kind of sloppiness and such errors are relatively trivial and harmless. Other mistakes are less innocent. For instance, she says that Eudoxos was supposed to have gone to Egypt when it was under Persian domination. Mary Lefkowitz is virtually alone in doubting that he did go, and it is also generally agreed that he went in the 380s or 370s BC when Egypt was independent.2 This error too might seem to be simply the result of her slapdash approach. However, the mistake helps her general case that the Ancient Greeks knew very little about Egypt, by suggesting that Eudoxos did not visit Egypt but that if he did, his knowledge of it would somehow have been obscured by Persian rule or, as she puts it, it "might have presented serious difficulties" (p. 79).

A more substantial and significant error is her statement on (p. 6): "Since the founding of this country (the USA), ancient Greece has been intimately connected with the ideals of democracy." In fact, the very source she cites, states something very different:

... in 1787 and 1788 the Anti-federalists did not have a classical leg to stand on. There was no tradition of representative democracy to which they could appeal, and direct democracies like Athens, bore the stigma of instability, violence, corruption and injustice ... (such) that even many friends of democracy in America avoided using the word. Like the advocates of mixed government, they used the word "republic ..."3

Mary Lefkowitz's sloppiness here might seem inconsequential, but in fact, it serves a very important purpose in her general argument. It is the implication that one cannot have freedom or democracy without a respectful awareness of ancient Greece, and that there has been a continuous flame of such reverence that can only be doused at our peril. Therefore -- she implies -- the Afrocentrists are enemies of freedom.

This suggestion is untenable even within the Western tradition. The English "Revolution" of the 17th century relied on the anti-royalist aspects of the Bible and myths of Saxon freedom, while the American and French revolutions of the 18th century took Republican Rome as a model. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that since the 1820s, the images of ancient Greece, and Athens in particular, have usually served a positive function. On the other hand, ante-bellum Southern writers used Ancient Greece and Athens to demonstrate the political and cultural benefits of slavery.4 And today, extreme conservatives with whom -- as we shall see -- Mary Lefkowitz is intimately connected, are using images of ancient Greece for their own political agendas.

Another type of error found in Not Out of Africa comes from the author's discovering what she wants and then failing to check further. For example, referring to the information Egyptian priests gave to the writer Diodoros of Sicily in the 1st century BC, she writes of their claims of Egyptian influence on Greece and adds that:

"these included many Egyptian customs in their laws." He does not say what exactly these laws might have been; presumably no one really knew. The idea that early Greek law was inspired by Egyptian law is a historical fiction (p.75).5

On the following page, she repeats the charge that Diodoros lacked specific information. The passage she cited was from Diodoros I.98.2. If she had gone back to I.77.5 she would have seen that Diodoros (or his informants) had specified that Solon had adopted an Egyptian law according to which everybody had to declare the source of their income.6 In I.79.3 Diodoros specified yet another Solonic law supposed to derive from Egypt, his famous seisachtheia "shaking off of debts" according to which a man could not be imprisoned or enslaved for debt. Whether or not Diodoros' claims are correct -- the last has been treated seriously in the 20th century, though there are chronological problems -- they are clearly specific.7 It is clear that in her eagerness to discredit Diodoros as vague and unspecific she failed to see, or at least to note, references that would weaken her case.

I find it flattering that Mary Lefkowitz sometimes prefers to attack claims that I do not make to ones that I do. For an instance of the former class, there is her belief that I derive the Greek word hikesios "suppliant" from the Egyptian HK3 h3st "chieftains of foreign hill country," later known to the Greeks as Hyksos. These people invaded Egypt from the North East, in the 18th century BC and some of them may have gone on to the Aegean. In fact, I make no claim about the etymology of Hiko or hikneomai from which hikesios would appear to be derived. What I do say is that there was a punning relationship between Hyksos and hikesios and that the Egyptian name may have been the basis of Hikesios as the specific local title of the god Zeus.

Where she attacks claims that I do make, she does precisely what she accuses the Afrocentrists of doing: she selects her evidence rejecting data that does not support her arguments. For instance, she admits the "ingenuity" of my proposal that the name Athena derives from the Egyptian Ht Nt, the religious name of the city of Sais, the center of the cult of the virgin goddess Neit. Furthermore, she provides no alternative, nor does she question the phonetics of my proposed etymology. Nevertheless, she rejects it because of what she sees as dissimilarities between the two goddesses (p. 65). The outline of the evidence for the etymology, which I shall present in more detail in volume III, is set out in volume I (pp. 51-52). In this, I make it clear that Plato too identified the two goddesses, that there was strong iconographic or pictorial evidence linking them, and that a derivation from Ht Nt would explain the double use of the name for the goddess and her city.

Why should Mary Lefkowitz make so many slips and use so many slippery arguments, when she does not have the excuses of many Afrocentrists of lacking training and resources? One reason is that although more than four years have passed since 1991, the book was obviously written in a hurry. It still shows signs of its origin in the cobbling together of articles written with passionate urgency for the popular and semi-popular press, with a few academic excursions. Nevertheless, I am convinced that this is less significant than the impact of two other factors, which, interestingly, she shares with the extreme Afrocentrists. The first of these is her conviction that she possesses an absolute general truth that allows her to be cavalier with specifics. The second is that she and her allies feel besieged and therefore they sometimes feel obliged to abandon the niceties of open academic debate.

Her general truth is that Greece did not derive any significant part of its civilization from Egypt. In this, she not only flies in the face of Greek and Roman tradition but even goes further than most of her classicist colleagues. For instance, she is extremely doubtful that Plato ever went to Egypt because, she maintains, references to the visit only appear in the late Hellenistic period (1st century BC). However, according to recent scholarship on the issue, the tradition of the journey goes back to Speusippos, Plato's nephew and his successor as head of the Academy.8 Similarly, Mary Lefkowitz challenges 19th and 20th century classical scholarship when she says that:

Every English translation [of Herodotos II 43.2] that I know of says that Heracles was descended distantly "from Egypt." But the translation is incorrect. Herodotos is talking about Aegyptus the man rather than Aigyptos the country (p. 25).

Her grounds for this defiance of conventional wisdom are that all the earlier scholars have mistranslated the preposition apo, which according to her, in this context can only mean "descent from" and "If he had meant Egypt the country he would have written ek" (p.181). There are three reasons why all the translators preferred Egypt to Aigyptos. The first is that no mythographer associated Lynkeus the sole surviving son of Aigyptos with either -- let alone both -- of Herakles' parents.9 Secondly, there was no point in making any distinction, because Danaos' twin brother, the legendary Aigyptos was supposed to have come directly from Egypt. The third reason is that the earlier scholars were not concerned by Herodotos' use of apo here. Mary Lefkowitz exaggerates the difference between it and ek. There are scores if not hundreds of instances of Herodotos' having used apo in its original sense of "motion from or out of". The phrase ap' Aigyptou itself appears twice a few chapters later in the lines, Melampos brought into Greece things that he had learned in Egypt, and "The names of nearly all the gods came to Greece from Egypt."10

Mary Lefkowitz's far fetched claim here can easily be explained in terms of her eagerness to separate Greece from Egypt and the desire to use her knowledge of language to intimidate the Afrocentrists. It does not cast doubt on Mary Lefkowitz's knowledge of Greek and Latin. On the other hand, while she knows these languages, she does not know much about linguistics and she has virtually no understanding of language contact, which is the relevant field when looking at the relations between Egypt and Greece. For instance, she writes:

Once they were able to read real Egyptian ... it became clear to them that the relation of Egyptian to Greek culture was less close than they imagined. Egyptian belonged to the Afroasiatic family while Greek was an Indo-European language, akin to Sanskrit and European languages like Latin (pp. 57-8).

The family relationships are undoubtedly correct, but to my knowledge, no Afrocentrist has ever argued that there was a genetic relationship between Egyptian and Greek. What they and I maintain is that Ancient Egyptian culture had a massive impact on that of Greece and that this is reflected in a substantial number of Egyptian names loan words in Greek.11 Mary Lefkowitz does not seem to realize that lexical loans primarily reflect contemporary contacts, not past genetic relationships. For example, while Chinese is even more distant genetically from Korean and Japanese than Egyptian and Semitic are from Greek, Korean and Japanese are filled with Chinese loan words.12

At another point she writes:

Vague similarities do not prove any connection between words. The sound qualities of vowel consonants alike change when words are assimilated from one language to another, and even loan-words are transformed: for example, the Latinized Greek word episcopus becomes bishop in the mouths of Saxon converts in the 9th century A.D. (pp.23-4)13

The last clause may impress her readers with her learning, but in fact, it undermines her basic argument. If words as apparently dissimilar as episcopus and bishop can be related, it shows that given semantic parallels, "vague similarities" should be taken into account. Furthermore, the net must be cast still more widely when, as is the case with Egypt and Greece, contact between two cultures has been carried on for many thousands of years and there will be many different phonetic correspondences.

She goes on to say that: "Linguists have long since noted the relatively few words of Egyptian origin that have made their way into Greek." She does not mention that over half of the basic Greek vocabulary cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European or consider the arguments I have made at length in Black Athena I: a) lexicographers of Greek have not known Ancient Egyptian, and b) since the 1820s, when hieroglyphics were first deciphered, there have been ideological reasons why they should not have not wanted to find Egyptian etymologies for significant or fundamental Greek words. It should also be pointed out that it is precisely this historiographical or ideological aspect of my work that has been most widely accepted.14 Nevertheless, Mary Lefkowitz is certain that there was no significant contact between Egypt and Greece before the former's conquest by Alexander the Great and her faith in this general truth sustains her in all the twists and turns of her argument.

The aim of impressing and intimidating through language appears at the very beginning of the book in the Latin dedication to her colleague Guy MacLean Rogers. The lines are left untranslated and without any indication of their source. They come, in fact, from an ode by Horace (I vii) about the legendary Greco-Trojan hero Teucer, who after being banished from the Greek Salamis sailed to establish a new and greater Salamis in Cyprus.15 The last verse reads as follows:

Oh ye brave heroes, who with me have often suffered worse misfortunes, now banish care with wine! Tomorrow we will take again our course over the mighty main. (Mary Lefkowitz only quotes the italicized lines).16

Now I do not know what personal references or drinking parties this may refer to, but the political message is plain. It is what, when applied to Afrocentrists, is called "vindicationalism." Mary Lefkowitz believes that she and her comrades have suffered many slurs and "calumnies" to use her word (p.10), but that sooner or later they will be vindicated.

Her sense of belonging to a small band of defenders of reason against the forces of unreason, or the demon "Political Correctness," antedates her encounter with Afrocentrism. Before 1991, she was the scourge of what she saw as feminist nonsense in Classics.[17a] In both struggles, she has found powerful helpers on the far right. In the preface to Not Out of Africa she thanks Wellesley College and the Bradley and Olin Foundations for their grants.17 The latter two are among the most generous contributors to many right-wing organizations including The National Review, The Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Scholars (N.A.S.). Mary Lefkowitz, along with Jeane Kirkpatrick, Peter Diamondopoulos and some three dozen others, sits on the advisory board of the N.A.S. and plays an active role in its journal Academic Questions. The main concern of all of these organizations and journals is to turn back what their members and contributors view as the tides of liberalism and multiculturalism that have engulfed not only society but also education and the highbrow media.18 This explains why they see themselves as besieged, and as potential or actual victims of their enemies.

This imagery resembles the sense of isolation and persecution experienced by many Black Afrocentrists, which explains the latter's intolerance towards interventions from hostile outsiders like Mary Lefkowitz. However, there is a fundamental difference, in that the Afrocentrists really are in a social and academic ghetto, while she and her allies are in one that is largely imaginary. Unlike the Afrocentric Black scholars -- or even white liberals -- they are amply funded and have access to many prestigious journals.19 The articles that make up Not Out of Africa have appeared in the New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Partisan Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Academic Questions. Thus, she and her conservative comrades have every opportunity to carry out research, publish their results and participate freely in academic debates. Despite all this, however, she is just as intolerant as the extreme Afrocentrists.

Let me take a personal example. She and her colleague Guy Rogers (mentioned above) have organized the publication of a book entitled Black Athena Revisited. This massive work of some 520 pages is largely made up of reviews of Black Athena, selected for their hostility to it.20 Despite being the author of the book in question, I was not informed of this project and was only told about it many months later by an uncomfortable contributor. I immediately e-mailed Mary Lefkowitz saying that I looked forward to seeing the pieces, so that I could prepare my response. She answered that they "had decided not to have a response" from me. I wrote back that it was very unusual in respectable scholarly studies not to include responses from the living subject of a book when he or she wanted to respond. She said that most of the pieces had appeared already and I had published responses to them. "Were these going to be included?" "No it had been decided not to include them." So much for the free market of ideas!

Before turning to her major attacks on Afrocentrist claims, it is necessary to consider two important issues of approach and method. The first of these is raised by Mary Lefkowitz when she admits that she may have biases but that this is very different from "consciously setting out to achieve a particular political goal" (p. 161). She does not say what her biases are, but two of the most important come out loud and clear throughout her book. They are that Europe owes nothing to Africa, or Greece to Egypt and that untrained outsiders should not question the conclusions of trained and competent professionals. Ten years ago, she would have been able to avoid the charge of "consciously setting out to achieve a political goal" because she and those who think like her then held complete academic power. This had been achieved during the 19th century by Northern European scholars, who did have the explicit ideological and political aims of denying European or Aryan indebtedness to Africans and "Semites."21 Since 1991, however, Mary Lefkowitz has herself been "consciously setting out to achieve a particular political goal", i.e. the discrediting of my work and that of the Afrocentrists, as part of the overall conservative agenda to turn back multiculturalism.

The second issue is Mary Lefkowitz's insistence on a sharp distinction being made between what she calls "warranted facts" and "acceptable claims" (p.51). This appears to be similar to what I have called "proof" and "competitive plausibility." I accept that there are certainties, as for instance, that there was a holocaust in which over six million Jews and others were murdered by Nazis. However, for Mary Lefkowitz (p. 161) to put this massively documented event, which took place in her and my life time, on the same plane as the reconstruction of the murky origins of Greek civilization over 2,500 years ago is absurd. Here we are not dealing with proof or "warranted facts" but with "competitive plausibility." Furthermore, she herself appeals to plausibility and acceptability from her generally conservative, generally white, audience as often, if not more often, than the Afrocentrists do from their constituency.

As she follows the modern classical establishment in its denial of the many Greek and Roman writers who believed in the massive Greek cultural debt to Egypt, she is forced to overcome this ancient testimony by frequently using such words and phrases as: "apparently", "evidently", "do not seem" "what if ...?", "why not ...? An extreme example of this, is her treatment of an ancient tradition that Plato had based his Republic on an idealized image of Egypt. She writes:

Bernal would take the story ... at face value. But the true origin was probably a joke in some comedy, which was later taken seriously (p. 82) (my italics).

Is this a "warranted fact" or an "acceptable claim"? We are both operating on the plane of "competitive plausibility."

To return to some of Mary Lefkowitz's attempts to demolish Afrocentric claims; arguments that Hannibal, the playwright Terence Afer and St Augustine were "Blacks" are indeed implausible, if by "Black," one means someone of West or Central African appearance. It should be noted that up to 20% of the population of Carthaginian Africa may have been "negroid" and in Italy, Hannibal paid his mercenaries with coins with "negro" heads and elephants.22 Nevertheless, as an upper class Carthaginian, Hannibal probably traced his ancestry back to the metropolis of Tyre on the Levant. Terence and St Augustine were born and brought up in North Africa, and there is every reason to suppose that they had North West African ancestry.

Concerning the claim that Socrates was "Black," Mary Lefkowitz in an earlier article, denounced the possibility of any African origin because as she put it: "the comic poets would not have passed up a chance to tease Socrates for being an Ethiopian." I could not resist responding that Socrates' own pupils Plato and Xenophon had described him as a "silenus" and that later sculptors had interpreted this by portraying him with a snub nose, broad nostrils, a wide mouth and prominent eyes. Thus, while it is clear that Socrates was an Athenian citizen and was Greek by culture, he did not necessarily have an "impeccable" European lineage.23 In her book, she concedes that this argument is "ingenious," but she says that it is false, because, as she concludes: "if we were to use his resemblance to a silenus as an indication of his origins, it would clearly be equally logical to infer that he was descended from bearded men with horse's ears and tails." (p. 30). Once again, she sees the ancients -- this time the sculptors -- as having got it wrong. They should have known that to suggest an African physiognomy was equally absurd as portraying him as part horse!

As for Cleopatra, apart from representations on coins, there are no contemporary portraits. Nevertheless, there is every reason to suppose that her appearance was "Mediterranean." Therefore, she was unlike both Afrocentrist pictures of her as a West African and Elizabeth Taylor. There is some doubt about the ethnicity of her grandmother who could have been Egyptian or Nubian and such a possibility alone would have made Cleopatra unmarriageable among whites, had she lived in Victorian or early 20th century England or America. Nevertheless, Mary Lefkowitz is right to state that the possibility is unlikely.

We now come to the nub of Mary Lefkowitz's attack and rage, the charge that Greeks stole Egyptian religion, philosophy and science. The first issue to be confronted here is that of the Hermetic Corpus. These mystical and philosophical dialogues, many of them concerned with spiritual initiation and centered on the mysterious figure of the sage or divine Hermes Trismegistos, were circulating in Egypt at least from the 1st century BC. Though written in Greek, and containing many features and ideas that resemble those in Platonic and Neo-Platonic writings, the characters described are Egyptian. On this issue, Mary Lefkowitz follows the standard interpretation of the early 20th century, which is that in early 17th century AD, the texts had been exposed as forgeries and that they are essentially Greek writings, in which the authors portray themselves as Egyptians to enhance their reputations and as a literary conceit. She pays no attention to the reversal of scholarly opinion since the publication in the 1970s of the library of Coptic Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, originally found in 1945. The result of the evident parallels between these and the Hermetic Corpus has been, as the modern scholar Garth Fowden puts it:

... the intellectual context and origins of Hermeticism, viewed in ever closer relationship to traditional Egyptian thought and to gnosticism, are the subject of a fast-increasing number of scholarly studies ...24

Hermes' Egyptian equivalent was the Egyptian god of wisdom Thoth and the name Hermes Trismegistos has a good Egyptian prototype in "Thoth Thrice Great."25 Nevertheless, Mary Lefkowitz is adamant that: "There is no record of any Egyptian language original from which they were derived" (p. 101). Apart from the close parallels in Coptic texts, there are in fact a number of Demotic (that is late Egyptian) papyri containing substantial sections of a dialogue of completely Hermetic type between Thoth and a disciple.26 Furthermore, Mary Lefkowitz does not engage the argument put forward by the great Egyptologist, Sir William Flinders Petrie, that some texts in the Hermetic corpus date back to the Persian period in the 6th century BC.27 Thus, there is a real possibility that at least some of the similarities between the Hermetic texts and Platonic and neo-Platonic philosophy could be the result of Plato and his followers' having drawn on Egyptian sources.28

This brings us to the central issue of the "Stolen Legacy." Mary Lefkowitz lays great stress on George James and other Afrocentrist writers having taken their ideas from the Masonic tradition, which in turn is based on 18th century novels, notably Sethos by the Abbé Terrasson. This neatly supports her distinction between the "facts" taught by orthodox classicists and the "fiction" propounded by the Afrocentrists. There is no doubt that many of the details and particulars of Masonic ranks and initiations put forward in Stolen Legacy and other Afrocentrist writings do derive from this origin. Nevertheless, as Mary Lefkowitz concedes, these novels were scholarly and based on ancient Greek and Latin sources, which stressed the Egyptian origin of the Greek mysteries and wisdom. However, she feels able to dismiss Herodotos as idiosyncratic, and Diodoros, Strabo and the other authors of the Hellenistic and Roman periods as "late," which is somewhat startling coming from someone writing in the 20th century. She writes:

There never was such a thing as an Egyptian Mystery System. The notion of mysteries, or rituals of initiation is fundamentally Greek, and such information as we have about Egyptian mysteries dates from a period when Egypt had been occupied and influenced by both Greeks and Romans (p. 157).

Mysteries are by their nature mysterious and are seldom if ever described directly. It is also true that the two detailed descriptions of Egyptian initiations come from the Roman period. One comes in a description in the Latin novel The Golden Ass written by the North African author Apuleius, of an initiation to the goddess Isis that took place in Greece. The other is a papyrus in the Egyptian script of Hieratic describing the initiations of a priest named Horsiesis, which took place in the ancient cult centers of Abydos, Busiris and Karnak.29 There are three striking features in both sets of rituals. The first is that they appear to be based entirely on Egyptian tradition. The second is that many of the passages resemble those found in the Book of the Dead or, to use its original title, Going Forth by Day. The third is that they parallel many of the rituals practiced in the most famous Greek mysteries, those at Eleusis, northwest of Athens.

The very skeptical scholar, Professor Gwyn Griffiths, has attempted to reconcile the three parallels. He maintains that the essential theme of spiritual regeneration in the present life was specifically Greek and Eleusinian. Nevertheless, he feels obliged to add: "Yet this may have developed in the Hellenistic era in Egypt as a development and projection of a very ancient funerary tradition."30 His position seems, then, to be that the Greeks and late Egyptians both independently invented spiritual initiations for the living, resembling the journeys of the souls of the dead. The situation was then confused by a widespread "Egyptomaniac" fantasy that the Greek mysteries had been developed from Egyptian ones, which were fleshed out by the introduction of some Egyptian ritual. This seems much more cumbersome than simply accepting the view of the ancients, that the Greek mysterious initiations were derived from Egypt.

At least at a superficial level, the mystery and initiations in the cult of Demeter at Eleusis resembled those of Osiris at Abydos and other holy centers in Egypt. Furthermore, Egyptian scarabs and a symbol of Isis -- Demeter was her Greek counterpart -- were found in a 9th or 8th century tomb at Eleusis.31 It is for these reasons that although the majority of Classicists deny it, a number of the most distinguished specialists of the 20th century have followed the predominant ancient tradition that the cult was imported from Egypt before the Trojan War or during what we should now call the Late Bronze Age. Most notable of these was Paul Foucart who dominated Eleusinian studies in the early part of the 20th century and whose detailed work is still respected, even by the most conventional.32 Charles Picard is generally supposed to have refuted Foucart, but he admitted that "well before" the eighth century, the Eleusinian Mysteries had received substantial influence from Egypt.33 In 1971, the British scholar A.A. Barb also saw fundamental connections.34 Even the firm isolationist, Jean Hani, admitted when referring to Isis and Demeter: "It seems that there has always been a type of 'understanding' between Greece and Egypt since prehistory."35

Mary Lefkowitz takes the conventional line that the idea of spiritual rebirth in the present life was a uniquely Greek concept and that Egyptian descriptions of the voyages of the soul as set out in the Going Forth By Day were purely what they purported to be and had nothing to do with initiations. However, in addition to the evidence from Apuleius and Horsiesis, there is the mysterious underground "Cenotaph of Seti the 1st" (c.1309-1291 BC) or Oseirion. This structure contains complex passages inscribed with broken hieroglyphs and sections of the Book of the Dead, a strange underground island and a hall decorated with the text of a mysterious religious play.36 It is very plausible to suggest that this was used for initiations. In addition to this, there are references going back to the 17th century BC, to men who though alive, were called "m3' hrw" or "True of Voice," the title generally applied to the immortal dead.37 There is even one from a man who claimed to have taken part in a ritual described in Going Forth by Day.38 Thus, the balance of evidence indicates both that the Book of the Dead was also used for initiations of the living, and that we should accept the ancient view that the Greek mysteries and the initiations associated with them, derived from Egypt. I admit that these argument are based not on certainty but on competitive plausibility. Nevertheless, it is ludicrous for Mary Lefkowitz to claim that her denial of Egyptian influence on Greek mysteries and initiations is based on "warranted facts."

The issue of whether there were "colleges" or "universities" at Memphis and other Egyptian cities, depends on definition. It is known that at least since the Old Kingdom c. 3000 BC, there was an elaborate bureaucracy of specialized scribes, doctors and magicians and that from the Middle Kingdom c. 2000 there was an institution called "pr ' nh" -- "House of Life." Egyptologists have been divided on how to see this. Some like Alan Gardiner describe it merely as "scriptorium," a place of restricted entry where some papyri were kept.39 Others have concluded that it was "a kind of university." For instance, the Egyptologist P. Derchain maintained that by the first period of Persian rule 525-404 BC, these institutions contained papyri on subjects ranging from medicine, astronomy, mathematics, myths, embalming, to geography, etc. ... in a word one ought to find there the complete totality of all the philosophical and scientific knowledge of the Egyptians."40 The subject is clearly moot but equally clearly, Mary Lefkowitz is wrong to claim that the ancient, 18th century and Afrocentrists' descriptions of "Egyptian Colleges" are solely based on fiction.

Did the Ancient Egyptians possess a "science", and if they did, did it have a significant impact on the Greeks? For some years now, I have argued in favor of both claims. When I presented my arguments on them to the departments of the History and Philosophy of Science at both Harvard and Cambridge, some of the audience agreed, others did not, but the claims were clearly accepted as legitimate topics of scholarly debate. There was also a polemic on the subject between me and Robert Palter, a historian of Renaissance science.41 It is not for me to say who came out on top, but Victor Katz the historian of Greek mathematics wrote about the debate: "As far as mathematics goes, although Palter argues with Bernal on many specific points and seems to deny both of Bernal's claims, he does not give a clear and definitive response to them."42 Here again, Mary Lefkowitz is wrong to dismiss Afrocentric claims as absurd.

This is not to say that Hellenistic science based in Greek dominated Egypt, did not add to what had been received from Egypt. The same is true of philosophy. The term "philosophy" is extraordinarily slippery but taken in the Socratic sense of "wonder, or speculation on truth and reality," there is every reason to suppose that it was present in Ancient Egypt. Indeed, it was conventional wisdom among Greeks and Romans that philosophy had derived from Egypt.43 Furthermore, an Afrocentrist perspective can add to our understanding of some details of Greek philosophy. For instance, Mary Lefkowitz (p. 149) pours scorn on the proposal by G.G.M. James in his Stolen Legacy that Democritus' use of the word "atom" derived principally not from "indivisibility" but from the Egyptian god Atum.44 The name of this divinity appears to have meant both "fullness" or "being" and "non-being." The Egyptologist Erik Hornung after describing the difficulties of translating such a concept concludes that:

Atum is the god who "in the beginning was everything", complete in the sense of being an undifferentiated unity and at the same time non-existent because existence is impossible before his work of creation.45

The philosopher Anthony Preus has argued that:

If we put that statement beside the notorious fragment DK 156 -- "MH\ MA=LLON TO\ DE\N H)\ TO\ MHDE\N EI)=NAI" -- we might come to the conclusion that Democritus is aware of the ambiguity of the Egyptian "Atom" and has imported it into Greek.46

It is strange that James should have focused on Aristotle, whose thought appears to have been distinctively Greek rather than on the Presocratics, whom the Classicist Geoffrey Kirk saw as having been significantly influenced by Egyptians and Mesopotamians.47 Similarly, he could have focused on Plato who was clearly very impressed by Egypt, and for more than 2000 years his followers saw his thought as a glorious link in a chain leading back to Egypt.48

Mary Lefkowitz's conviction that there is a categorical distinction between a rational Greece and an irrational Egypt only holds if you believe that reason only began with Aristotle's formal binary logic and Euclid's axiomatic geometry, neither of which existed -- as far as we know -- in Ancient Egypt. However, this claim should be tempered by the works of some scholars who have thought about the issue more profoundly. The first of these is the classicist E.R. Dodds, whose brilliant The Greeks and the Irrational showed the centrality of madness and shamanism to Greek life and thought.49 The second is the classicist and historian of science, Heinrich von Staden, who wrote recently:

... there has been inadequate reflection on the cultural conditions that have shaped modern historians' selections and elisions. These cultural conditions include, centrally, two mutually reinforcing collective experiences: the modern reception [perception?] of ancient Greece as the fountainhead of our culture and, second, modern western scientific culture as our lodestar. These long-lived collective constructions of fountainhead and lodestar have led to concrete, entrenched consequences in the modern history of science. Thus the Hippocratic treatise On Sacred Disease, with its criticisms of magic and with its overt questioning of etiologies that resort to the divine, is known to practically all historians of ancient science, having been translated often (and anthologized even more often), whereas there is no English translation of the Hippocratic gynecological treatises, which are replete with the "otherness" of Greek science -- and which constitute a far larger part of the Hippocratic corpus.50

In Egypt too, there were areas of "rationality" -- sophisticated and rigorous mathematics, superb geometry, wonderfully observed medical symptoms, precise surgery, etc., -- amidst what we should now consider to be magic and superstition. Thus, Mary Lefkowitz's categorical distinction between the two cultures on this criterion is much less hard and fast than she supposes.

Now to Mary Lefkowitz's ultimate bugbear, the Afrocentrists' claims of a "stolen legacy." As stated above, there is no doubt that the Afrocentrists have been wrong on many particulars. Furthermore, there is little chance that Greeks could have stolen ideas that Egyptians do not appear to have possessed, such as Aristotelian binary logic and Euclidian geometry. Nevertheless, in general, the Afrocentrists are tapping into a tradition of great antiquity and, at least in the areas of religion and science, of some validity.

In the 1st century AD, the Neo-Pythagorean sage Apollonios of Tyana visited India. According to his biographer Philostratos, the Indians were surprised to find Apollonios virtuous because Egyptians had told them that they, the Egyptians, had established "all the sacrifices and rites on initiation that are in vogue among the Greeks," who were ruffians.51 The idea that Greeks were taking aspects of Egyptian religion also comes in a passage in the Hermetic Corpus.52 Philo of Byblos writing around 100 AD claimed that Greeks had appropriated Phoenician and Egyptian ancient myths and had then imposed their versions or fictions on other peoples.53 In the 2nd century AD, the Assyrian Christian Tatian argued that the Greeks had taken their culture from "barbarians," including Phoenician letters and Egyptian geometry and historical writing.54 The church father Clement of Alexandria went all the way and called the Greeks "thieves."55

Despite the obvious biases of Christian and other non-Greek writers and the openness with which Herodotos, Plato, Aristotle and others accepted the central importance of the Egyptian contribution to their culture, such arguments are not altogether implausible. We know, for instance, that "Pythagorean" triangles were used in the Near East more than a thousand years before Pythagoras.56 The volumes of pyramids were measured almost equally early, long before the time of Eudoxos, who according to Archimedes was the first person to do so.57 Archimedes' "balanced scales" and "screw" were in use in Egypt centuries before the Greek scientist was born. Academics might prefer the fashionable word "appropriation," but the word 'stealing' in such cases is not altogether inappropriate.

At this point, I should like to set the positions of both parties in a wider historical context. Though there have been a number deformations, the Afrocentrists have maintained what, in Black Athena, I have called "the Ancient Model" of Greek origins. Since at least the 5th century BC, Greeks and others believed that people from Egypt, Phoenicians and other Asiatics came to Greece, built cities, established royal dynasties and introduced religion and the mysteries. Later, Greeks studied in Egypt and, to a lesser extent, the Orient importing philosophy, mathematics and science.58 The particular branch of the Ancient Model taken up by the Afrocentrists was that prominent at the turn of the 19th century. This was partly based on the Masonic tradition and novels but also the works of scholars such as Charles François Dupuis, Constantin de Volney and A.H.L. Heeren. These three maintained that the Ancient Egyptians had been Black or nearly so, and that Europeans had derived their civilizations from Africans and this argument was used by abolitionists in their attacks on race-based slavery.59

This shift of emphasis in the Ancient Model was not a drastic coupure of the type that followed in the quarter of a century after 1820, in which the modern discipline of Classics was formed. In this period, young scholars dismissed the "Ancient Model" and denied the ancient traditions of massive Greek cultural borrowings from Egypt. Their dismissal was not the result of the decipherment of hieroglyphics, as these classicists only accepted Champollion's work in the 1850s. Nor did it come from archaeological excavations of Bronze Age Greece, which were not carried out until the 1870s.

The Ancient Model was dismissed for ideological reasons. It was not seemly for Greece, now seen as the cradle of Europe, to have been civilized by Africans and Asians, who were known according to the new "racial science" to be categorically inferior. In the 1840s, a new "Aryan Model" arose, according to which, Greek civilization had emerged from a conquest or conquests from the north by the "Aryan" or Indo-European speaking Hellenes. These had dominated the previous inhabitants of the Aegean whose name had been lost, and were therefore simply called "Pre-Hellenes." This "Aryan Model" had a scholarly basis in that, by then, the Indo-European language family had been worked out and it was realized that Greek was a charter member of the family and that therefore, there must at some early stage, have been migrations or massive cultural influences from the Indo-European homeland somewhere to the north of the Aegean. Nevertheless, the Pre-Hellenes were necessary to explain the 50% of the Greek vocabulary that could not be explained in terms of Indo-European.

There is no reason why the fact that Greek is fundamentally Indo-European should not be combined with the Ancient Model's multiple reports of Egyptian and Semitic influences. However, such cultural and linguistic mixture was intolerable to the Romantic racists who established the Aryan Model and who, like Mary Lefkowitz today, insisted that there had been no significant Egyptian influence on Greece.

This raises an amusing irony. Mary Lefkowitz reiterates Arthur J. Schlesinger's charge that Afrocentrist history is purely an attempt to promote group self-esteem, whereas history should consist of: "dispassionate analysis, judgment and perspective ..."60 In fact, however, this is far from the way that history is taught in schools, where the nation or locality is always emphasized and placed above that of others. For instance, when I was sent to France at the age of 17, my French companion and I knew completely different sets of battles between the English and French. We each knew our country's victories, not the defeats. Thus, for African-American children to be taught about African and diasporic triumphs is not unusual and is particularly useful given the constant psychological battering they receive in a racist society.

On the other hand, I agree with Schlesinger and Lefkowitz that historical researchers should try to transcend their own environments and achieve objectivity, as far as it is possible to do so. However, the Aryan Model with its denial of ancient tradition and its insistence on a purely white, purely European Greece is an extreme example of "feel good" scholarship and education for whites.

Mary Lefkowitz ends her last chapter with an emotional appeal to George Orwell's description of the systematic destruction of the old culture going on in 1984, which would be completed by 2050, by which time the old culture would be obliterated. She continues:

What Orwell predicted for 2050 actually happened a century earlier, with the publication of Stolen Legacy in 1954. For in that book George G.M. James rewrote Ancient History so drastically that it became both different from and contradictory to what it had previously been (p. 154).

She is mistaken by more than a century. For all his errors, James was maintaining the ancient historical tradition. It was the founders of the Aryan Model, to which Mary Lefkowitz adheres, who made the categorical break with all the previous history of the formation of Ancient Greece.

NOTES
# [1] For a good survey of Black and Afrocentrist historical scholarship see the "Bibiliographic Essay", pp. 309-332 in Black Folk Here and There, vol. I by St. Clair Drake. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Sudies (1987). Mary Lefkowitz does not deal with the younger scholars who have combined their Afrocentric approach with conventional scholarship, obtaining extremely interesting results. See for instance, Thomas M. Scott, Egyptian Elements in Hermetic Literature, Th.D. Harvard 4/18/1987 (U.M.I., 1991. 3058) and Mauluna N. Karenga, Maat, The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt: A Study in Classical African Ethics, Ph.D. U.S.C. 1994. (U.M.I.1994.9601000).
# [2] For the date and the consensus that Eudoxos did visit Egypt see Christian Froidefond, Le mirage egyptien dans la litterature Grecque d'Homere a Aristote Aix en Provence. Publications universitaires des lettres et sciences humaines. 1971. p. 270.
# [3] Carl J. Richard, The Founders and the Classics: Greece Rome and the American Elightenment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P. (1994) p. 234. Radicals continued using the Roman term until the late 1820s, when in the fervor of philhellenism, the words "democracy" and "democrat" became respectable.
# [4] Richard, p. 241.
# [5] For the ancient belief that Egyptian laws formed the foundation of Greek laws, see Aristotle, The Politics VII.10.
# [6] It may be that Diodoros was mistaken here and that the law was introduced to Athens under Peisistratos, but given that ruler's close contacts with Egypt this does not rule out the strong possibility of an Egyptian model.
# [7] See Aristide Theodorides, "The Concept of Law in Ancient Egypt", pp. 291-322 in John Harris (ed.), The Legacy of Egypt. Oxford: Oxford U.P. p. 319. For the problems and a possible solution, see Bernal, "Phoenician Politics and Egyptian Justice in Ancient Greece," pp. 241-261 in Kurt Raaflaub (ed.), Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike, München: Schriften des Historischen Kollegs Kolloquien 24. p. 259.
# [8] See Heinrich Doerrie, Der Platonismus in der Antike: II, der hellenistische rahmen des kaiserzeitlichen Platonismus. Stuttgart, (1990). p.429. n.13. and Jonathan Barnes,"The Hellenistic Platos", Apeiron 24 (1991) p.118.
# [9] Apollodoros, II.1. and Pausanias, II.16.2.
# [10] Herodotos, II.49.2 and 50.1.
# [11] I estimate that about a quarter of the basic Greek vocabulary comes from Egyptian and a further 15-20% from West Semitic.
# [12] Incidentally neither Korean nor Japanese has been significantly influenced by Chinese in their morphology and phonetics. It is normal for speakers of any language to give up their vocabulary long before abandoning more fundamental linguistic structures. In this light, the linguistic scheme of the Aryan model is quite extraordinary. It holds that the Prehellenes abandoned their morphology and phonetics to their alleged Indo-European speaking conquerors, while retaining a significant proportion of their vocabulary. Mid or late 20th century linguists could not have proposed such a peculiar form of linguistic contact.
# [13] To be pedantic, the Anglo-Saxon word was spelled bisceop not bishop.
# [14] See Perry Anderson, "The Myth of Hellenism," The Guardian, 3/13/87; Sir Edmund Leach, "Aryan Warlords in their Chariots," The London Review of Books, 2/4/87, p. 11; Michael Vickers, Antiquity 61: 480-81 (Nov. 1987); Martha Malamud, Criticism vol.1 (1989) 317-22; and many others.
# [15] Incidentally, the place name Salamis, used for two sheltered ports, has a clearly Semitic origin in the word salaam/shalom "peace" or "safety" as in the modern Dar es Salaam "House of Peace" in Tanzania.
# [16] This archaic translation is that of C.E. Bennet in the standard Loeb series, Horace: Odes and Epodes p. 25.
# [17] See Ellen Messer-Davidow, "Manufacturing the Attack on Liberalized Higher Education," Social Text Fall (1993) 40-80. Christina Hoff Summers was funded by the same two foundations for her attacks on academic feminism. John K. Wilson, The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education, Durham: Duke University Press (1995) pp. 26-27.
# [18] See Wilson, pp. 1-30.
# [19] For the lavish funding of NAS see Messer-Davidow, p. 63 and Wilson p. 27.
# [20] As an illustration of this, although the book contains reviews by many distinguished Hellenists and Egyptologists it does not contain any by specialists in Egyptian-Aegean relations. Two such scholars, John Ray and Stanley Burstein, have reviewed Black Athena, Times Literary Supplement 18/10/91 pp. 3-4, and Classical Philology 88.2 (4/93) p. 157-162, respectively, and both, while they disagreed with me on a number of issues, took my work seriously. Neither appears in Black Athena Revisited. On the other hand, Eric Cline who now must be considered the leading US expert on Egyptian Aegean relations in the Bronze Age, was invited to contribute. However, he took the same position as Ray and Burstein, and the editors decided that there was "not enough room" for his piece of five or six pages in their volume of some 520 pp.
# [21] See Black Athena I pp. 281-399.
# [22] See M-C. Chamla, "Les hommes des Sepultures proto-historiques et puniques d'Afrique du Nord I (Algerie et Tunisie) L'Anthropologie 79 (1975); p. 659-692 and II 80 (1976): 75-116, p.97. For the coins, see F. Snowden, Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (1970) pp. 70-71.
# [23] Academic Questions (Summer 1994) p. 7.
# [24] The Egyptian Hermes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1986) p. xv. Brian Copenhaver describes the same scholarly shift in more detail, in his Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation, with notes and introduction. Cambridge University Press (1992) pp. lvi-lviii.
# [25] For references to this see Black Athena, I p.465 n.53.
# [26] See R. Jasnow and Karl-Th. Zausich, "A Book of Thoth?" (paper given at the 7th International Congress of Egyptologists: Cambridge, 3-9 September 1995).
# [27] "Historical References in the Hermetic writings," Transactions of the Third International Congress of the History of Religions. Oxford I (1908) pp. 196-225 and Personal Religion in Egypt before Christianity. New York: Harpers (1909) pp. 85-91.
# [28] See my assessment of this in Black Athena I p. 465. n. 48.
# [29] B.H. Stricker Die egyptische Mysterien Pap. Leyden T. 32 Oudheidkundige Mededelingen uit het Ryksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden, vols. 31 & 34 and Max Guilmot Les inities et les rites initiatiques en Egypte ancienne. Paris: Lafont (1977) pp. 95-175.
# [30] J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Isis Book (Metamorphoses, Book xi). Leiden: Brill (1975) p. 31.
# [31] See Anthony Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece: An Archaeological Survey of the Eleventh to the eighth centuries BC. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (1971) pp. 116-117.
# [32] See Foucart Les mysteres d'Eleusis. Paris: A. Picard (1914). For the respect, pers. comm. Kevin Clinton Autumn 1988.
# [33] "Sur la patrie et les peregrinations de Demeter," Revue des Etudes Grecques, XL, 1927, pp. 330-69, p.324.
# [34] "Mystery, Myth and Magic," in The Legacy of Egypt, 2nd ed., pp.138-169, p. 152.
# [35] La Religion egyptienne dans la pensee de Plutarque. Paris: Belles Lettres (1976) p. 9.
# [36] See H. Frankfort, The Cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos, London (1933), Egypt Exploration Society no. 39; and Guilmot pp. 100-103.
# [37] Pierre Montet, La vie quotidien au temps des Ramses, Paris 1946 pp. 298-300; and Guilmot pp.124-5.
# [38] "Stele de Baki", Turin no 156, pub. A. Varille, Bulletin de l'institut français d'archeologie orientale 54 (1954) p. 131-132.
# [39] A.H. Gardiner, "The House of Life," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 24 (1938): p. 157-179.
# [40] P. Derchain, Le Papyrus Salt 825 (B.M. 10051): rituel pour la conservation de la vie en Egypte. Academie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres Memoires 58 (1965) p.57. For a judicious assessment of these claims see Marshall Clagett, Egyptian Science: I, Knowledge and Order. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society (1989) pp.1-46.
# [41] Bernal, "Animadversions on the Origin of Western Science," Isis 83 (1992): 596-607; Palter, "Black Athena, Afrocentrism and the History of Science," History of Science 31 (1993): 227-287; Bernal, "Response to Robert Palter," History of Science 32 (1994): 445-464; and "Palter Answers Bernal," History of Science 32 (1994): 464-468.
# [42] Newsletter of the International Study Group on the Relations Between the History and the Pedagogy of Mathematics 35 (1995): 10.
# [43] See Isocrates, Bousiris 28 and Cicero Tusculanae Disputationes V. 3.9. See also Black Athena I, p. 104, Anthony Preus, Greek Philosophy: Egyptian Origins, Research Papers on the Humanities and Social Sciences, III (Binghamton, 1992-1993); and Christos Evangeliou, When Greece Met Africa: The Genesis of Hellenic Philosophy, Binghamton: Institute of Global Studies 1994. Evangeliou brings out the sharp contrast on this issue between the Ancients, notably Plato and Aristotle, and modern Classical scholars and concludes firmly on the side of the former, pp. 26-29.
# [44] George G. M. James, Stolen Legacy: The Greeks were not the authors of Greek Philosophy, but the people of North Africa commonly called the Egyptians. San Francisco: Richardson (1976), 75. Preus, p. 8.
# [45] Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. John Baines (Ithaca, 1982), 66-67.
# [46] Preus p. 8.
# [47] "Popper on Science and the Presocratics," Mind 69 (1960) pp. 326-327.
# [48] See Black Athena I, pp. 16-172.
# [49] University of California Press (1951).
# [50] Heinrich von Staden, "Affinities and Elisions: Helen and Hellenocentrism," Isis 83 (1992) p. 584.
# [51] Life of Apollonius of Tyana 3.32.
# [52] Hermetica 16, 1-2. Copenhaver, p. 58. This in itself suggests that the authors were Egyptian not Greek.
# [53] See Philo "Phoenician History" in Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 3.C 813.10. See Albert I. Baumgarten, The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos: A Commentary, Leiden: Brill (1981) p. 19.
# [54] Tatian I.1, and 40, ed. Miroslav Marcovitch, Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos, in Patristische Texte und Studien. Berlin: De Gruyter, (1995) pp. 7 and 72.
# [55] Stromateis, I.87.2 and elsewhere. See also Daniel Ridings: The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in Some Early Christian Writers, Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1995. p.223.
# [56] For a discussion of this see Bernal, "Response to Robert Palter," History of Science 32 (1994) p. 11.
# [57] See Richard Gillings, Mathematics in the Time of the Pharaohs. New York: Dover (1972).185-193.
# [58] See James Williams, Fundamentals of Applied Dynamics. New York: Wiley (1996) p.30. See Black Athena I, pp. 75-169.
# [59] Black Athena I, pp. 173-188 and 294-307. See for an example of abolitionist rhetoric, Victor Schoelcher "L'Abolition de l'esclavage, examen critique du prejuge contre la couleur des Africains et des sang-meles," Paris, Pagnerre 1840, reprinted in Auguste Joyau Panorama de la litterature a la Martinique. Martinique, Morne Rouge 1977: pp. 74-85.
# [60] Quoted by Mary Lefkowitz, p. 4.


http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1996/96.04.05.html

Neither is correct.
Care to elaborate? To argue that no ancient Egyptians were black is an indefensible position. I will assume that you mean something else.

Queen Tiye, Wife of Amenhotep III and Mother of Ikhenaten:

http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/0000000000queentiye.jpg

Do you dispute that Queen Tiye's phenotypic features are obviously black? If a time machine transported her to the modern world, would anyone not see her as black?

Yawns. You people make EXACTLY the same argument that Arthur Kemp does and you rely upon the EXACT same fallacy.
Not exactly. The difference is that black faces are ubiquitous in ancient Egyptian portrayals of their people. Nordic faces are not. Their Mural of the Races clearly uses a dark black African to represent the Egyptian people.

Does this man look black to you?

Pictured below is a forensic reconstruction of Natsef-Amun, an Egyptian priest who died around 1100 BC. His face was reconstructed from his skull, using a highly accurate technique that is commonly employed by homicide detectives to identify bodies decomposed beyond recognition. Created by forensic artist Richard Neave, at the University of Manchester, in 1989, the face you see below reproduces the features of Natsef-Amun with sufficient accuracy, that his friends and relatives would probably have been able to recognize him from this picture.

http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Natsef-Amun.gif (http://members.aol.com/BlackSprk/Black5.html)

During the peak of egyptian civilization(early dynastys) negros were present in the role which suits them best-as slaves and they were often brought as a cattle from inner Africa.
http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/pics/african_slaves.jpg
A good link:http://www.whitefreespeech.com/sub/RaceOfAncientEgypt.pdf

Yes, some "slave" was Amenhotep III.

http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/files/imagea.jpg

This is the race that civilize ancient Europe?!
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/Vnn_files/vnnpromo21.jpg

White Civilization

"It is Celtic public rituals that Caesar finds most troubling. His Druid priests, while teaching about an imperishable soul, also preside over all public sacrifice and some personal healing rituals. Criminals were routinely used as sacrificial victims, and when these were unavailable, innocents were slaughtered for the gods instead. Victims were sometimes hung in wicker baskets and burned alive. Suprisingly he dos not mention cutting off and displaying heads, something that he must have read about in Posidonius and which has been abundantly confirmed archaeologically, not only for heads but other body parts such as femur bones. The remains of children have likewise been discovered in gateways, bogs, and sacred sites across Celtic Europe."

Thomas S. Burns, Rome and the Barbarians, 100 B.C. - 400 A.D. (Oxford, 2003), p132

"The leaders of Germanic court would not have known how to assess the evidence even if it were presented to them. This left two methods of proof: the ordeal, involving divine decision, and compurgation, involving the swearing of oaths.

"In proof by ordeal the odds were weighted heavily against the defendant. In the ordeal of hot iron the defendant was required to grasp a red hot piece of metal. His hand was then bandaged, and if after three days the burns were on the way to being healed, the defendant was innocent, otherwise he was guilty. The ordeal of hot water worked similarly: The defendent was made to put his arm into a cauldron of boiling water and lift a stone from the bottom; his arm was then bandaged and in three days it was inspected to decide his guilt or innocence. The ordeal of cold water was a favorite in England, where there were numerous rivers and brooks. The defendant was tied hand and foot and thrown into water; if he sank he was innocent, and if he floated he was guilty, on the premise that water, a divine element, would not receive a guilty person."

Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (New York, 1994), p97

"The Romans put a stop both to these customs and to the ones connected with sacrifice and divination, as they were in conflict with our own ways: for example, they would strike a man who had been consecrated for sacrifice in the back with a sword, and make prophecies based on his death-spasms; and they would not sacrifice without the presence of the Druids. Other kinds of human sacrifices have been reported as well: some men they would shoot dead with arrows and impale in the temples; or they would construct a huge figure of straw and wood, and having thrown cattle and all manner of wild animals and humans into it, they would make a burnt offering of the whole thing."

Strabo, Geography (4.1.13), trans. by Benjamin Fortson

Excuse me for being such a dumb non-negroid, but what is the point of this thread? What are you, Sage, trying to say or prove?

Excuse me for being such a dumb non-negroid, but what is the point of this thread? What are you, Sage, trying to say or prove?
Just offering a point of view more historically accurate than the usual "Nigras ain't nuthin' but savages" prevalent on this site.

And besides, most Afrocentric stuff is just compensation for a lousy historical showing.
Speaking of a "lousy historical showing," O Deluded One:

“. . . When they have come from their land and anchored on, or tied up at the shore of, the Volga, which is a great river, they build big houses of wood on the shore, each holding ten to twenty persons more or less. Each man has a couch on which he sits. With them are pretty slave girls destined for sale to merchants. A man will have sexual intercourse with his slave girl destined for sale to merchants. A man will have sexual intercourse with his slave girl while his companion looks on. Sometime whole groups will come together in this fashion, each in the presence of others. A merchant who arrives to buy a slave girl from them may have to wait and look on while a Rus completes the act of intercourse with a slave girl.

. . . When the ships come to this mooring place, everybody goes ashore with bread, meat, onions, milk, and nabid [an intoxicating drink, perhaps beer] and betakes himself to a long upright piece of wood that has a face like a man’s surrounded by little figures , behind which are long stakes in the ground. The Rus prostrates himself before the big carving and says, ‘O my Lord, I have come from a far land and have with me such and such a number of girls and such and such a number of sables,’ and he proceeds to enumerate all his other wares. Then he says, ‘I have brought you these gifts,” that you would send me a merchant with many dinars and dirhems, who will buy from me whatever I wish and will not dispute anything I say.”

Ibn Faldan quoted in [I]A History of the Vikings, Gwyn Jones (Oxford, 1968) pp164-165.

“In theory, and sometimes in practice, the thrall could be put down like a horse or a dog once his usefulness was past. The male, and more frequently the female, thrall could be sacrificed or executed to follow a dead owner, as we know from the most famous of all Norwegian graves, that at Oseberg, where a slave woman was buried with her mistress, from Birka in Sweden and Ballateare on Man, from the ‘beheaded slave’s grave’ at Lejre in Zealand, and as we read in Ibn Faldan’s account of a Rus’ burial ceremony on the Volga. Rights he had none. Since he had no property he was exempt from fines; instead he was beaten, maimed, or killed. The mutineer or runaway could expect no quarter: the owning class would as soon tolerate a wolf on the foldwall as a slave on the run, and his end was a wolf’s end, quick and bloody. For the slave born and bread was hard. For a freeborn warrior taken in the wars, or a well-nurtured girl ravished from her burned home, it could be hell itself, and Icelandic sources record many a doom-laden attempt to wrest an impossible release from unbearable circumstance."

Gywn Jones, A History of the Vikings (Oxford, 1968) p149

“They came in great numbers from the British Isles, either caught in the dragnet of the Viking raids and invasions or as straightforward objects of commerce; they came from all other countries where Viking power reached; and above all they came from slave-hunts among the Slavonic peoples whose countries bordered the Baltic. The very name Slav (Sclavus) became confused with the medieval Latin sclavus, a slave. Droves or human cattle came to the pens of Magdeburg, ready for their transfer west; there was a big clearing-house later at Regensburg on the Danube; and Hedeby in southern Jutland was well sited for its share of this northern traffic in men. Southwards the burghers of Lyons grew fat on slaves. The demand from Spain and the remoter Muslim World was insatiable: men and girls for labour and lust, eunuchs for sad service. By 850 the Swedes had opened up the Volga and Dnieper as slave-routes to the eastern market. And just as the slave-trade was essential to Viking commerce, the slave himself was the foundation-stone of Viking life at home.”

ibid, p148

"Slaves were perhaps also frequently required to follow their masters and mistresses to their graves, through being put to death on the funeral pyre. The life of a slave was always held lightly, and his master might maim or kill him with impunity - unless the act took place at certain holy periods - but the law required that the killing be publically announced upon the day on which it took place."

Mary Wilhelmine Williams, Social Scandinavia in the Viking Age (New York, 1971), p39

"In 400 AD western Europe was merely a geographic expression. Roman civilization was centered on the Mediterranean, and France, England, and the Rhine valley were mere adjuncts of the Mediterranean world. In 800 Europe signified a new civilization that was coextensive with the area of Latin Christianity and created by the confluence of Germanic traditions and Latin-Christian culture. Compared to Byzantium and Islam, Europe was still poor and backward..."

Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (New York, 1993), p185

http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/0000000000queentiye.jpg

She looks exactly like our stupid queen! :D

http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/Images/beatrix.jpg


Just offering a point of view more historically accurate than the usual "Nigras ain't nuthin' but savages" prevalent on this site.
I have to disappoint you, because despite all this copying and pasting of you, you haven't really changed my views on negroids (as in immigrants; like in Europe).

Perhaps indeed, in another world where your stupid queen is black. :D

Perhaps indeed, in another world where your stupid queen is black. :D
You think she has black blood? Wouldn't surprise me to be honest, seeying how multiculturalistic our royals are :p

You think she has black blood? Wouldn't surprise me to be honest, seeying how multiculturalistic our royals are :p
It is quite possible, though phenotypically she does not look very black to me (witness her pale skin, thin lips, small teeth, straight hair and nose etc.). Of course if you accept the Out of Africa theory, then like all human beings her origins are African.

I have to disappoint you, because despite all this copying and pasting of you, you haven't really changed my views on negroids (as in immigrants; like in Europe).
I feel the same way about the far more numerous and destructive European immigrants (invaders) in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and America, so I suppose we're even.

Well Sage, before Europe began its imperialistic phase, it itself had to bear almost unrelenting predatory attacks from Islamic Moors and Turks, not to mention the genocidal invasion of Mongols (and the occupation of Russia).

"The Russian heads fell beneath the swords of the Tatars as grass beneath the scythe." - Novgorodian Chronicles, 1238 a.d.


Petr

"Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters : White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800 (Early Modern History)"

by Robert C. Davis

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0333719662/ref=pd_sim_b_2/103-6747804-8511043?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance



"A new study suggests that a million or more European Christians were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa between 1530 and 1780 - a far greater number than had ever been estimated before.

In a new book, Robert Davis, professor of history at Ohio State University, developed a unique methodology to calculate the number of white Christians who were enslaved along Africa's Barbary Coast, arriving at much higher slave population estimates than any previous studies had found.

Most other accounts of slavery along the Barbary coast didn't try to estimate the number of slaves, or only looked at the number of slaves in particular cities, Davis said. Most previously estimated slave counts have thus tended to be in the thousands, or at most in the tens of thousands. Davis, by contrast, has calculated that between 1 million and 1.25 million European Christians were captured and forced to work in North Africa from the 16th to 18th centuries.

The slaves suffered a very high mortality rate.

Putting together such sources of attrition as deaths, escapes, ransomings, and conversions, Davis calculated that about one-fourth of slaves had to be replaced each year to keep the slave population stable, as it apparently was between 1580 and 1680. That meant about 8,500 new slaves had to be captured each year. Overall, this suggests nearly a million slaves would have been taken captive during this period. Using the same methodology, Davis has estimated as many as 475,000 additional slaves were taken in the previous and following centuries.

Christians and other non-Muslims have long been second or third class citizens in Muslim lands paying higher taxes, denied legal protections, and oppressed in other ways. It is therefore not surprising that over a period of centuries after the Muslim conquest of formerly Christian lands the Christian populations, less able to feed themselves and less protected, dwindled and even disappeared entirely in some Muslim countries.

By Randall Parker at 2004 March 09 01:14 PM Clash Of Civilizations


http://www.parapundit.com/archives/001980.html


Petr

Well Sage, before Europe began its imperialistic phase, it itself had to bear almost unrelenting predatory attacks from Islamic Moors and Turks, not to mention the genocidal invasion of Mongols (and the occupation of Russia).

"The Russian heads fell beneath the swords of the Tatars as grass beneath the scythe." - Novgorodian Chronicles, 1238 a.d.


Petr
I agree, actually. My point is that every race is capable of both civilization and savagery. Religion, culture, circumstance, etc. have proven far more important than mere genetics.

Petr, you will never see me deny the Islamic role in slavery and imperialism. Even today, Islamic Arabs enslave black people. My point is not that Europeans have a monopoly on savagery, only that they lack a monopoly on civilization.

- "Religion, culture, circumstance, etc. have proven far more important than mere genetics."


I do not fully agree, but I do agree that many pagan Nazis like to over-emphasize the importance of genes and belittle the importance of religion and culture, and the impact of environment in general.

I go by the "golden medium" here: we are not mindless products of our genetic heritage nor are we endlessly malleable clay for environmentalist behaviorists to meddle upon.


Petr

I do not fully agree, but I do agree that many pagan Nazis like to over-emphasize the importance of genes and belittle the importance of religion and culture, and environment in general.
Yes. To illustrate my point, compare a Viking flesh peddler to a Christian Ethiopian monk.

Okay, how come Australia became a first grade nation? If genetics plays no role, whatsoever. To think of it, it came forth from a former penal island...

As for you Sage, the one moment you claim things because it was supposedly "negroid", like the ancient Egyptian civilization, and that the Europeans weren't involved at all. The other moment you declare the Europeans as a negroid sub-race, or however the hell you see it. What's it going to be?

- "If genetics plays no role, whatsoever."


I do not claim anything like this. Rather, I believe that this is like in chemistry: genes alone may not cause a reaction, religion alone may not cause reaction, but the combination of these two might give birth to a something entirely new.

Have you ever seen those "fire triangle" posters that tell us what it takes to start a fire? Some burning material (genes), oxygen (religion) and an enough high temperature (environment). The same principle.

I do not think that is such a difficult concept to understand or accept.


Petr

Okay, how come [the Commonwealth of] Australia became a first grade nation?
Perhaps because it was founded by a first grade empire with access to the lion's share of world resources?
If genetics plays no role, whatsoever.
No one made that claim. My claim is that genetics are not nearly so important as other factors. There is nothing in white genetics to preclude savagery, and nothing in black to preclude high culture. Thus there have been many savage white tribes and civilized black societies.
To think of it, it came forth from a former penal island...
I hope you know this, but prisoners are only a minor percentage of the Commonwealth's population. It came forth from a vast empire with vast resources.

Perhaps because it was founded by a first grade empire with access to the lion's share of world resources?
Not true. As for your rant, did this first grade empire just fall out of the air, just like food aid does in Africa :D


No one made that claim. My claim is that genetics is not nearly so important as other factors. There is nothing in white genetics to preclude savagery, and nothing in black to preclude high culture. Thus there have been many savage white tribes and civilized black societies.
You're even better than Eddie Murphy!


I hope you know this, but prisoners are only a minor percentage of Australia's population. It came forth from a vast empire with vast resources.
Not true, the empire basically abandoned it. The British empire used it practically to "dump" all the criminals, it's interest was more in Africa, Asia (India) and America, as far as I know.

Not true, the empire basically abandoned it. The British empire used it practically to "dump" all the criminals, it's interest was more in Africa, Asia (India) and America, as far as I know.
Laughable tripe. The criminal-dumping was a very minor aspect, at the very beginning. The British Empire never abandoned the Commonwealth of Australia; to the contrary, it was always intimately involved on many levels.

"The first English explorers were Willem Dampier on the west coast of the continent in 1688, and James Cook, who in 1770 claimed the eastern two-thirds of the continent for Britain, despite orders from King George III to first conclude a treaty with the indigenous population. His report to London that Australia was uninhabited provided impetus for the establishment of a penal colony there following the loss of the American colonies.

"The British Crown Colony of New South Wales began by the establishment of a settlement (later to become Sydney) in Port Jackson by Captain Arthur Phillip on January 26, 1788. The date of arrival of the First Fleet was later to become the date of Australia's national day, Australia Day.

"Van Diemen's Land (i.e. the present day Tasmania) was settled in 1803, and became a separate colony in 1825. The rest of the continent, what is now Western Australia, was formally claimed by the United Kingdom in 1829. Following the spread of British settlement, separate Colonies were created from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851 and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded, as part of the Colony of South Australia, in 1863.

"During the period of 1855-1890, the six Crown Colonies each successively became self-governing colonies, which managed most of their own affairs. British law was adopted in each colony at the time of the granting of responsible government, and was subsequently modified by the individual legislatures. The British government retained control of some matters, especially foreign affairs, defence, international shipping. Despite its heavily rural based economy Australia remained significantly urbanised, centred particularly around the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. In the 1880s 'Marvellous Melbourne' was the second largest city in the British Empire. Australia also gained a reputation as a 'working man's paradise' and as a laboratory for social reform, with the world's first secret ballot and first national Labor Party government.

"On 1 January 1901, federation of the Colonies was completed after a 10 year gestation period, and the Commonwealth of Australia was born, as a dominion of the British Empire. The Australian Capital Territory was separated from New South Wales in 1911, to provide a neutral place for the proposed new federal capital of Canberra (the initial capital having been Melbourne). Although Australia had become independent, the British government retained some powers over Australia until the Statute of Westminster in 1931, and the authority of the British Parliament was not completely severed until 1986. Indigenous Australians were generally denied both citizenship and the vote until the Constitution was altered by referendum in 1967.

"Australia is a constitutional monarchy, with Elizabeth II reigning as 'Queen of Australia'. In 1999, a referendum was held on the question of constitutional change to a republic, with an appointed President replacing the Queen as head of state, but this was rejected. Various surveys held before and since the referendum suggest that the majority of Australians favour some form of republic, and hence many people ascribe the negative result of the referendum to dissatisfaction with the particular republican model that was proposed. A further discussion of this issue can be found in the topic Australian republicanism."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia#History

Reading this thread makes one feel as if they are reading a fantasy novel. I am expecting goblins, orcs, and wargs to jump out and assail the beautiful, intelegent "black spark." :rolleyes:

Reading this thread makes one feel as if they are reading a fantasy novel. I am expecting goblins, orcs, and wargs to jump out and assail the beautiful, intelegent "black spark." :rolleyes:
You mean "intelligent," right?

http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~karen/Photo/redneck.jpg

You mean "intelligent," right?

It is easy to find error in the spelling of people who don't speak english as a mother-language.

Where are you from?

Where are you from?

Born in Torshavn, Faroe Islands.
Raised in Aalborg, Denmark.
What else whould you like to know about me?

I think I have a question for you, rather. Why do you come to a European cultural forum and start a thread about the rediculous notion that Egypt was black and started the European civilization? This is idea, told to any Egyptologist, would be a joke, nothing more.

Born in Torshavn, Faroe Islands.
Raised in Aalborg, Denmark.
What else whould you like to know about me?
Hmm. Would the name "Vibeke Ostergaard" ring a bell?
I think I have a question for you, rather. Why do you come to a European cultural forum and start a thread about the rediculous notion that Egypt was black and started the European civilization? This is idea, told to any Egyptologist, would be a joke, nothing more.
1. To provide an alternate, more accurate point of view to the usual "them's nigra's ain't nuthin but savages."
2. The notion that ancient Egypt was black is hardly ridiculous. To the contrary, it is a mainstream view supported by the Egyptians' portrayals of their own people.
3. I am actually interested in European culture. I am motivated by a love for African heritage, not a hatred for those of other heritages. Sadly many "White Nationalists" know little about history or high culture, but are instead motivated by a hatred of nonwhites.

What is usually less debated than the possible Egyptian influence on ancient Greece is the influence of Semitic Phoenicians - beginning with the alphabets.

There is a one quite comprehensive site on the Internet that catalogues Phoenician accomplishments, put together by a Lebanese immigrant Salim George Khalaf:


A Bequest Unearthed, Phoenicia,
Encyclopedia Phoeniciana

"The largest web compilation & repository of studies about the origin, history, geography, religion, arts, crafts, trade, industry, mythology, language, literature, music, wars, archaeology and culture of the Canaanite Phoenicians."

http://www.phoenicia.org/


And by the way, both Afrocentrists and Nordicists are wrong when they claim Hannibal for themselves. He was a Semite with a very Semitic name. (Same root as in "Jezebel")


Petr

Hmm. Would the name "Vibeke Ostergaard" ring a bell?

Yes, I am aware of him. His ideas are intriging, but I am not a follower or believer in him or his philosophy. Sad what happened to him in Italy though.

1. To provide an alternate, more accurate point of view to the usual "them's nigra's ain't nuthin but savages."

I wouldn't say they are all savages nor have they been always savages. Though, one must admit that most of Africa was rather savage when Europeans and Arabs were taking the Sub-saharan Africans as slaves. Though I don't look down on "savages" in the least. One can live as a "savage" and be quite content, spiritually and physically healthy, and be rather intelligent (;)). I look up to some "savages" more than I do some "civilized people."

2. The notion that ancient Egypt was black is hardly ridiculous. To the contrary, it is a mainstream view supported by the Egyptians' portrayals of their own people.

Really? I doubt that Zahi Hawass would agree with that statement, being that he is egyptian and claims to be a decendent of the ancient egyptians, also he is the overseer of all antiquities in Egypt and is obviously of the 'Caucasoid' race. I would like some names of these people who think as you suggest, please.


3. I am actually interested in European culture. I am motivated by a love for African heritage, not a hatred for those of other heritages. Sadly many "White Nationalists" know little about history or high culture, but are instead motivated by a hatred of nonwhites.

Fair enough, if that is your perspective.

I am motivated by a love for African heritage...

And I am the tooth fairy.

And I am the tooth fairy.
Your avatar certainly goes along with that.

Why do you even bother? You could stick to one account and identity and argue the same things.

Though, one must admit that most of Africa was rather savage when Europeans and Arabs were taking the Sub-saharan Africans as slaves.
It may seem that way. Yet (for example) the Mongols came very close to conquering Europe. The Europeans were fortunate that Ogodai died when he did. They were fortunate that Baybars al-Bunduqdari --ironically no fan of Christian Europe-- dealt out a rare defeat to the Mongols at Ayn Jalut thus averting their advance westward. Had history went a little differently, "European" might have become synonymous with "slave" and "savage." The cathedrals would be relics of a bygone white civilization, as the pyramids are for a black civilization of old. And perhaps many people would have long forgotten that white folks built those cathedrals.
Though I don't look down on "savages" in the least. One can live as a "savage" and be quite content, spiritually and physically healthy, and be rather intelligent (;)). I look up to some "savages" more than I do some "civilized people."
I see your point. And indeed, this is an interesting truth. For the "savage" tribes of Africa have much in common with the ancient folk of Northern Europe, the very people so revered by Ásatrúar. Ironically, the "barbarians" of Africa and their counterparts in Europe have far more in common with one another, than either has with the modern "West."
Really? I doubt that Zahi Hawass would agree with that statement, being that he is egyptian and claims to be a decendent of the ancient egyptians, also he is the overseer of all antiquities in Egypt and is obviously of the 'Caucasoid' race.
He is an Arab, and of course the Arabs would like to claim credit. Yet the Arabs did not conquer Egypt until 641 AD.

I would like some names of these people who think as you suggest, please.
I often find myself in agreement with the author of Black Spark, White Fire (discussed in this thread) and those professors, researchers etc. who applaud his book. It's not easy to find any mainstream expert on Egypt who denies that at minimum a large portion of ancient Egyptians were black, that many Pharoahs were black, that this is reflected in Egyptian art, etc.

Why do you even bother? You could stick to one account and identity and argue the same things.
Why bother guessing identities if you can't ever get it right?

Have a lovely day, my little dandelion of delight, ScatVamp.

Why do you even bother? You could stick to one account and identity and argue the same things.
Sorry: she's right. Check our IPs and you'll see that we're not the same person.

IP checks are useless in the age of proxies, sweetness.

Conveniant timing. Of course a rather simple trick to pull off for anyone owning a laptop.

IP checks are useless in the age of proxies, sweetness.
Not if you check to see if the IP is a proxy. Mine isn't, and you're wrong.

Conveniant timing.
I've been logged in as Candidiasis for hours.
Of course a rather simple trick to pull off for anyone owning a laptop.
Two IPs on the same laptop? I don't think so.

You can continue making a little show for the gallery. Don't think for a second that you aren't obvious to anyone who has dealt with you.

You can continue making a little show for the gallery. Don't think for a second that you aren't obvious to anyone who has dealt with you.
Most people here have never claimed that I'm really Raina. It's fun to change my name and play at it, though.

Even though you are a slow learner, at least you have learned that it's pointless to PM me and try to order me not to call you ScatVamp/Raina/etc.

Even though you are a slow learner
"Slow learner" applies to you, since you still haven't grasped the fact that you're wrong. BTW, I'd bet good money that my IQ is much higher than yours. Even if you used a 100% Eurocentric test! (That's because despite your pretensions to valuing European culture, what you really value is your lack of melanin.)
at least you have learned that it's pointless to PM me and try to order me not to call you ScatVamp/Raina/etc.
Since I've never done that, your point is rather moot.

BTW, I'd bet good money that my IQ is much higher than yours.

Miss O'Gyny, you've already posted an internet IQ test on the board and we all know you were rather proud of your internet IQ score.

Congrats, and all that jazz.

Miss O'Gyny, you've already posted an internet IQ test on the board and we all know you were rather proud of your internet IQ score.
I'm not talking about just Internet IQ tests. Who is Miss O'Gyny?

Congrats, and all that jazz.
Jazz is another example of black culture, far more influential than "white power" metal btw.

Who is Miss O'Gyny?

Another one of your banned accounts.

Ciao.

IQ points, dicksize and driving skills, the three things EVERYONE online scores above average in.

Who is Miss O'Gyny?

A name I've used on here. By the way, I don't think she'll ever "get it."

Another one of your banned accounts.

Ciao.
You still haven't grasped that banning people never works? And you call others slow learners. Now that's irony.

IQ points, dicksize and driving skills, the three things EVERYONE online scores above average in.
Except some people flunk even the most dumbed down tests. You might be familiar with that sad reality, my dear Stan. :D

Sticks and stones, my spamming friend.

Sticks and stones, my spamming friend.
Spamming? When?

You still haven't grasped that banning people never works? And you call others slow learners. Now that's irony.

I didn't ban you. You're still here. Now you have more free time to post on this account without being slowed down trying to switch your settings back on the other account. Consider it a favor.

I didn't ban you. You're still here.
You banned a friend of mine.
Now you have more free time to post on this account without being slowed down trying to switch your settings back on the other account.
LOL! Interesting how both accounts were logged in continuously, with no switching back and forth at all.
Consider it a favor.
Well it's the thought that counts, so thanks...

LOL! Interesting how both accounts were logged in continuously, with no switching back and forth at all.

If one can't master the art of using a laptop or opening other browser windows, I guess it is interesting.

If one can't master the art of using a laptop or opening other browser windows, I guess it is interesting.
I guess you missed that we have two different IPs, and neither is a proxy? Well, why not; otherwise you'd have to admit you're wrong.

Whether it is you or a real friend who has been trolling in concert with you for a while matters not to me.

Wow, that was one abrupt change of tune. :D

No change of tune at all. Raina is Raina to me, whether Raina is Two or One.

Raina, you must have a really stimulating job, truly fitting for that oh so great intellect you claim to have, if you have the time to spam and troll messageboards all day every day (yes, I am aware that it's weekend now).

I didn't ban you. You're still here.
This is false.

IQ points, dicksize and driving skills, the three things EVERYONE online scores above average in.
The first is false.

This is false.

I had second thoughts.

It happens.

I just felt like playing with you, Candy. You can come back. :)

Welcome back, Candy! ;)

I just felt like playing with you, Candy.
That's indecent of you... but I'm grateful (it feels really nice, you know). ;)
Welcome back, Candy! ;)
Thank you, dear!

I just felt like playing with you, Candy. You can come back. :)

I actually preferred Raina as "Antipuppy"

That's indecent of you... but I'm grateful (it feels really nice, you know). ;)

That's nothing. I can be very indecent to people I like. *grin*

Richard Poe may be the stupidest and sickest of all Neocons.

I actually preferred Raina as "Antipuppy"
Dynastic Egypt had a feline essence while retaining only superficial trappings of human rule - the process Spengler called "pseudomorphosis." Thus humans were freely used as cannon fodder while it was a capital crime to so much as harm a cat's whiskers. What Schopenhauer called "aristocratic cruelty" - i.e., the feline principle - was the central pillar of Pharaonic rule. Too many scholars buy the ahistorical, acultural view that the Pharoahs were driven by mere greed. In fact they were driven by sheer loyalty to the feline principle. This was embodied by the twin Egyptian cat goddesses (with Bast representing perfect aristocracy and Sekhmet perfect cruelty). Only upon the decline of the Pharaonic dynastic system did this begin to change.

The spiritual and intellectual traits aligned with the feline principle gave way to crass, materialistic impulses centered around the canine principle. It is this change in spiritual alignment (from feline to canine, higher brain to brainstem) that brought cats down the Egyptian totem pole. Thus almost overnight the cat was reduced from deity to object of disdain, and Egypt fell from one of the greatest civilizations in history to the North African backwater we know (and loathe) today.

That's nothing. I can be very indecent to people I like. *grin*
*me heart flutters* Downright obscene, I'll wager. :D

Thank you, dear!
A pleasure!

Dynastic Egypt had a feline essence while retaining only superficial trappings of human rule - the process Spengler called "pseudomorphosis." Thus humans were freely used as cannon fodder while it was a capital crime to so much as harm a cat's whiskers. What Schopenhauer called "aristocratic cruelty" - i.e., the feline principle - was the central pillar of Pharaonic rule. Too many scholars buy the ahistorical, acultural view that the Pharoahs were driven by mere greed. In fact they were driven by sheer loyalty to the feline principle. This was embodied by the twin Egyptian cat goddesses (with Bast representing perfect aristocracy and Sekhmet perfect cruelty). Only upon the decline of the Pharaonic dynastic system did this begin to change.

The spiritual and intellectual traits aligned with the feline principle gave way to crass, materialistic impulses centered around the canine principle. It is this change in spiritual alignment (from feline to canine, higher brain to brainstem) that brought cats down the Egyptian totem pole. Thus almost overnight the cat was reduced from deity to object of disdain, and Egypt fell from one of the greatest civilizations in history to the North African backwater we know (and loathe) today.

Indeed, revisionist writers of history-books have long conspired to prevent us from learning of the dual feline and canine essence of human societies.

Too long have they hidden from us a history that they find undesirable. Too long have they buried fact in the bowels of the annals, as dogs bury bones. . . But these manipulators forget a pattern that will be their downfall: dogs bury their bones for later use.
Mark my words: this particular bone will be unburied!

Indeed, revisionist writers of history-books have long conspired to prevent us from learning of the dual feline and canine essence of human societies.

Too long have they hidden from us a history that they find undesirable. Too long have they buried fact in the bowels of the annals, as dogs bury bones. . . But these manipulators forget a pattern that will be their downfall: dogs bury their bones for later use.
Mark my words: this particular bone will be unburied!
You have quite a way with words. The dogs can cover their tracks, but they can't cover their scent. There are truths to be sniffed out, so that the candle of oppression can be snuffed out. Hail!

What the fuck are you two talking about?

It seems to me much of this evidence could be "read backward" in its current interpretation; e.g. that instead of Egyptian influence on Europe, there is a common influence on both Europe and Egypt, namely the Indo-European tribe who colonized India long before either empire.

- "there is a common influence on both Europe and Egypt, namely the Indo-European tribe who colonized India long before either empire."


Can you give us any credible scholar who buys into that nonsense, neo?

Indo-Europeans invaded India around 1500 BC - Egypt had existed, as a kingdom, for at least 1000 years by then.


Petr

Raina v.34's avatar :p

"Black Israelites," an insane cult that thought they were going to take over the world at the turn of the year 2000, believed in the Afrocentrist revisionist madness. They believed that starting in 2000 they would obtain magical powers to kill white people, enslave white people, and resurrect white people to kill them again if desired and of course have white women as sex slaves.

can you point to a pre-Christian Irish civilization of comparable achievements?

You mean like the ones that built 'New Grange'?

P.S. The contribution of Christianity to Gaelic civilization was quite minor.

Is Raina V.34 actually Banned, or is that just anotherone of those stupid jokes?

Is Raina V.34 actually Banned, or is that just anotherone of those stupid jokes?
It's banned.

Care to elaborate? To argue that no ancient Egyptians were black is an indefensible position. I will assume that you mean something else.


No, there were Ancient Egyptians who were black. They were the decendants of Ethiopian mercenaries regularly recruited by Egypt and given land to settle down after their service. However, to suggest that this is the dominant ethnic group in Egypt is false.

The Egyptians were closer to Semites, the way I see it, than to blacks or whites. They are, however, a people who no longer exist. The Egyptians distinguish themselves quite clearly from both whites and blacks in their art.

I doubt the Egyptians were semites aswell. I think they were an unique race, maybe not even human.

Several historians, anthropologists and astronomists believe that the Egyptians might've been alien to this planet. They base this on a few simple, but yet unexplained, facts (such as the red sand in Egypt, pyramid-shaped structures in both Egypt and Latin America, etc.) Wheter that's true, made up, "sensationalism", who's to say?

Please don't tell me that you take that nonsense even 10 % seriously, Kriggy.

:rolleyes:


Petr

I don't, but actual scientists did bring it up. A lot of things about ancient Egyptian civilization are still not (fully) explained.

"Kriggy"? :confused:

It's banned.

any particular reason ?

Yes, for asking stupid questions.