Martin Bernal

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Martin Bernal (born 1937 in London) is a scholar of modern Chinese political history who claims classical civilization in Ancient Greece was founded on Afroasiatic and Semitic cultures, and not indigenous. He calls this the Revised Ancient Model, based on Classical historians' recognition of an Egyptian and Phoenician cultural heritage. This model contrasts with what he has termed the Aryan Model, which posits Indo-European speakers entering the area from the north and an older, indigenous population of non-Indo-European stock as the main cultural source of Classical Greece.

The Revised Ancient Model, he argues, has roots in the classical civilization he studies, while the Aryan Model stems from racism developing in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Bernal's specific theories are not accepted by the majority of classical scholars; Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley College is a notably active critic. Many classical scholars, including historian David Gress, deny that Greek culture was heavily influenced by the Babylonians, Phoenicians and Egyptians during the so-called "Orientalizing period" (the 7th century B.C.E.). Bernal counters that the fierce resistance to his ideas, which go much farther than that, supports his position on the historiography of Classics. Bernal's model posits, among other things, that Greece was occupied by Egypt for two long periods, even though no evidence for that, in common with most of the other theories he is proposing [1] , can be found in Egyptian or other sources. Others have accused Bernal's thesis, of a Semitic origin for Greek civilization, as an example of ethnic activism and even antihellenic[1].

Recent studies contest Bernal's Afrocentric thesis, by conclusively tracing the ancestry of the Minoans to Anatolia.[2]. The Anatolian Indoeuropean ancestry of the Minoans was always considered the most likely theory for the Minoan's descent. [3]

Martin Bernal is Professor Emeritus of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Cornell University. He also taught Government Studies at Cornell. He is author of the three volume series, Black Athena, as well as the book Cadmean Letters, devoted to the origins of the Greek Alphabet. His earlier work focuses on China.

He is the son of J. D. Bernal and Margaret Gardiner, the daughter of noted Egyptologist Alan Gardiner.

Contents

[edit] Works

The details of the revised three-volume Black Athena series are as follows:

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Vassilis Lambropoulos, The Rise of Eurocentrism: Anatomy of Interpretation, Princeton University Press, 1993 pp. 90-100
  2. ^ DNA sheds light on Minoans
  3. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, Aegean Civilizations, 2008, O.Ed.

[edit] References

Other books related to the controversy are:

  • Mary R. Lefkowitz, Black Athena Revisited
  • Mary R. Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History (1996)
  • Mary R. Lefkowitz, History Lesson (2008)
  • Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals by Jacques Berlinerblau
  • The Rise of Eurocentrism: Anatomy of Interpretation by Vassilis Lambropoulos, Princeton University Press, 1993
  • Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics by Martin Bernal, David Chioni Moore (Editor), Duke University Press, 2001
  • Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Belknap Press) by Frank M. Snowden
  • Black Athena 2: History without Rules. Robert L. Pounder The American Historical Review, Vol. 97, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 461-464 doi:10.2307/2165728.
  • Walter Slack, White Athena,The Afrocentrist theft of Greek civilization, 2006
  • Black Athena: Ten Years After, ed. Wim M.J. van Binsbergen (Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society, 1997)
  • Nishikawa, Kinohi. "Martin Bernal." The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Ed. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, Jr. 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 114-15.

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