Black Athena: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece

Black Athena: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece

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Black Athena - The Fabrication of Ancient GreeceExamines the claims of Professor Martin Bernal who questions the assumption of the Europeans of our civilization placing instead the black Egyptians and Phoenicians at the center of the West's origins.

Black Athena examines Cornell Professor Martin Bernal's iconoclastic study of the African origins of Greek civilization and the explosive academic debate it provoked.

This film offers a balanced, scholarly introduction to the disputes surrounding multiculturalism, political correctness and Afrocentric curricula sweeping college campuses today.

In his book Black Athena, Prof. Bernal convincingly indicts 19th-century scholars for constructing a racist "cult of Greece" based upon a purely Aryan origin for Western culture. He accuses these classicists of suppressing the numerous connections between African and Near Eastern cultures and early Greek myth and art.

Leading classical scholars, on the other hand, contend that Bernal, like the 19th-century classicists he attacks, uses evidence selectively, uncritically and ahistorically to support his own Afrocentric agenda.

They argue that cultural diffusion alone can't account for the distinctive achievements of the Greeks during the Classical Period. Black Athena can help students begin to distinguish between sound scholarship and cultural bias - whether inherited from the past or imposed by the present.

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This is sad
This is sad
2 years ago

Of course it’s an English man. Geez let the rest of the uncontroversial Europeans rest..

Alfred
Alfred
4 years ago

Indeed there isn't something like ancient Greece culture. One part of Greek population who live in the Greece state are placed there in the end of XIX century and the begining of XX century. And moreover the Greek language is an artificial language called "kionee" originated from bisantine church liturgy. Old Greek language was administrative, commercial, official language formed from an ancient population called pellasg. Language of which is spoke and speak today from albanian. So is explained why old Greek language is similarly with albanian language as greek language. All ancient Greek history is an invention. Please check and read from ROBERT D'ANGELY - ENIGMA"

Alex
Alex
4 years ago

Funny thing is 'Ancient Greeks shared knowledge back & forth with everyone an anyone 'they were not & aren't racists. Because someone thinking they are a better than another would not fit in with the philosophical way of life, its negative and stupid 'I don't think that the Greeks have ever been so small minded. They included all people into their own religion from Ethiopia, Egypt etc etc & that was throughout all time and they incorporated their God's with other peoples God's and also included themselves into other peoples religious beliefs or other peoples new religions which had been forming & included their own thoughts an beliefs in with the newly forming religion's ex; Buddhism & the Northern African God which was half Zeus and half of there African God "which I can't recall
the African half name atm.
If Greeks were waiting on their own small population alone to come up with all that they had, we'd still be in the dark ages these days maybe. It wasn't until we met the Indigenous Australians and after wards that the rest of the world had figured out the concept of how to fly & build an airplane 'which the Indigenous Aussie's had known that knowledge for thousands of years or at least as long as they had the hunting weapon named Boomerang! So I'm sure that everyone of the humans contributed to every aspect of human knowledge 'but we have such a long way to go before anyone of us wants to start bragging about where we humans are at, in these we should all be ashamed how pathetically the world is run and what we are doing to our planet, animals & each other! Why would any one of us be proud of what we've done or doing about it!!?

Diallo
Diallo
5 years ago

If you are NON WHITE and you don’t understand White Supremacy (Racism),what it is and how it works everything else that you understand will only confuse you. Neely Fuller Jr

Alexander A
Alexander A
5 years ago

Bernal himself admitted that his book should have been called [North} African Athena as he did not believe that North Africans were black (they weren't).

Chris
Chris
5 years ago

Later historians could not bring themselves to admit that, for once, the Black man was the colonizer, conqueror, educator and master. His subjects were none other than the Greeks. His legacy is even a physical one, as modern Greeks continue to possess high levels of Black African DNA. The truth is in front of the deniers. Live with it.

Greeks are fake as hell! Greeks are hell-ass!
Greeks are fake as hell! Greeks are hell-ass!
5 years ago

Everyone knows that greeks are fake as hell.......like hell-ass!
Greeks are only nation in the world who denied minorities in their "own" country. There is "only greeks in ellada, no other nationality" - yeah right!
Their stollen history is fundament for greeks neo-nazzi believes - "there be only one nation,greek"...
Greeks have problems with EVERYONE in the whole world! Why? Because that stolen valor and history is clashes with every other nation facts!!!
It's really interesting WHY the whole world continues with their silence about greek stolen history?!

The truth
The truth
7 years ago

There is one word to describe the views of most of the comments "Eurocentric-ignorance" (yes, I made it up). Whenever Africans are presented as more than a "subordinate race" or "slaves" the validity of the information is questioned. Why is that so? Let me say this there are lots to learn about the history of African cultures and the achievements of black people; however western ideologies will not teach or promote the magnificence of the black race. Some of you profess to know what the history is, how can you ? At the height of African civilizations where they had universities, Europeans were living in caves, thinking the earth was flat and as a mostly uneducated, uncultured people. Africans created most of what is considered "Greek" or "Roman" such as democracy which still exists today in the form of village elders in parts of Africa. Astronomy, mathematics, science, art and religion were all created by Africans. Do your research! But as saying goes "ignorance is bliss" the choice is yours.

fantasma
fantasma
8 years ago

Sorry, there is no thing called african culture in the universe. Nor, for that matter, something called arabic, or islamic, civilization.

keith henry
keith henry
8 years ago

if you doubt the egyptians were original africans read egyptologists books. E.A. wallis budge, gerald massey and martin bernal...and then after reading books by people were in egypt before all the tourists....ask yourself why does the american system lie about the origin of the egyptians why do they consistently portray egyptians as white or semetic? read first..study first they reply.. don't let your contempt for african americans guide your ideas of history.. the real question is why did the educational system of american intentionally take africa out of the history of civilization when civilization originated in africa. plato waited for 13 years to be accepted in the egyptian school of mysteries. they taught you that pythagoros originated the pythagoran therom.. pythagarus also studied in egypt and came back with tha pythagoran therom but there are no pyramids in greece.. to build all those triangle(pyramids).the egyptians knew the pythagaran therom in 3400 bc long before pythagaras was born... wake up and ask yourself why were we lied to...

Allen Kir Carter
Allen Kir Carter
8 years ago

It's all been fabricated to FIT the white agenda!!! If you are a historian, you'll see in PLAIN VIEW how that europeans ENVADED a GREAT Many continents, nearly WHIPPING OUT it Native Population!!!
Take America for Example!
The Native Indian Numbered in the MILLIONS!!!
Look at them now!!!
The latest Census Figures only number them in the few thousands!!!
The same for The Aborigines, they were NEARLY Whipped out as well!!!
So, then!!!
Accept it or NO, The Original Inhabitants of Greese were Black!!!
So just accept it!!!

A.Alexander
A.Alexander
8 years ago

Mesopotamia`culture,Ancient Egypt,Phoenician cultures has nothing with "black" and "white" it has Semitic roots and these roots are denied (where possible) by Western hystorians.The cocky "Black Athena" evolved the false hopes of the black racists and prevented the seriouse attention of the Western humanitarian science strongly infected with supremacism.

pascaline
pascaline
9 years ago

Hi,

I COMPLETLY AGREE WITH Pr Bernal. The greeks civilization is fake and a myth. You also can read the french researcher who investigates and has done research on this subject. His conclusions are the same as Pr Bernal
Dr NAS BOUTAMINNA
Book: Le Rétablisme

Truthfinder
Truthfinder
9 years ago

This documentary sucks! The majority interviewed is against the theory of Bernal, leading to this 'white supremacy' mindset. It is not objective at all. I don't understand why black people are underestimated. Even when the evidence is clear whites are still trying to come up with some other explanation (being mixed, not black skinned etc.) So sad.
A hundred years from now white Americans will claim that they are the native people of the USA and evidence will be destroyed or misinterpreted.
Only the Great Almighty will be able to end this foolishness.

morrisseyowesmemoney .
morrisseyowesmemoney .
9 years ago

No such thing as magic

Vasso
Vasso
9 years ago

Guys, we may say a lot of things out of reality, but the truth is only one! We Greeks wrote about everything! Greeks are from the beginning of time white! We have texts, we have draws, we have sculptures! There is no doupt about it! We can't change the facts!

But, why the skin colour is important? You know smt? It's not! Every nation has their colour, their language, their "everything"!
We talk a lot about Greeks because we all know what they have done! The art, science, philosophy are more-less everything that human ever ctreated and every single one of them created in Greece thousand years ago.
Everyone on this planet knows that and it's a lie to tell smt else! This is human history!
Do this, an expiriment! try to say smt in your language about science or ideas, without using any greek word! You just can't! Try to talk about maths! Try talk about ideas! Try smt about athletism. Try talk about art, about politics, about life, about death! YOU JUST CAN'T!

So, stop lying to yourselves, just see the facts, see the truth!
Come a visit to Greece, go to Parthenon, go to any place in Greece. See the sky, see the earth, try to be Greek for a while. It's hard, I know, to understant what means to be a Greek. It's dificult even for us, the Greeks, some times to be Greeks!
Because our legacy is to havy... We must to do some things! We have parents, grandfathers, and their grandfathers and their grandfathers etc. and everyone of them has expectations and you just can;t fail them! They gave their lives for us! They created a better world for us. Even Socrates, even Heracles, even my grandfather in the world war 2. All Greeks were heroes in the past. Can we be loosers?

That;s why you can';t understand us and you can;t understant the history. For you, history is stuffs from the past written in some boring books, but for us, the dead are still alive, the past is now, the past is tomorrow and history is our people mind! All Greeks have that in their hearts. Because is who we are.

southernsepia
southernsepia
9 years ago

Anyone who has ever taken an entry level Egyptian studies class knows that the original dynasties of Egyptian Pharoahs are African/Black. There is no debate about it. Check out a text book at your local college.

learnfromme
learnfromme
9 years ago

People always like to claim others achievements to fuel their own egos, lets get some things straight. Egyptians weren't black and never have been, they have always been a brown skinned mixed people who completely separated themselves from the black skinned nubians south of egypt, and in fact at various times made them their slaves. Greeks have always had macedonia as the northern provinve, even to this day, then a country above greece decides to also call themselves macedonia and thats where all the problems started. Alexander the great was born in Pela in greece, his father was phillip from middle greece (never has been disputed that it was always greek), so was his mother, ethnically he was a greek. secondly, macedonia was a state of greece like sparta, they were greek but did their own thing and were sightly autonomous, but always were greek. There is also evidence in pela that ancient greek was the language round the time of Alexander the great. thus he uses the language and his parents are from there, and he lives in greece, then its greek. Macedonia the country as we have it today has been invaded by the ottomon empire which then changed borders, and then yugoslavias demise changed borders also. Also, just as turkey is next to greece, greeks arent turks, just as macedonia (the country) is next to greece, they are not greeks either, they are slavic with a slavic ancestroy. we know this because thousands of years ago slavs were an ethnicity of people that didnt exist in that area (greece's empire spread over bulgaria and into turkey), the world has gotten much more diverse over time and new ethnicities of people have come about with different languages etc. Therefore it must be made clear that macedonia was a poor choice of naming and it has truly nothing to do with ancient greece, where the slavic language and culture was not involved because it didnt exist. This is a response to a commenter who simply has no concept of history and has some kind of bias opposition to facts that greece was once awesome and alexander doesnt know macedonians culture or language like he doesnt a serbian or croation.

rare avis
rare avis
10 years ago

any new link?

Orophin
Orophin
10 years ago

I can't help feeling nihilistic at the incredulous nature of simplistic self-worth rhetoric that fuels pathetic ego-centric agendas and perpetuates the all too human condition of tribalism. I see the cultural and social dimensions of communities/civilisations that throughout eons of conformity and bondage to tradition, superstition, myth and dogma - occasionally manifest brief periods of enlightenment. The birth of a genius or two who bring forth ideas and concepts which profoundly alters the neural schematics that we call intelligence and cognition. Just like the random nature of the universe, such avitars are not confined to one race, time or place, but seem like devine gifts that steer humanity on it's evolutionary development. This folks, is the point - whoever these guys are - they are not YOU! Elaborate - it's not your skin colour, it's not your homeland, it's a handful of inspired individuals that govern the destiny of our species as the catalysts of change. Get over yourselves, you are insignificant and despite your qualifications and proclaimed wisdom, nobody cares, they are too absorbed in their own fantasies. In summary, Greeks did this, Africans did that. blah blah blah, actually they didn't do f--k all, a dozen or so individuals made break throughs and I would hazard a guess, that such people would not indulge in the drivel portrayed in this discussion, they were too busy seeking answers!

Macedonian1
Macedonian1
10 years ago

What the greeks fail to acknowledge is that there is no such thing as a slavic ethnicity. The term 'slav' is a linguistic term, just as Latin is. You cannot be a slav by blood. There is no one on Earth who is an ethnic slav. If their dubious claim were true, that would mean that all these 'slavs' of Europe would be related, and they would basically own Europe. The Macedonians' language belongs to the slavic family of languages, and their ethnicity has always been and always will be Macedonian.

The truth is that a 'greek' nation never existed prior to the 1820's. They are nowhere to be found in historical records prior to this time. The language that they use today is based on a common language used for trade amongst other things, that language being Koine. This language had to be resurrected back in the days of forming a new nation (see Fallmerayer). There was a huge possibility that the official language of this new nation would be Albanian, as Athens back then was nothing more than an Albanian village. If you do some research you will find that many of the 'greek heroes' did not communicate in 'greek', but Albanian.

Their history is fabricated at the expense of other peoples, namely the Macedonians, Vlachs, Albanians, Turks. These are the real ethnicities that make up the population of today's 'pure greeks'. If you dig under the surface, you will find a 'pure greek' doesn't exist and never has. There were no such people prior to the 1820's.

J_Templar
J_Templar
10 years ago

Egyptians started much fabulous knowledge that was brought forth I believe through Hermetic philosophy to the Greek world where it combined with Greek's own fine thought. Sumerians contributed much of it too.
But Egyptians are different from Nubians and very different from the Bantus who went to America. Each group has its own strengths and weaknesses and you should not hate others since you then only deserve the same back on you. Bantus are now taking misplaced revenge on whites. Whites invented the idea of slavery being wrong, but it still exists in black Africa and Araby, and it was the Blacks and Arabs who captured and sold black slaves to whites. Whites never captured any, and Moslems from North Africa took many Europeans into slavery during the 600s-1700s when the Saracens were raiding Europe.

NOSHEOL TARSUS
NOSHEOL TARSUS
10 years ago

The story of Europe is a huge work of fiction, much like U.S. His-story. The only thing Europeans are good for, is lying, cheating, and murder, on an epic scale, the tarres of scripture.

Lampy Pampy
Lampy Pampy
10 years ago

The teachings of the Egyptian Mysteries reached other lands centuries before it reached
Athens.

Brad Whodat Tomlinson
Brad Whodat Tomlinson
11 years ago

A self-esteem project disguised as history. The dearth of black intellectual achievement relative to other races obviously hurts black pride. Let's lie about history to rectify the situation shall we?

Nosheol Tarsus
Nosheol Tarsus
11 years ago

The American is such an intense loser, that he will equate himself with almost any fabrication that involves honor, and glory, since he, lacks them both, absolutely. Thus, they deem themselves Romans, Greeks, Vikings, and any other mythological narrative they can concoct to build up their effeminate , and cowardly selves. The history of the U.S. is a history of lies, murder, and whores, nothing less. The solution for the wana be white (Whatever that is), take more steroids. Hitler would have loved steroids, but even that would not have helped his "supermen" from getting their behinds left in the Olympic dust, by the true superman: "Jesse Owens. The end of the white age of lies is speedily upon us. ISAIAH 66:24

Nosheol Tarsus
Nosheol Tarsus
11 years ago

The only thing the seed of Cain s good for is murder, stealing, and lies.

RUDY
RUDY
11 years ago

The American is such an intense loser, that he will equate himself with almost any fabrication that involves honor, and glory, since he, lacks them both, absolutely. Thus, they deem themselves Romans, Greeks, Vikings, and any other mythological narrative they can concoct to build up their effeminate , and cowardly selves. The history of the U.S. is a history of lies, murder, and whores, nothing less. The solution for the wana be white (Whatever that is), take more steroids. Hitler would have loved steroids, but even that would not have helped his "supermen" from getting their behinds left in the Olympic dust, by the true superman: "Jesse Owens. The end of the white age of lies is speedily upon us. ISAIAH 66:24

RUDY
RUDY
11 years ago

Everything about Europe is fake, and in particular the concept of "whiteness," works great for people who love falsehood though.

Proteus_Delta
Proteus_Delta
11 years ago

Also do not forget that we also evolved out of Asia. To say that we evolved from people in Africa is just ridiculous. All the underwater cities being found of the coast of Thailand, China & Japan points to an older civilization.Their is a reason why we are given the term Caucasian. Rememmber the landbridge connecting Siberia to Alaska. How the Native Americans resembled Asians and as did the people all the way down to the Lowest tip of South America Besides the Babylonians & Summer was before Egypt. One more thing, all authoritarian cultures are noting but garbage. Super science & philosophy combined with democratic idealism is the way to go. The ancient Greeks to these philosophies further than those authoritarians ever could!

?????????? ????????
?????????? ????????
11 years ago

The only truth about Greeks is that they are a nation with a great history. All ancient sources from Greece, Egypt, Arabia, India etc. are saying the same about Greeks and Greeks are Macedonians, Dorians, Aeolians, Ionians, Achaeans, Danaoi etc. They are the same nation! They have different names cause of the greatest hero of their area. so Makendos, Ion, Doros, Danaos, Achaeos etc. It's not to difficult to understant and accept it, because when we say that in Papua New Guinea there are ancient nations with common origin, nobody has a different opinion! Why? Why everybody claims up for Greece? We are just humans with a different way of life, Just humans!! Our civilization is great? Maybe it is! But other nations had their civ's! Go and ask history from them! Or Better create your own if you don't have! Our history is not for sale! It belongs to us! We are not an example that you must follow, Follow us if you want, but our way of life is one of many differents ways to living. We are just the Greeks! And you, you ,you etc. you are Belgian, German, American etc. what's your problem? For God's sake! Stop hating and raping Greece!

?????????? ????????
?????????? ????????
11 years ago

I Believe that aegians civilizations were in contact. But we can't say that Greek civilization it's not great and authentic. It had influences, but it's still here! Were are the Phoenician and Egyptians? Even their names are greeks!

madscirat
madscirat
11 years ago

Five minutes in, still waiting for evidence... "Ur racist if u don't agree." Ten minutes in, still waiting for evidence... "Ur antisemite if u don't agree." Fifteen minutes in, still waiting for evidence... "Ur a nazi if u don't agree." Twenty minutes in, still waiting for evidence... Bunch of random black tourists interviewed say its true.... Seems Legit.

Can not wait for babyboomers to die off so we can all go back to looking for the facts rather than the facts which make us feel the most liberal and politically correct.

I mean seriously, who the heck cares what skin color the founders of civilization were apart from racists and babyboomers who are desperately frightened of looking like racists. Due to the homogeneity of the human genome, lots of the Greeks were probably more genetically similar to Africans than other Greeks anyway.

rubicx
rubicx
11 years ago

North Africa, the Middle East and Europe share one thing -- the Mediterranean. There were, of course, influences among and between those regions, mostly because of trade across the Mediterranean, but this does not mean that ancient Greeks were black Africans. That is just a ridiculous proposition. White history has many lies, but when we add black lies to history, then all we get is more lies. Let's clean up the lies across the board instead of telling lies for the sake of national pride, racial pride or civics.

Dac
Dac
11 years ago

Everyone knows that Phillip the II was the greatest enemy and killer of the greeks. and he was Macedonian! What the greeks hated and was forbidden in greece was the name Macedonia and Macedonians to be spoken! So who gives you permission to say Macedonia is greek? why dont you say something about the division of Macedonia in 1913 when greece took a big part of southern Macedonia(Aegean part) because of the end of ottoman empire and the so-called liberation of the Macedonians. DNA shows that the direct ancestors of Alexander the Great live and are from present Macedonia. on the other hand,your DNA shows African origin.

Brad Whodat Tomlinson
Brad Whodat Tomlinson
11 years ago

Bernal is either a buffoon for his shoddy history or a genius for cashing in on what has been an obvious and desperate yearning among blacks to have their self-esteem shielded from the relative dearth of their intellectual achievement.

urban deadite
urban deadite
11 years ago

"the Europeans created virtually all of the modern world, not excluding the computers you are looking at"
Industrial revolution started in Britain yes the true start of the Modern age and SOME parts of that spread but that was not possible without all the ideas that came from the East etc previously ie the compass, printing, paper making, gunpowder, the number 0 etc
Saying Europeans created 'virtually' all of the modern world comment is ignorant of History and as we still live in the Modern world it is inaccurate as technology etc is not a static thing and ideas are and have been diffused throughout the World for as long as Humans have existed as a constant effect.

Anyway this program is already out of date we know this from Genetics and the truth of where we ALL came from is a lot stranger than an Afro-centric viewpoint and is constantly changing and we do know as FACT that a lot of peoples in the Mediterranean mixed and had done since before the Stone Age of ALL Colours, technically there was no such or is there a people called 'Africans' , Africa is a CONTINENT made up of dozens and dozens of Gentetically and Culturally diverse 'African' (inhabitant of the Land mass called Africa) peoples who ALL LOOK DIFFERENT, an Aka looks very different to a Bantu who looks different from a San or Zulu or Libyan or Somali or Nubian or Egyption or Tureag etc etc etc.

As far as we know Homo Sapiens came out of the African CONTINENT, modern African peoples have also Evolved like everywhere else in the World so they are NOT the same people as OUR ANCESTORS.

robertjamesselby
robertjamesselby
11 years ago

what about the smurfs

CharlotteKey
CharlotteKey
11 years ago

There was a Spanish geneticist who came out of nowhere claiming that Greeks had "black" DNA. Since then, that has been proven a fabrication. I wonder how it ever got accepted--we have countless representations of Greeks in ancient times, their sculpture and portraits on pottery, and they are quintessentially Caucasoid in phenotype--nothing "sub-Saharan" African at all. And then there is nothing in Greek literature or philosphy, or their scientific theories, the say "Black African." Black Africans have never distinguished themselves in these endeavors, ever. Not now with all advantages given to them, not ever. So why try and force a connection? While the claims of other Europeans are questionable, there is at least a phenotypical & genetic relation, and an exchange of cultures--Greeks were the eastern half of the Roman empire after Rome fell. So give it up already, on the Greeks, Afro-Centrists. I don't know exactly who the anceint Greeks were, but I know damn well who they weren't -- black Africans. btw, Dr. Mary Lefkowitz (think that's how its spelled) demolished that non-sense.
in any case, the Europeans created virtually all of the modern world, not excluding the computers you are looking at. No European need feel inferior due to lack of accomplishments. Which is why they keep having to ram the "genocide" thing. Look--the modern achivements of white civilization has allowed MILLIONS of blacks and browns to grown up who would never have survived. That is why their populations have burgeoned in the 20th century. The white man is responsible for this prodigious growth of black and brown numbers. Blacks living now in America are infinitely better off than most people have ever been all through history. That's what makes you hate whites. You depend on them.

Kevin Harris
Kevin Harris
11 years ago

1)i think egyptians (Nesu) kings painted them shelves black to show they were of the orignal seed (black).notice on almost every picture with working day to day average people of ancient egyptians are a reddish brown color still of negroid genes but not the seed of the royal house or (pharoah) wich is the the darker hue of the negroid race

John
John
11 years ago

A good book to read is "Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History" by Mary Lefkowitz. Lefkowitz demonstrates that the foundations of Bernal's claims are shaky at best, and hilarious, misguided wishful thinking at worst. Bernal's claims, when put under the same academic scrutiny that other claims go through, simply do not stand up to the facts and evidence. And, unfortunately, Bernal uses alleged racism as an argument instead of a genuine debate of the facts.

John
John
11 years ago

Although I know we could never put it into practice, of course, I used to wish we had a huge super committee of trusted scholars, scientists, historians, linguists, etc., who could review all nonfiction books (and now docs) and make certain that they were based on fact and evidence before allowing them to be published. If there were such a committee, then Black Athena would have never made it into publication. Martin Bernal was not happy with the factual, evidence based history so he just made up a false history that was more pleasing to him -- and more pleasing to those who might spend their money on his revisionist books. It is totally unreasonable, and completely unsupportable, to believe the entire legacy of Greek civilization did not contain anything that the Greeks themselves contributed. It is also inaccurate to assume that Egyptians were all black -- they weren't. Even back then there was a great deal of racial diversity in Egypt. It is plausible that the Greeks learned from the Egyptians just as it is equally plausible that the Egyptians learned from the Greeks. A good book to read is "Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History" by Mary Lefkowitz. Lefkowitz demonstrates that the foundations of Bernal's claims are shaky at best, and hilarious, misguided wishful thinking at worst. Bernal's claims, when put under the same academic scrutiny that other claims go through, simply do not stand up to the facts and evidence. And, unfortunately, Bernal uses alleged racism as an argument instead of a true debate of the facts.

Giac Belli
Giac Belli
11 years ago

there is only one race...and it's Human.

Christian Imasda
Christian Imasda
11 years ago

Personally I think the Jews and the Bible did everything, I do believe whiteness kinda limits, Adam and Eve were black :)

JamesT
JamesT
12 years ago

Cliff notes version:

A) greeks were white europeans and egyptians were black Africans but folks like to go on and on about what shade of black the egyptians were for a bunch of reasons.

B) One dork is saying the white folks did gain a lot from the black folks

C) Other dorks don’t think white folks gained from black folks as much as the one ugly nerdy guy said.

minority report
minority report
12 years ago

I don't know where some of these historians stand with regards to the essence of the "Black Athena" argument/book.
One says we should not think about Greeks as "...pure Greek, pure Egyptians.." and "....who the Greeks were...". Both these quotes from those historians do not address the question - why did the Europeans think they are in EVERY respect descendants of the Greeks? Historically? Culturally? Biologically?

I think many Afrocentric and M. Bernal is saying is that racist-aryan-European colonist-historians have taken the Greeks as their ancestors. And this is not true.
Didn't the Ancient Greeks interacted with the Middle East? By doing so didn't they interchange ideas and knowledge? And what were the "real" Europeans doing at that time in history? They were still "hunter/gather" people roaming Europe as Gauls/Franks/Celts/etc...
Just because the Europeans TOOK Greek ideas/knowledge (eg. democracy and architecture) does not mean that the modern Europeans - English, French, Germans et all, are a continuation of civilization that started from the ancient Greece. I think that's what the colonial Europeans had in mind because they could not trace any history beyond their Enlighten period of 1400/1600s.
It's similar as saying, Japanese society that is so modern, civilized, free, democratic all the characteristics of the West does not mean Japan is and always has been a Western country. It has been interacting with China and Korean and is more like them than to see Japan only after the Meiji period when Japan became very West like.
Europeans are still looking for their ancient history. It looks like they are on the Kurgan PIE theory now....
I don't blame any culture to look for their past, but you cannot steal and falsify history to do it.

Pierre Froment
Pierre Froment
12 years ago

I feel rather ambivalent about the debate this documentary is pushing. In my opinion a major focus of this debate has to deal with modern day concerns on race. Its fairly obvious that these modern ideologies inevitably shape how historians interpret the past. Bernal was justified in criticizing how Classical studies have neglected the significant influence of Egypt and Near Eastern cultures on Greece's development of both the Bronze Age and Hellenic period.

Despite the merit of this, I cant help but feel that Bernal's conclusion has invited many authors to reassess the development of Egypt and Greece as a racial issue despite the anachronistic aspects of such a perspective. I am not entirely aware of how race and ethnicity was evaluated in Greece and Egypt in antiquity but it occurs to me that ethnicity is not the essential, unchanging category that it is assumed by some of the proponents of the Black Athena debate. The imposition of these modern interpretations of ethnic and racial identity feels ahistorical and I am somewhat skeptical about how this may increase our knowledge of Antiquity.

I am ambivalent about this because there isn't really a clear yes or no answer to this issue. The scarce number of surviving records and the enormous span of time which Bernal draws his conclusions from are ambiguous enough to support both sides of this debate. However, I would not be surprised if the exact answer to this question fails to vindicate either side of this debate.

Aspirator
Aspirator
12 years ago

This is stupid, half of this 'documentary' is sending out a "Boo whitey!" vibe.
Did Dr. Jeffries really say: "Whiteness limitates you?", seriously?
Put a white guy in a movie, saying "blackness limitates you" and see what happens.
Who's kidding themselves by thinking any ancient city in that area was populated by purely by one race? Come on.
And then, does it really matter how big a slice from the cake a specific race represented?

I recieved no knowledge from this. None.

english100
english100
12 years ago

the truth is coming out slowly, at the end of the day truth shall prevail. africans are indeed the founders of civilization, why we europeans try to deny them their place in history, we corrupt everything we touch.......we seem to fear african in every aspect but why? maybe we never want them to know what we stole from them, thus the need for racism, slavery, colonialism, etc.........

liridon_n1988
liridon_n1988
12 years ago

And I always thought why greeks are so dark I got the answer on this documentary thanks even their culture is gypsy like.