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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 heavily influenced by Afroasiatic and Semitic cultures, not just by Europe. 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. It should, however, be mentioned that no classical scholar, including Lefkowitz, has ever denied that Greek culture was heavily influenced by the Babylonians, Phoenicians and Egyptians during the so-called "Orientalizing period" (the 9th and early 8th centuries BCE). 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 can be found in Egyptian or other sources.
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.

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Works

References

External links

See also

Works

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

★ Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785-1985, Bernal, Martin (pub. 1987)

★ Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume II: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence, Bernal, Martin (pub.1991)

★ Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume III: The Linguistic Evidence, Bernal, Martin (pub. 2006)

References

Other books related to the controversy are:

★ ''Black Athena Revisited'' by Mary R. Lefkowitz

★ ''Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals'' by Jacques Berlinerblau

★ ''Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics'' by Martin Bernal, David Chioni Moore (Editor)

★ ''Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience'' (Belknap Press) by Frank M. Snowden
See also:

★ 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.

External links

★ Bernal reviews Lefkowitz's "Not out of Africa"

★ Josine H. Blok, "Proof and Persuasion in Black Athena: The Case of K. O. Müller", in: Journal of the History of Ideas 57.4 (1996) 705-724; a critical look at Bernal's historiography.

See also

★ Afrocentrism

★ Eurocentrism