Are The Egyptians Responsible For Ancient Greece? | Archaeology | Odyssey

Two ancient great civilizations. One rigid and authoritarian, changeless and unrelenting. The other spirited, free-thinking, timeless and original. Could one have inspired the other? I'm John Rhys-Dayles. Join me as we ask, did Egypt shape the glory that was Greece? Next on Archaeology. Rising from the parched sands of the desert, in the land of the pharaohs, are the earliest stone monuments ever constructed in ancient Egypt. Though shrouded in antiquity, they bear an eerie resemblance to another famous landmark built 2,000 years later. If an advertiser wants to sell his goods and give them a high-class feeling and make them seem classic, or if a bank wants to seem reliable, or if a university wants to seem respectable, the ideal thing to show is a fluted column, preferably in rows. And the idea of the fluted column is really seen as at the basis of European civilization. And when we think of the basis of European civilization, we think of Greece, we think of Athens, and we think of the Parthenon with its rows of exquisite columns. Now, the Parthenon was built about 2,500 years ago, and these columns, which we're walking through now, were in fact built about 2,500 years earlier still, so they're twice as old as the Parthenon. For one maverick historian, the resemblance is no coincidence. He thinks the ancient Greeks owe a debt to Africa for their cultural heritage. If he is right, the history of Western civilization will need to be rewritten. But is he? Generations of schoolchildren have been taught of the glory that was Greece, of a white civilization that gave birth to cherished notions of democracy, philosophy, and science. But is it true? How much of that view is colored by racist attitudes of 19th century classical scholars? Today, a controversial new theory that the roots of Greek civilization lie in ancient Egypt has archaeologists in an uproar. What forces converged in prehistory to inspire the genius of the ancient Greeks? Who forged the destiny of Western civilization? In his book, Black Athena, Martin Bernal of Cornell University contends that the seeds were sown in Africa and the Near East long before the arrival of the Greeks. His search for proof begins in Egypt at the famed Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first ever built. Surrounding the pyramid is a complex of buildings and courtyards believed to be a replica of the palace of King Zoser at nearby Memphis, then the capital of ancient Egypt. We're now at Saqqara, which is a place of firsts. It was the place where the first pyramid was built. It was also the place where the first fluted columns were erected and the place in general where stone architecture was used. So here we have the beginning not only of Egyptian civilization, but Western civilization as a whole. That from Egypt and from these beginnings in Egypt, we can see the development of Greece and Rome and modern European civilization as a whole. 17 centuries before the birth of Christ, Egypt ruled an empire that stretched from the Nile to the Euphrates. Beyond, in the Aegean, was the island of Crete. Here, the empire of the legendary King Minos was reaching its zenith, while at Mycenae, the earliest roots of Greek civilization were taking hold. Connected by a vast network of trade routes, ships plied the seas laden with the treasures of the ancient world. Bernal believes that during this time, the Egyptians and the Phoenicians attacked the palaces of Crete and colonized the Aegean. Bernal's colleague at Cornell, John Coleman, is currently excavating the ancient city of Halif. An expert on the prehistory of Greece, he has found little to support the theory of an Egyptian invasion. Personally, I don't believe that Greece ever was invaded by Egypt. There are very few documented instances of invasions of Greece, and we have no real evidence that in the form of, say, Egyptian language or Egyptian script, hieroglyphic, for instance, to suggest that, in fact, the Egyptians ever did come to Greece in any numbers. Despite his critics, Bernal is intrigued by evidence that the Egyptians did control the Aegean. On the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, in the shadow of the Valley of the Kings, are the tombs of the nobles. Buried here are the most powerful men in Egypt next to the pharaoh. We're now in the tomb of Rechmire, who was a high official of the great pharaoh, Thutmose III. And this tomb has the usual accompaniment of the affairs of everyday life, but it also has a great deal about Rechmire's duties as this high official collecting taxes, administering within Egypt, but also supervising the foreign tribute that was given to the pharaoh. And you have a number of ranks. You have the Africans and you have the Syrians, all giving their precious objects, and you have the Minoans or Cretans dressed in their kilts and bringing objects that we know archaeologically were of Cretan manufacture. So there's no doubt about who these people were. Professor Bernal sometimes speaks as if they were bringing tribute, as if Egypt somehow had control of the Aegean area. But in fact, recent studies have shown that they're gift bearers, rather than indicating that they were in any way under the control of Egypt. Now, whether the Greeks considered they were giving tribute or not is another question, but this is the way Rechmire and his pharaoh, Thutmose III, interpreted it. While Bernal clings to the notion of invasion and domination, he insists it is not critical to his theory. My historical scheme doesn't rely on the idea of Egyptian or Phoenician invasions or settlements of Greece. What I argue is that Greece is permeated with Egyptian and Phoenician influence because of contact over a period of more than 2,000 years, contact of all sorts, because the two countries are not, the two regions are not that far apart. To take an analogy, Greece is about as far from Egypt as Japan is from China, and we would be very surprised indeed if we found that Japan had no Chinese influence, but in fact, it is full of Chinese influence. That's not to say that Japan is a mere reflection of China, but that you cannot hope to understand Japan unless you realize its Chinese roots in that way. Similarly, I think we should not do as classicists have done and try to view Greece in isolation without seeing its outside roots. The Greeks were undoubtedly influenced by the Egyptians in the case of architecture and also in sculpture. One obvious example is the large ionic-style buildings that are found in eastern Greece and eastern Aegean, such as the Temple of Artemis and Ephesus, with its forest of columns, which resembles the hippo-style halls of Egypt. But as for all other things, the Greeks tended to transform the ideas that they gained. The question of the influence of Egypt on Greece in the ancient world is one that really can't be denied. There were certain aspects of the Egyptian cultural record which served as catalysts that enabled the Greeks to borrow, transform, and move on. No one is really denying that the two nations were in contact, that the two cultures did talk to one another, but there are major, major differences in the way the Greeks adapted the Egyptian legacy. So to think, as some people have said, that Greece is really an offshoot or the child of Egypt is absolutely missing the point. The Greeks borrowed from Egypt as they did from other civilizations, not only Egypt, turned it into something completely their own and went off in another direction. So, for example, if you look... Robert Bianchi, an Egyptologist with the Metropolitan Museum of New York, has joined a growing list of scholars who disagree with Bernal. He sees striking differences between the two cultures. The Egyptians never dreamed of doing, never wanted to do. So yeah, we have columns and architraves in both cultures, but the Greeks won't have optical refinements that conform to their world outlook, and these do not appear in the Egyptian record. The great pyramids of Giza are the most durable relics of the ancient world. The final resting place of the pharaohs, they testify to a fundamental tenet of the Egyptian faith, belief in the afterlife. To ensure the survival of the ka, or spirit, the body first had to be preserved or mummified. Then, provisioned with food and surrounded by cherished possessions, the soul could depart for eternity. The Greek mythology of life after death was remarkably similar to that of Egypt. The key shift is crossing a river by a ferry, which is a very Egyptian image for the way in which the dead travel. There was also the field of reeds where the upper-class Egyptians lived in blissful happiness after their death, and this is very similar to Elysium, or the Champs-Elysées you have in France, happy fields where you live. Then you have the word for the occupants of this territory, which is the same in Egyptian and Greek, Makarios in Greek, Makharu in Egyptian. So you have a number of striking similarities. We have to understand that the Greeks, because they were using letters and words, were able to evolve an atomic theory. They were able to deal with invisibility. They were able to deal with how the universe was composed, what matter was all about. And that's a major, major difference. The Egyptians never speculated in that kind of a rarefied way. This also holds true in areas of religion, whereas, for example, the Egyptians believed that the body had to be intact in order to be reborn. The Egyptians, the Greeks on the other hand, would allow the bodies to be cremated. This is a heresy to the Egyptians because the body was now destroyed. But it's interesting to note this may not reflect deep cultural differences because in the United States today, people use mummification, whereas in Western Europe, they use cremation. You have this total difference in the approach to the dead, which may reflect something about American society's materialism as opposed to Europe, but there's not much in it. And yet you have this fundamental difference in disposal of the dead. The tombs of the pharaohs attest to their mortality. But to the ancients, they were gods. Absolute monarchs, they controlled the affairs of everyday life as well as the destiny of Egypt. In the conduct of politics, there was no room for the common man. But imagine trying to maintain control in a land like Greece that's so broken up by mountains and sea. It's just simply not possible. And as a consequence, the Greek civilization developed in a very different way with local places gaining power on their own. And they never got together to create a federal state such as you find in Egypt, nor a great monarchy such as is found in Egypt or Persia or elsewhere in the ancient world. And as a result, there was more individual freedom, more individual expression. The individual, as we know it today, as a concept, really is born in Greece, not in Egypt. Someone, myself included, I guess, would be really out of place in Egypt in a nonconformist kind of way with the way one dresses or has clothes or a hairstyle. But this is something that would be perfectly adequate in Greece where they stress the individual above a tyrant or a ruler in that sense. Even in the Egyptian art, there was no freedom of expression. These paintings, breathtaking though they are, were not created. They were executed according to the dictates of the pharaohs. Artists painted what they were told, not what they saw. Highly stylized Egyptian figures appeared lifeless and two-dimensional, while the Greeks were beginning to explore the beauty of the human form. The Greeks already begin to explore the body beautiful. The Greeks begin to be more naturalistic, more anatomically accurate, rather than stiff and rigid. And these two differences are also reflective of the differences in culture. Egypt was always a totalitarian regime ruled by a pharaoh. Greece was a democracy in which human beings and human thought counted. And when you look at an Egyptian statue and a Greek statue, you see that the rigidity of the Egyptian statue is the rigidity of a totalitarian regime. The naturalism of a Greek statue is a manifestation of the democratic principles that we know the Greeks formulated. By 500 BC, the reign of the pharaohs had come to an end. Did the human spirit rise from the ashes of a dying civilization? Or did the Greeks invent themselves? Greek is an Indo-European language, and therefore there must have been major influences from the North to make it one. On the other hand, there are an extraordinary number of elements of Greek language and other aspects of Greek civilization that are not Indo-European. And I believe these can be very plausibly explained as coming from Egyptian or Semitic. The undeniable fact is, of course, that Egypt did play a role in the formative development of Iron Age Greece. That is to say that Egypt and its cultural traditions formed a catalyst whereby the Greek achievement was able maybe to get a spark and then develop. But what we have to understand is they are fundamentally different civilizations. Let me give you a... Backed by the archaeological record, most modern day scholars agree with Robert Bianchi. Now it remains for Martin Bernal to prove his case. My fundamental claim is not that Greece is a reflection of Egypt and the Levant. Clearly, it's a very different and independent culture. On the other hand, I believe it's impossible to understand Greece without seeing the depth of Egyptian and Semitic influences upon it. And this is what classicists have tried to avoid. They've tried to minimize something that I believe is absolutely central to the formation of Greek civilization. Unfortunately, underlying the debate is the highly charged issue of race. Were the Egyptians black, as Bernal implies in Black Athena? Was Cleopatra black? No, she was olive-skinned. She was a Greek. She was the queen of Egypt, and her family had ruled Egypt for 300 years. But we know she was a Greek because her family was incestuous for 300 years. And so we're pretty sure about her bloodlines. Interestingly, the Romans tried to make her appear to be an Egyptian. But there's no question that she was, in fact, a Greek. And therefore, the idea of her being black is not on. The Egyptians regularly depict themselves in fairly light skin tones. And though it was surely a mixed population, as is generally recognized, I doubt that the term black is appropriate. The word black is now used in a very wide sense to cover a whole lot of people who are only of mixed African descent. And certainly the Egyptians, if they were to go to Mississippi or had been to Mississippi in the 1950s, if they had wanted a cup of coffee, they would certainly have been refused. We are living in a... People are beginning to understand the value of non-European cultures, the contribution that women are making in the world. And if we're going to become picky and start to argue and nitpick about he's black, he's white, he's this and that, we are losing the entire focus of the humanities. And we will quibble today, instead of being able to live in a more enlightened society that recognizes individual difference for what it is, but preserves and bequeaths to our children and our children's children, those characteristics of civilization that we deem worthy of preserving. The debate over what role Egypt played in the rise of Greece has raised an incendiary question. Was Egypt black? Does it matter? It matters deeply to many African-Americans searching for role models in the ancient world. Scholars, however, insist that such a notion represents a serious misreading of the archaeological record. The evidence tells us that the Egyptians were a multicultural people. Indeed, it may have been the very tapestry of their society that allowed them to achieve so much.