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OUT OF AFRICA
JtLow Alrocentrism
xSecame an Excuse
JViyth
as rlistory
to
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MARY LEFKOWITZ
NOT
OUT OF
AFRICA
HOW AFROCENTRISM
BECAME AN EXCUSE TO TEACH MYTH AS HISTORY
MARY LEFKOWITZ
*^
A New Republic Book
BasicBooks
A Division ofHirperCoWmsPkblishen
For
CONTENTS
Illustrations
ix
xi
Preface
one
Introduction
two
three
12
53
four
five
System
91
122
155
six
Conclusion
Epilogue
177
195
Notes
Supplementary Notes
Bibliography
239 255
281
Glossary
Index
289
vn
ILLUSTRATIONS
1.
15
2.
Greek Heroes
19
37
123
The Ordeal
IX
PREFACE
In
my
the
fall
of 1991 I
was asked
1
to write
a review-article
the
its relation to
The assignment
work on the
all
literally
changed
Once
began
to
could give to
it.
Although
denied that the ancient Greeks were the inventors of democracy, philosophy,
and
science.
from Egypt. Not only were these books being read and widely
distributed;
College.
xi
xii
Preface
soon propelled
me
into the
For
many
course
was about
historical Africa.
and Cleopatra,
were
had pre-
were wrong,
tility far
ment.
was accused
by
racist motives
4
and
Jewish "onslaught."
An influen-
writer,
my
whole discussion as an
who share
we have seen
article.
said in
I
my New
Republic
For instance,
of
reported
that
my
students told
me
con-
cerned that
suggested that
prise
incident,
6
my sur-
Preface
xiii
believed
is
"of no interest."
Why didn't he
interesting
imagine that
was responding
in the
it
was not an
opponents
racists, there
seemed
to
be
little
hope of sponsoring
the kind of debate that has until recently been a central feature
of academic
tions, to
life.
assumptions,
What
own?
It is
a need for
a need
is
it
to explain
world
behind
dangerous
because
it
In this book
antiquity,
want
to
many
a current tendency, at
xiv
Preface
least
among
to be that
somehow
all
line
of argument,
It
can be con-
more
new and
remained obscure.
Thus
ethnic,
histories
have won
scientific
why
civilization.
Why
are questions
now being
and
suppose that the ancient Greeks were not the authors of their
scientific theory?
is
it
was widely
of Western civilization.
do not
origi-
nate from a real Egyptian source and are not nearly so ancient
as they suppose. Rather, they derive from the description in an
Preface
xv
although wholly
was in
fact
talk as if they
had some
direct connection
is true,
who do
is
why an attempt
from
who
is
Even though
am
who
could have
myth
of ancient history,
qualification:
a long-standing interest in
erate
and unconscious
falsification of evidence. I
have also
studied the
some of them
bring
my
xvi
Preface
made my life
easier. I
am
outmoded discipline;
dards. I
am
would
assure anyone
who
I
is
prepared to
make such
allegations that,
on the contrary,
not
This book thus has both a negative and a positive purpose. The
negative purpose
history is
is to
The
positive purpose is to
much
dents to learn about the real ancient Egypt and the real ancient
Africa,
Any work of this kind must inevitably take its readers into
unfamiliar territory. For that reason
as
I
when
writers wrote
All quotations in
for
Preface
xvii
them.
A work on
ough documentation.
This book was written with the support of grants from
Wellesley College, the Bradley Foundation, and the John M.
Olin Foundation.
Among
the
many
people
to write this
I
am
particu-
and
S. Held,
Heather R.
Higgins, Kermit
Jr.,
Hummel, Diane
Ravitch,
Frank M. Snowden,
late F.
W. Sternfeld alerted
me to
down
libraries tracking
Hugh
made many
valuable sug-
Massachusetts
July 1995
The paperback
and
with sug-
gestions for further reading; a glossary of names to help people sort out
this book;
text,
who
is
who
pages in the
may be
found
typos. I
xviii
Preface
My
thanks to the
much
helpful advice:
Robert Renehan.
Wellesley,
Massachusetts
January 1997
ONE
INTRODUCTION
In
if
many
else.
years
to get involved as
anyone
my questions
we were
all
all
of
our students. Intellectual debate was in fact actively discouraged, even though the questions raised were reasonable
fair.
and
a radical
is
support.
to think
it
was appropriate
to
2
ask
Greeks
Normally,
why he
or she
is
using
was
had
my questions in
invited to give
lecture.
Wellesley's
memorial
is
how he was
I
introduced by
knew from my
a
research in Afrocentric literature that he was not what scholars would ordinarily describe as an Egyptologist, that
scholar of Egyptian language
is,
and
civilization.
Rather, he
was
was
how
Aristotle
how
made
these
same
assertions once
why he
had come
to
when that library had only been built after his death.
Jochannan was unable
to
came up
me
I
and accused
me
of racism, suggesting
that
historians.
But others
stayed to hear
I
me out, and I
Introduction
knew, and
subject, Aristotle
never went to
is
not
known
city
precisely, it
was
certainly built
some years
after the
and Alexan-
der's deaths.
political rally
that were
there
was
them were
what
Dr. ben-Jochannan
was
say-
they afraid of being called racists? If so, their behavior was understandable, but not entirely responsible. Didn't
tors
we as educa-
owe
it
And
that
and where
discus-
Good as the myths they were hearing may have made these
students
feel,
ing
how
to question themselves
and
others, they
were not
learning
how
had
it,
The purpose
of history
is to
judgment and
cultures
human
rights
So
it
to
me
was not
my
my colleagues
of
to reconstruct
even
if
evidence existed,
it
did not
to
own time. When I went to the then dean of the colwas no factual evidence behind some
had a
view of history.
When I
that library
who
stole
How could I
many
others like
and that
to
Introduction
teach about the history of the ancient world in order to preserve or transmit racist values?
is
an attempt
to
answer these
difficult
an urgent need
for
a book that
and
fully to all of
and
and to
if it
dis-
were
now
we
the defensive
when
would
material and bring our attention to bear on real interpretative problems. Instead of getting
must
still
be made.
many ways
4
to revise
this
But in
book
have chosen
to concentrate
have
civilization,
whether intel-
portant role they have previously played in history, and to assign to the African civilization of Egypt the credit for the
Greeks' achievements.
Any attempt
have
little
Greek
much
Romans, we
like to
think that
we have
learning,
and
discussion. 6
But
it is
society,
that
we
and our
have relevance
my colleague
(or rather,
said, it does
matter to
all
place as long ago as the late fourth century B.C. It matters, be-
cause
if Aristotle
thing,
we should
give the
ments.
It
Introduction
try to
is
basic facts are clear enough, at least to dispassionate observers. In effect, Afrocentrists are
historical
their
own
them
to
ignore
them
specific
needs.
are,
Some two
civilization:
claim,
it
made it,
limited.
known,
and
all
if
it.
made by
Afrocentrists can be
is
shown
to
willing to look
On
the
8
common
is
tion souls.
of a great
uments.
In this book
I will
offer
a valid interpretation of
the earth
is flat.
when
political aspirations,
everyone
should be aware that there are real dangers in allowing history to be rewritten, even for culturally useful purposes.
Even
own
brand of "ethnic
What will happen some years from now, when students who have studied different versions of the past discover that
their picture of events is totally incomparable with
what
their
own
ethnic histories?
Will students of one ethnicity deny the existence of other "ethnic truths," with dire consequences akin to the ethnic conflicts
Introduction
the differences do not matter because
rhetoric,
all
history is a form of
virtuwill,
ally at will.
When
hope
it
never
who claimed
was a
have no respect
for evidence,
fifth
century
B.C.
into the
human
past. It is in the
I
have
it is
possible to approach
The second
in
Greek
civili-
also address
African ancestry:
shall
Was
Socrates black?
is
Was
Cleopatra black?
no evidence
and
race.
Here
once again
we can
The third chapter of the book turns to the broader and more
complicated issue of whether Greek philosophy was stolen or
in
believe that
10
the notion of an extensive Greek debt to Egypt originated in the mythology of eighteenth-century Freemasonry, and that
for that reason, the Afrocentric claims
about an Egyptian
I shall
show
explain
why
certain Afrocentrist
Egyptian ideas that they are describing are not actually Egyptian,
who had
no
direct or authentic
Greeks
The
fifth
myth that
the Greeks stole their philosophy from Egypt. the idea of a "Stolen Legacy" was
first
suggest that
popularized by Marcus
describe
George G. M. James.
also
up to
serious scrutiny.
(if
In the conclusion
consider
what
about the
Introduction
ancient Greeks and about
world.
I
11
all
of us
ancient
and of aca-
demic freedom.
schools
and
of us to realize that
some action
needs to be taken.
It is
must encourage
free inquiry
is
TWO
MYTHS OF
AFRICAN ORIGINS
Who
to
more
we know
time
In the
fifth
century
B.C.
and
after,
themselves as indigenous, or to use their word for it, "autochthonous," from the land (chthon) itself (auto-).
12
13
What
stone,
selves.
From
portraits
on
seal-rings, paintings
it is
1
saw themranging
color,
Women are
is
vase
is black,
the
men have
black faces;
if
the background
is
made,
men have
literalips;
flat noses,
curly hair,
and thick
on occasion,
they were
(oulotriches).
dark-skinned (melanchroes)
3
and curly-haired
ori-
He identifies
to
be what
we would now
from
all
and referred
them rather
indiscriminately as
14
barbaroi, people
Because of their
own
The inhabitants
like
from
earliest times
known,
(469-399
B.C.);
B.C.),
queen of Egypt. In
My
not because
past achievement,
it is
to
know what
people thought and did than what they looked like. If Socrates'
skin had been darker than that of his Athenian neighbors,
if
would
still
FIGURE
16
necessary
to
to
show that no
have tried
conceal the truth about the origins of the Greek people or the
It
we have been
so "imbued with
we
own
field
it
might
be,
none of us has
any cultural
world that
we
are try-
to discuss
it.
In the
is
rather
B.C.?
manist and
scientist
is
17
and metallurgy
century
B.C.,
to continental Greece
Erechtheus,
who
Danaus was
at
first
subject,
city of
all
"Egyptian
Canaan.
If this
is correct,
In
fact, it easily
it
is
not so
thorough as
stories
extraordinary account, and has uncritically repeated an ancient assertion of dubious accuracy. Diop's source for his
is
Diodorus of
who wrote
18
tells us.
He is simply reporting what Egyptian priests told him when he visited that country during the 180th Olympiad
(60-56
B.C.).
11
The
even the nation of the Jews. But this account of the origins of
civilization
is,
to put
it
and
al-
to all
known
slightly less
He was Egyptian,
was born in
ori-
had
come
Greek god Zeus had fallen in love with her, and in jealousy his
wife, Hera, turned
from Greece to Asia Minor, and from there to Egypt. There she
gave birth to Epaphus, Danaus's great-grandfather. Danaus
and
These were
in
name
Greek
the
to escape they
went
to
Argos
19
FIGURE
i i
Epaphus
i
Libya = Poseidon
i
Belus
j
Lynceus = Hypermnestra
i
Abas
i
Acrisius
Danae
i
i
Perseus
i i
Alcaeus
i
Electryon
i
Amphitryon
\
Alcmene
HERACLES
*The names of Greek gods are
italicized.
The mythological
per-
(ca.
468
B.C.),
Aeschylus
portrays the
moment
20
them as a
genos, 154-156).
And
in Prometheus
Bound Aeschylus
de-
Epaphus, as
is
ans in the
fifth
century
B.C.
is differ-
The king
of Argos
comments on
their "unhellenic
and close-woven
cloth" (234^236).
He
live in Colchis
near the Black Sea (279-287)? But they assure him that they
are descended from
Io,
and of Epaphus,
Io's
son by Zeus
Libya.
The
trilogy,
The Egyptians,
tells
the
story of
how
the king
is killed
Danaus against
place as king.
15
their cousins,
lief,
Canaan) and
city of Thebes.
21
He
Diodorus of
tells us.
but
Diodorus says
Cadmus
looked like
Egypt
Cadmus was a
whom
to Egypt,
mean
that
Cadmus went
in
exactly the opposite direction, in order to provide documentation for his idea of an Egyptian invasion.
I shall
why
the Egyp-
wanted
own
civilization,
what they
told him.
Egypt had
for
more
On
had from
earliest
civiif
had studied
there,
even though neither they nor the Egyptians could provide evidence to support their ideas.
22
and
to
When he
reports
told
own
earlier ac-
member
history.
all
As
to possess.
more
precise information
we must
rely
on material
re-
mains.
In
fact,
settlers
came
to
in the
Minoan Greek
when
as
the
Semitic
(probably
Canaanite)
known
the
Hyksos
ruled
Egypt
(1674-1566
floor,
Kabri in
sion,"
to suggest that
an
"invato
whatever form
may have
taken,
a distant
Donald Red-
reflect history at
all
kinds of dif-
ferent
phenomena. Here
it
may
23
why
who
was often represented with cow's horns on her head. The fifthcentury historian Herodotus,
myths of the
origins of Argos
no indications of African
roots or
an Egyptian invasion.
to call attention to their foreign
So argues Martin
known
He even imagines
that the
name
the
(hiketis,
Danaus takes
its title).
to
vice-versa,
no
more
likely
than Diop's
Egyptian
23
word ba
(soul)
force).
If
number
But vague
24
In volume 2 of Black Athena, Bernal attempts to fortify his arjgument by claiming that the river-god Inachus,
Io's father,
it
is
even
ori-
gins of the Greek heroes. Bernal states that "the church father
was a
settler
like the
up
to scrutiny.
supposed
It is
not surprisfact
ing that he
antiquity,
when
it
was widely
believed that
many
tion
and
had originated in
the mythology of
Egypt.
I shall
discuss in chapter 4
how
25
made
its
way
on Greek and
Roman
sources,
had access
any historian
until hieroglyphics
were
deciphered in 1836. But these are the only sources he cites for
his claim about Inachus coming from Egypt.
In short, there
is
virtually
no
way
who make
not
know
was descended
dis-
man
used to desig-
man and
and
different
Greek word
for the
specified that
26
both descendants of Perseus, who was a descendant of Danaus's brother Aegyptus (see figure
to explain this
2).
is
Heracles,
to
Greece through
name
[pun] or combination
West Semitic
on the consonants
as
lin-
guists
would
European
roots,
Hera
(the goddess)
and
28
kleos (fame),
and
made for an
African invasion of Greece in prehistoric times. The absence of evidence for such an invasion seriously undermines the Afrocentric
significant African
element
it is
such
claims
must
rest
this evidence
from a student in
my
second-year Greek
regarded
27
can studies she had been told that he was black, and
lence about his African ancestry
my
si-
seemed
to
her to be a
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
we know,
Socrates
was
What had
of
proof
is
Why couldn't an
it is
Athenian have African ancestors? That of course would have been possible; almost anything
question whether or not
it
is possible.
But
another
was
probable.
Few prominent
sort.
ori-
city-states to
and they
was an Athenian
citizen, his
parents must
thought
it
that no
it out.
to
make fun
of
28
he
is
mother was a
vegetable-seller, that is
a poor woman,
famous
poets,
family. 31
was a
foreigner.
Greek
city-states,
if he
Socrates
Socrates or his parents had had dark skin, some of his con-
it,
because
and the
him
alone,
had
if
they did,
closely
put forward in
my article about
since,
some
sug-
readers found
my
discussion unpersuasive.
One reader
gested that Socrates' ancestors might have come to Athens before the
citizenship to persons
ents. 33 If so,
when
Socrates
29
Athens,
why should we assume that they came from somewhere else? And if they came from a foreign place, why assume that they came from Egypt
or
is strictly
a twenti-
own notions
Another
of race.
line of
was
said
re-
to
have
an
facial characteristics
with
(a creature
with a
man's body, except for pointed ears, and a goat's legs and a
horse's tail) are
This argument
argument about
from how
it is
portrayed in sculpture.
None
of the portraits is
drawn from
life;
pupils' writings
In Plato's
Symposium
Socrates' pupil
30
Alcibiades compares
None
origins, it
would be
wide mouths in Athenian vase painting were exclusive characteristics of African types. But, in fact, they are
by no means
exclusive.
what
is
as
ined to
of
and
satyrs.
These
same skin
color as
we were
to
an indication of
his origins,
would clearly be
to think
was
African blood, or
of location be
presumed
to
31
list.
"life"
explicitly
36
was
Maximus Planudes, a
scholar
the earlier lives, Planudes imagines that Aesop also had promi-
nent
lips
was an
aristocratic Carthaginian,
name
suggests,
and
for the
complexion (fusco
colore).
38
used in a
poem
woman who
came from
The term
mans were
we
color to
What
the
Romans
called "Africa"
32
shown
and
facial coloring.
is
what was
North
Africa,
nan certainly
who
Bushmen,"
even
"Niggers" by some.
43
St.
Augus-
and
He
also
Namphamo, whom he
Christian martyrs."
to
think that these Africans were black comes from the pre-
all
the rest
Roman,
A.D.,
when
settlers
who,
but
33
many people
a
ied,
As
mix
was
var-
call
of Nuof
Augustine's
hometown
Namphamo was
name
is
Punic, as ben-Jochannan in
i.e.,
fact notes: it
tune."45 Since he
Namphamo was
(somewhat
46
not a
"first
is
called
sarcastically)
comrades were members of a heretical local sect that was suppressed by the Church. 47
Such
cults of
who was martyred in 203, appears to have come from a well-to-do family of Roman settlers in Carthage. 49 Felicity
was a
slave,
but this
tells
Since nothing
is
sumption
is
is,
Roman
or Carthaginian.
160-240),
34
a
and a Roman
in 258,
St.
50
citizen.
Cyprian of
citizen,
Carthage,
was a Roman
Italian) descent,
Berber, as her
gests.
51
name Monnica
The name
Phoenician)
name
was popular among Carthaginian Chrisfrom his own writing that even though he
It is clear
as a black or Ethiopian. 53
Her
ancestors,
B.C.,
vided
among themselves
officially,
VII, the
sister.
She
married her two brothers (Ptolemy XIII and XIV) in succession (after the first died in suspicious circumstances, she
had
35
was the
first
member
55
who was
able to
speak Egyptian.
She
of the time shows her wearing the dress of the goddess Isis.
She chose
to portray herself as
Of course, these
portraits
The only
full-
we do not
know
member
side.
the mistress (not the wife) of her grandfather, Ptolemy IX. Be-
cause nothing
is
known about
assumption
has always been that she was a Macedonian Greek, like the
other
members
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
57
was
with the
had been a
foreigner,
one of the
it
Roman writers
in
an invective against
36
Those are the known facts, but the question "was Cleopatra
black?" has
torians
little to
do with historical
that Cleopatra
reality. If it did,
the his-
who thought
to
would want
find
more
likely
than
if
is
a legendary
if they
know little or
raised and
who have
discussed the question about Cleopatra's ethnicity are not ancient historians.
The
first
American writer
J.
to suggest that
A. Rogers, in World's
Great
Men
of fa-
mous
was the
illegiti-
mate
was
traits."
In
fact,
Cleopatra's father
was
illegitimate
is
slave.
But that
an
assumption that
37
FIGURE
/
/
= Cleopatra Berenice
x concubine
Ptolemy XI Alexander (105-80)
Cleopatra
Berenice
Arsinoe
CLEOPATRA VII
(69-30)
All dates are B.C.
Ptolemy XIII
(61-47)
Ptolemy XIV
(59-44)
tices of the
Romans enslaved
slave. All
is
that she
to
was black on
to the articles
on Ptolemy XII,
38
cestress,
woman:
Shakespeare
calls
a passage, where
(as
he puts
it)
Cleopatra
to describe Cleopatra.
But in context
to
mean.
The opening
a caricature of
Cleopatra, not as
an actual
The
describing
whom he
com-
now
bend,
office
and devotion of
a gipsy's
he has
"O
like
at fast
and
loose / Beguil'd
me
which
is to
is
what the
39
day.
Charmian in the
fitting for
well done,
and
a princess
Descended of so
many
royal kings"
(V.ii.326-27).
Antony
is
away she
lover.
whom
me
that
am
with Phoebus'
bruised; if Shakespeare
color
was
black,
have had
what Shakespeare
actually meant.
He was
use of evidence
is
was a person
there
is
40
who
and
Cleopatra
'fat
What
Men
of
its
inaccuracies
Collier
and insupportable
is still
was reprinted by
available,
now
this
John Henrik
Clarke,
who was
Women
in
was
originally
it
was expanded
and
Rogers's
as
if
Egypt.
He
It or
modern
portrait
He
also
of Acts. This
not menif
she had
B.C.,
and the
41
later,
to
confused.
He manages
(he
to iden-
who
more misinformation
than Rogers's;
it is
also further
Cleopatra's character
and
actions,
which he appears
to
have
drawn
directly or indirectly
like Plu-
But Clarke
a brief account of
both an African
suicide
out of place in a work of historical fiction that sought to provide an allegory of the social
ills
an
ac-
women and
68
their
is
She
if
they
42
Oregon.
From
was
VII
of
She
Some
of
my
colleagues
Cleopatra
is
helps
the
is
The trouble
who
myth
is historically
my deShe
re-
of "white supremacy."
By
was almost,
if
not
all,
Egyptian.
is
The theology
[sic]
this country.
cans have
made no
and
One
nealogy with her, but she refused to believe what she was
told because
in
mediums that
color.
Appar-
43
believes
May
minded
'scholars' "
at
Wellesley:
woman
of
that "education"
is
telligence. It is
to
have an
a vivid account of how she, a black woman, has come to believe in Cleopatra's African ancestry.
Greek.
72
Some years
Howard
later,
class at
University that
made
the
same
assertions
for
the
first
time
question
None
to be."
identity of Cleopatra's
writes;
it
44
pointed out) the fact that the Ptolemies tended whenever possible to
(that
is,
exception, took
me, a woman who in the third century B.C. was one of the
mistresses of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (308-246
B.C.).
many
in-
Our
A passage
III,
is
memoir
According to Ptolemy
Greek writer Asclepiades, she had the dark coloring of a Nubian. 76 I say
"if,"
"When
is
melt like
wax
before a
fire; if
she
coals."
have translated as
it),
can sim-
(ptiaiodes).
78
Philadelphus,
was
it is
45
we know
was
an-
of the native
women, of extraordinary
beauty."
to
No
ance of Ptolemy
Stratonice,
II's
and Myrto
much
affair
presume that
Cleopatra's grandmother
at least to
ment from
silence,
but that
is
we can
make without
And what
the Ptolemies were based in Egypt. But she also could have been
Jew
was
at the time
understand
it
was
no standard ancient
his-
tory book
46
unknown grandmother,
woman:
began
is
to see
and
still
am
Cleopatra
my
yearning to
tics."
80
in
among
is
classicists
and
my
it
identity poli-
This statement
remarkable because
suggests that
decided by
means
or
it,
of "identity politics."
of "identity politics,"
causes.
tory,
81
factor in his-
past,
and Cleopatra's
identity as a
woman
of African descent
When we
Egyptians were
Black, and,
more
specifically,
that Cleopatra
was Black, we
known
. . .
of
But
she did not wish to be led through the streets of Rome in the
celebration of Octavian's triumph over
Egypt
47
sulted."
III
tion in his
the notion of a
was not
beautiful,
nor
is
that no one
this
key
issue,
adding in a
as mistresses. ...
think
it is
had
Black ancestors."
claim.
85
84
She
offers
ences describe the same single instance of a Greek and Egyptian alliance: Didyme, the one non-Greek mistress
"very
among
the
many" mistresses
since
it is
tically,
not at
all
remarkable
48
editors themselves
somewhat more
tentatively?
cri-
tique because the editors of the book her essay appears in are
themselves
critical of traditional
The
articles
been allowed
now
than they did a generation ago. They are suspicious of the value
of facts, or to put it another way, they think that facts are
ingless because they can be manipulated
is
meanIf it
and reinterpreted.
true (and
think
it
almost always
is)
that no historical
work
sort, it follows
that no histo-
us at
out anger or intensity," but his narrative shows that he did not
mean what he
said.
But
recently,
many
the blinkers put on everyone's vision by the values of their particular societies.
49
whether
indi-
Such beliefs,
sible to
extreme,
make it pos-
say that
all
history
is
by
fiction, it is
all historical
data (since
it
what they
are.
to perceived motivations,
judged by themselves:
tions are good, then
if
may be
How reasonable is it
The
is
it
own choosstudy
almost as
if
We are left with a vivid history of the concerns of our own society. We can now see in the past
not the issues that the people living at that time considered
50
important, whatever these might have been, but a biased history written to the dictates of dead white European males,
seen
seri-
far
enough
is
to see
where history-without-
not coincidental
gument depends upon its cultural merit. On these grounds (as opposed to traditional methods of
proof), Haley's
argument about
which
is
is to
woman
(rather than as
a Hellenistic despotic
tim (rather than the loser in a closely matched struggle for power).
It is
is
potheses;
same thing
My ths of African
Origins
51
is
way is open
for daring
new
interpretations,
and
because
Cleopatra's grandmother,
was
deliberately
about her identity were suppressed because she was black, just
as some people nowadays refuse to acknowledge their black ancestors. Therefore (to follow this line of
argument
to its logical
conclusion), even
was
black.
it is
be successful because
No one seems to
Despite
American academics
of acceptable proof
today.
is
works about the ancient world (other than the^ Bible) that
many modern
nonclassicists
Bernal's project
is to
"lessen
52
knowledged the
full
Near East. He
Because questions
like
than factually
correct: "Yes,
she might possibly have had an Egyptian ancestor, and because as a black she could represent the fate of Africa under
what
will
happen
if
other groups, of
whom
own
histories
according to their
own
When
"to
we are really talking about here is symbolism anyway," she has made an argument that will find cultural acceptance. 89 But once symbolism is taken as a mode of historical
since "what
proof, the
way is open
Odim might
whole popula-
do remember.
THREE
DEPENDENCY
As we saw
ical fact.
modern
more
is
cultural aspirations
The question
is
complicated, and in
no
doubt that Greeks were influenced by other neighboring cultures during the whole course of antiquity.
rather:
issue is
civilization?
53
54
civilizations,
such
now known,
trade.
classicists
rejected this
modest
role to the
in the ancient
sicists
Some even
Greeks did
sci-
ence from Egypt. They argue that credit for this knowledge
How
I shall
religion
is
and philosophy
It is
on Greece
a cultural myth.
no more
had African
ancestors.
religion
it
from
century
later.
The
were
A.D. also
55
Some
Afrocentrists
and that
But in
why
in this matter
I
were eager
to establish direct
links
between their
civilization
asm
was
for
Egypt and
its
much of what these writers say as they are now known from re-
want
to
It is alleged
more attention
to
the influence on Greece from the Near East and from the In-
it,
and
and history." 1
56
can
work of men
like the
among
scholars. 3 In
little
demonstrable
effect
of illustrations,
mu-
and
artisans. 4 Egyptian
A range
5
of skin color
and facial
characteristics
were represented.
The popularity
of Egyptian themes in
Europe
is
nowhere
Thamos:
Egypt
is
The
score for
Thamos was
Egypt
came a
classic.
The enthusiasm
for
new
discoveries in
Gounod's Faust (1858). But the culminating tribute was probably Verdi's Aida (1871), which
was composed to
celebrate the
57
herself
an Ethiopian, who
is
ian.
As Richard Jenkyns
is
observes, miscegenation
7
between her
less
and Radames
not an issue.
If
Europeans placed
emcivi-
and Diodorus of
Sicily?
had supposed.
to see
New
em-
them
how
strikingly
to
was no
knew that
certain
Greek
religious cus-
concerned a
Casaubon demonstrated
The
to
on Greek sources
for their
tory
and
civilization.
had been
it
became
clear to
relation of Egyptian to
Greek
58
culture
On
new
discoveries,
European scholars
what
was
and
to see
how
and
Egyptian
civilization
They
guage.
to
exaggerate
find.
the
The false information that he reports has led some modin his narrative. 9
But
it is
much
faith,
more likely that he and the Greek historians who literally followed in his footsteps reported what they did in good
59
even when
it
We
made up
contra-
tells
us
is
dicted
by known
fact.
The problem
lies
rather in his
way
of
Herodotus
history,
tells
us very
little
about
how he composed
his
but
of the problems
Greek
We must make
many
either be-
distrusted.
Most of what
have written has been taken from the accounts of Agatharchides of Cnidus in the second book of his history of Asia,
lived in
Egypt
when
I
was
in
Egypt myself,
met many
priests,
and
spoke with
who were
there at the
and
tested
now
lost, at least
he
tells
60
like
was
He
whether he heard
directly
He
He does not point out the mode of inquiry: What if all his inforsource,
He
does
not ask
if
what we might
why he and
other visi-
in-
61
Greece,
how
could Greeks be
know about
portance of inquiry from indigenous informants, such as Egyptian priests, or emissaries from Ethiopia,
been among the best educated, and who would have had the
leisure to tell visitors about their history.
this
more re-
liable
to give
The need for such oral testimony explains why it was necessary for the historian himself to visit the country and inquire
personally, a process
as historia.
By rely-
and
realistic
storytellers
had been
able to provide.
had some
significant limi-
had
to
11
ask the
right questions
likely
and
But how
was
it
know what to
all
ask, or that
the information
It
was
historian
and
for the
62
what he reports
river Nile.
He
reports
much
useful
information
about
individual
was
so impressed
culture that he
wanted
with Greek
of Herodotus's reliability on the subject of cultural dependency, because Herodotus is often cited as
was occupied by
was
had
a country which
for
themin-
we
look closely at
what
it
clear that
he
is
putting
own
interpretations
told
by native informants.
had
these
63
to do,
full context.
reli-
was
He
ex-
why he has
is
phallus
carried in a procession by
is
signifi-
had choral
done
for the
god
The Greek
Melampus, he
learned
mus came
On
made
inquiries
was true that the names came from the barbarians, and
I
so
believe
it is
de),
expressing an opin-
all particulars. 15
By connect-
why he
likely":
civilizations.
64
names
more
his
it
own opinion,
seriously than
who would
were
religion.
The sentence
names
But
16
if
Herodotus had
meant "nearly
all,*
The connective
origins of the
ties that
names
ritual similari-
he observed:
women
to
translation
ial
puns
The poets
de-
rived the
root Di~ is
Greek word
sky.
dotus did not have the means of knowing whether his guess
lin-
is
persuaded
65
names.
all
Egyptian etymolo-
names
of the
name
se-
is
nor goddess,
of
Hebrew
influ-
which means
He
that cultural exchange almost always works in both directions. Herodotus's explanation of the origins of the oracle
66
at
which / on
from
sacrifices also
Egyptians were the first people to have festivals and processions with cult statues or with offerings,
my
is
have been going on for a long time, and the Greek customs
have been practiced only
recently, 25
common
practice
must have
He
why
the
Greeks
call
is
and Pythagorean
garments.
ority, is 26
He
because linen
is
easier to clean
it is
possi-
ble to see how, despite his best efforts to get at the truth,
offers his
he
67
practice, as if
were impossible
28
him
to
comprehend
it
in
any other
way.
It
was
both markedly
differ-
ent from Greek religion and extremely complex. The real and
gods.
29
Isis as
and reassembled.
re-
Herodotus thought that Pythagoras learned about the transmigration of souls from Egypt,
did
after death:
my practice in this entire account to write down what I have heard each of my informants say. The Egyptians say
It is
68
And
that
first
people
who
human
soul is deathless,
dies the
Then
when
and
it
all
air, it
human
and the
soul's
more
recently,
have used
I
know
their
names but
I will
not write
them down.
30
Herodotus
told him; but
tells
not
know
living in the
Egyptians who
informants?
seems that
neither group
superficial
understanding
human
32
modes
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
69
is
Navigation of Osiris.
It is
from
this,
he
is
any
particulars:
an exhibition by night
I
know more about every aspect of the festival, but let what I
have said
suffice.
And
Demeter
what
it is
permitted for
me to
say. It
of Danaus
it
who brought
this ritual
from
rit-
to the Pelasgian
women. The
was abandoned
Peloponnesus
[by
was a mystery
public. 35 It
fully
or secret
was a "mys-
he did not
understand what
70
so deduces that
Thesmophoria, was of
Egyptian
origin.
But he
no close analogue
he suggests
that the ritual was preserved in Arcadia, which the Greeks re-
there
is
Greek
ity of the
pharaoh Amasis
to the
make a
he says,
"stole"
an unusual
believed
version of a
and Artemis,
with Demeter
(Isis) is
so
we do not
71
many dif-
myths were in
looks as if Herodotus
was determined
Since Herodotus
ple
is
often skeptical
Egypt he
is told,
and on occasion,
to other countries
opment of customs
studfor
WHAT NEW INFORMATION COULD LATER GREEK WRITERS SUPPLY ABOUT THE GREEK DEBT TO EGYPT?
At the time when Herodotus But
visited Egypt, the country
was
in 333 B.C.,
it fell
72
Greek successors.
was an
the native population was limited. Regrettably the point of view of modern historians
at least from
much real
had
to rely
on interpreters. No works by
survive, but
we have
see,
in-
and what
their predecessors
also
much
of
who tended
the
shrines and
of Sicily visited
Egypt
men
Orpheus,
73
all
come
to their country.
The
priests
exhibits of
was
45
was
told.
He
if
from the priests or simply thought of some of the correspondences himself. But evidently he followed Herodotus's example in imagining that
direct
most
superficial similarities as
dorus, virtually
He
Demeter's
Diodorus dismisses as
74
beliefs.
Melampus
to Greece
and says
built
Homer
studied in Egypt.
The
and
vague
similarities. In
He remarks
indeed an
Homer
(al-
it)
the daugh-
city of Acanthi.
In the Odyssey
Used in Egyptian
75
Homer tells
how when Zeus slept with Hera on Mt. Ida he made grass and
flowers
Amun-Re and
cultural
to a
mountain that
is
The
He
may
way
of separating the
Had new
likely),
Or
(as is
much more
had
about their
visits
earlier society?
The notion that Solon learned about law in Egypt follows the
same
went
pattern.
Our
pharaoh Amasis
52
76
by
cit-
names
of Solon's Egypt-
The
priests
to tell visitors
about
how
with the Egyptians the notion that animals had souls. The
priests also assert that
common
on
to be
as time goes
By
specifies that
Pythago-
all
was
ini-
55
tion about
what he
77
was he
for
By the time Diodorus consulted them, the priests had added other famous Greek philosophers to their lists. What they told
him about
these historical philosophers has no
more sub-
fifth-century
the mo-
and not in
about
Moreover,
it
a student of
fifth cen-
effec-
was not
far
had
new
Dem-
he studied with
priests. 59
78
Like Pythagoras, he
and India
to study
with wise
men there.
In the case of the other Greek philosophers as well, interest
in the Nile or in geometry seems to count as "evidence" of a
visit to Egypt.
B.C.
The
Diodorus does not point out (perhaps he did not know) that the
ecliptic before
Oenopi-
Egypt, Diodorus gives Oenopides' explanation of the inundation of the Nile: Oenopides deduced from the temperature of
warm
in the winter
summer, that the subterranean waters that feed the Nile are
warm
in the winter,
62
and
cold in the
no rains in Egypt.
no reason
to
imagine
priests,
even though
it
who were
gave the
He also observes, more plausibly, that Eudoxus Greeks much useful information about Egypt. Euwas adopted by Aristotle. 64 He was
and customs. 65
79
But surely
it
much
easier) for
him
to
nothing in the
spe-
had a highly
He
could
visited Egypt.
Of course
possible that
to Egypt, as
difficulties.
But
it is still
more
The
priests at Heliopolis
priests
pointed out the places where they had studied. But no one
was
sure quite
how
But in
for
It is
hard
numbers, except by
of
He
says that while in Egypt Eudoxus shaved his beard and eye-
80
brows
Apis bull licked his cloak; the Egyptian priests understood this
to be
him as a
man,
like the
of his
Egyptian originals and published them in Greece. Since Eudoxus was associated with Plato and the Academics rather
why would he write about dogs? The Greeks do not seem to have paid much
(or "Dogs"),
had
settled
Eu-
were the
the
logues of the
Dead
some
of his translations
is
hardly very
likely.
appropriate
so-
the journey of the soul through the Duat, the Egyptian Underworld, to an afterlife of bliss in the field of reeds. 73
81
which these
Now we
must ask
if their
assertions about
priests' statement,
visit in
But in
his dialogues
he refers
to
some Egyptian
myths and customs. He speaks about tame fish in Nile aquariums, about the Egyptian love of money, about the Egyptian
practice of mummification. 76 Socrates swears
by the dog-god
Anubis, and he
(or Thoth,
tells
was told by an old Egyptian priest that the Greeks were mere
children in the history of the world. 78 In his
Laws
Plato ap-
None
is
may
predate Amasis's
some
by two generations.
81
The
with the priests bears a close resemblance to Herodotus's account of how the Greek visitor Hecataeus boasted to the priests
in Thebes that he could trace his family back sixteen generations,
tree that
went back
82
345 generations. 82
was not a
historian,
and
di-
more
characteristic
In fact, anecdotes about his visit to Egypt only turn up in writers of the later Hellenistic period.
some
had traveled to Ithaca as a young man, and some even said that
his father
so as to give
him a
Later biographers add details to the story of Plato's Egyptian travels in order to provide etiologies for the "Egyptian"
reference in his writings.
is
attributed to
300
B.C.).
would
was
seri-
83
had gone
to
is set
in Egypt. 81
Another reason
prologue to his
he went to Egypt
is
that in the
alludes to
88
now
lost
drama Archelaus he
The anecpunch
fell ill
why he
said
washes away
all
human ills."89
is
studying the question of the "alT and Phaedrus asks for information about the pyramids
Hermes Trismegistus
was thought
to
god identified by the Greeks with the Egyptian god Thoth. According to the story,
Hermes Trismegistus
mes
it is
the early centuries A.D. 91 But the zeal to discover cultural depen-
how
the god
84
They had
come there
from the
(so
priests,
knew, and told them only some of their theories, though they
taught them
how
number
Plato
of days
is
more
specific:
said
have heard
specifically
went
to
Egypt
ers
to study
were supposed
is characteristically
much change
so that
it
way they
suggested
itself,
into "evidence" of
contact or influence.
85
whom
little
was
known
until
many
Both Diogenes
had a theory about the inundation of the Nile, and he was interested in geometry. 97
ple,
on water.
The same type of "evidence" explains why the poet Homer would
have studied in Egypt: he
calls
was
tance of water,
when
the idea
mythology? The Greeks had such a high regard for Egyptian religion and laws, because they understood so
little
about them;
Because in
one
ways
for
them
to
maintain national
di-
pride
who
B.C.
86
both to
instill
now
lost,
Wherever
Greek
ideas.
religion
certainly
it
less farfetched to
vented by others.
to the
He even made up
were resolutely
Although the
we
know
87
heaven and broad earth." 105 Most Greeks thought that punishment after death had been meted out only to the great
sin-
Euripides in the
fifth
century
B.C.
no God" because
106
is,
the
He
Greek philosophers
studied the books
first five
knew and
books
and
clearly
worked out every detail in it." 108 In order to explain how Plato
had access
to
to
knows
took
many ideas from itfor he was very learned, and so did Pythagoras who imported many of our [i.e., Jewish] ideas into
Of course no
scholar today would take seriously the claim
that Plato's philosophy derives from Moses, because in his surviving works Plato, like most Greeks of his day, does not refer
to
known
read
88
members
of the Jewish
about the law from Moses, and that Moses was the same per-
first
century
A.D.,
some
forceful contention
about
sec-
Plato's
ond-century
Syria,
neo-Pythagorean Numenius of
Apamea
in
We have
menius made
no clearer
evi-
how
at that time
even pagan
of
own
or in
to
than either did with the natives of the country they inhabited. 113
But
Clement of Alexandria
A.D.)
(150-215
edly
a.d.)
and Eusebius
114
(ca.
260-340
took a decid-
more
hostile line.
our
[that
is,
Jewish]
doctrines." 115
He
also
reiterated
89
The determination
the priority of
plain
of both
to assert
Hebrew
why the Egyptians were eager to point out to Greek visfamous Greeks had been inspired by Egyptian
of asserting the importance of their
learning. It
was a way
little
or no politi-
willing to listen to
what they
Egypt-
somehow
to
be con-
nected with
it.
But as we have
seen, there is
no reason to
is
Borrowing is not the only possible explanation for simicomplex ideas can be developed in-
dependently.
118
scientific
thought and
artistic
But even
90
The
[the
had a
But the
FOUR
Even
and
still
in circulation.
if it
being taught as
has managed to
describe
how the
was preserved
91
92
in the literature
and Diodorus. In
in this century
I will
discuss
Afrocentrist writers
sons,
theft
in reality stolen
was
an "Egyptian Mystery
System"
is
Greek
and
plagia-
George G. M.
is
a relatively mod-
ern
fiction,
How did these fundamentally Greek practices come to be understood as originally Egyptian?
The.
93
who
visited
difficulty
ini-
be
initiated).
the
ini-
were usually
no longer
Greek mystery or
cially privileged,
initiation cults
practices
cults as
priesthood
was
foreign to Greece,
and
and
were per-
manently attached
was believed
They
and
living habits.
special knowledge,
and
lived differently
94
festivals of the
were no mystery
cults in Egypt,
of
James, the author of Stolen Legacy, appears to have been misled by relying on Masonic literature, rather than standard histories of religion.
As
this
by Egyptian
by Initiates. He quotes
from
claims
is
"Initiates,"
who
and who
know
from
cients
None
of the passages
On Isis and
initiation cult;
rather, Vail
In practice, mystery cults only came to Egypt after the third century
B.C.,
Greek
city of Alexandria.
These mystery
rites
were observed
by Greeks
95
se-
was supposed to be
fourth-century A.D.
ritual
which took
vigil,
They
then carried the statue seven times around the inner sanctuary
of the temple. Epiphanius observes that
Maiden
(Kore)
had given
seems
her child was celebrated. 7 Yet Vail offers this distinctively Greek
cult as
and that
is
in
Madaura
in North
known
as The Golden
is initiated
8
The
trial of absti-
den
food,
to the initiation;
96
and goes
to the baths,
where he
is
sprinkled by,
He
den to eat meat and drink wine. Then, toward evening, he goes
to the temple
and
goddess's statue.
He
puts on a
Lucius refuses to
tell
believe;
what
I tell
you
is true. I
arrived at
was
and
returned.
came
lower world and the gods of the upper world and wor-
you must be
norant of what
have
said.
10
stoles that
mark him
as
He
is
The
distinctive
costume of the
cism,
and the
The twelve
stoles
97
mythology the soul of the dead man is united with the sun god
by
day,
to be united
by night with
Osiris, the
air,
fire,
Italy,
and Mithras himself was associated with the sun god. Alternation of light
to
Mithraism and to
soul
and the travels of the sun god. But there is one important respect
in which Lucius's initiation differs from these narratives: he is a
living
man, who will not travel to the world of the blest, but will
life.
return to human
14
mentally Greco-Roman.
who
descends to the world of the Dead before his time and returns a
wiser man, to
tell
world, the hero Odysseus goes to the edge of the earth to talk to
him
in
the future. 16 In
tional epic that
Virgil's
B.C.
Roman na-
makes
neas goes to the Lower World to see what happens to people who
disobey the gods, and to learn from his father why he
must carry
all
a kind of initiation.
98
Aeneas must
bough.
and carry a
He must make
Sibyl of
special sacrifices.
ac-
company the
Cumae, who
who
are not
initi-
ated (profani), leave this grove; and you, Aeneas, take your
sword from
heart."
18
its
sheath!
When
Lucius
he has stepped on the threshold of Proserpina and approached the boundaries of death, the image of Aeneas descending to the Lower World would surely have come to mind.
But
it is
and
trials,
Egyptian
rite,
that became
known
able letters.
Some
rolls,
such
and
their
and geometry;
this learning
was recorded
in sacred books. 23
99
what he
calls "all of
books of Hermes, which are hymns to the gods and regulations for the life of the king.
astrological
books of Hermes, which deal with the stars, and the move-
Scribe,
all
who
him
knows
and
about
and about
sacrifices;
the
who
24
and
after
of bread.
governor of the Temple, and he must learn the ten books that
deal with the laws, the gods, and the training of the priests; he
also supervises the distribution of the temple revenues.
priests
These
Hermes that
was a corpus
to plagiarize.
James
to
show
100
works Clement
lists
much more ancient writings. Although that is possible, even if we ignore the problem of chronology, the forty-two books of
Hermes in Clement's list do not seem to be concerned with the
kind of abstract problems that the Greeks dealt with in their
philosophical writings. 27 Rather, the forty-two books of Her-
mes seem
specific to
and
regulations,
Egyptian
When
he
is
250-326
who believed
that these discourses were authentic, says that one of the authors he consulted
treatises.
30
knew
of 20,000,
Herall.
As
and
101
author or authors
was supposed
to
and
his
much
men-
Gnostics. There
clear
composed
Why
at the
dawn
of time? It would be
modern
among
to be
famous
historical figures
and
to
(!)
them
for "king
32
Amnion,"
by
whom
Amun
or
Amun-Re.
Iamblichus
102
texts
"king
Ammon
,,
god's phi-
could be applied to
trea-
itself.
Asclepius begs the god Amun to prevent his words from being
translated into Greek, because Egyptian
is
more powerful
Therefore,
my
king, so far as
it is
and
were) dandified
solidity,
make
and
effective
is
philopsophy
[that
is,
we do not
One imagines
some pleasure.
It is of
course
103
and
Why
that he
want
to pretend
like other
Greeks
knowledge of Egyptian theology, and of the Egyptian creatorgod who made the universe. 36 But in this and in the other treatises of
on
its
own
so far as possible
civiliza-
show that
it
had
in
fact derived
Thus
had the
distinct
advantage
owed
Iamblichus,
the
fourth-century
pagan
philosopher, uses the Hermetic writings to defend the Egyptians against another
less philosophical
phyry had argued that the Egyptians believed only in corporeal beings,
104
He
insists that
initi-
40
He imagined
an alphabet.
or were
if
Greek philosophical
treatises written
by Greeks, and
the
was a
The only
possible
ancient analogue
A.D.
was the
cult of Isis.
By
the worship of Isis had been imported into most major set-
tlements.
first-century B.C.
hymn
lists
is
wor-
A hymn to Isis
is lost),
is-
on second-century
a.d.
papyrus
and
fifty-five
Greek
Rome, and
Italy.
42
The hymn
may
little
had
or no real information:
he
lists
the
Ama-
zons (who exist only in myth), the Indians, the Persians, and
the Magi. But in any case only the Greeks and
Romans would
initia-
105
place
where
Isis
different,
significance.
Isis,
but
in-
known
as the
all
modeled on
this temple.
43
The
choice of
name
god worshipped
was not
Osiris,
but Amun-Re.
Amungod
was
Min.
As the authority
Grand Lodge,
cites VaiTs
Ma-
on the
pages he refers
to.
was a
of Luxor. 45 Ac-
Solomon in Jerusalem:
The Lodge represents King Solomon's Temple. The Temple
is
is
symbolic
and arrangements,
all
46
Solomon resembles
ticed the Mysteries.
James appears
Lodge
to
to
Egypt in order
106
HOW
FREEMASONRY?
We now
need to account
for the long life of the strange
and
movement
its origins
in its
in the
present form
is relatively 48
But it is an
teries
late antiquity,
but in a
characteristically
striking quality of
religion
"imaginative at-
tachment to the
in the Re-
from the
historical
explored
century).
scientifically
107
treatise
known
sion,
as Asclepius because
had survived
in a Latin ver-
mes
1460,
thought that
it
to translate
them than
mes was
and
earlier
ical error,"
its fictions
new home
tury
Europe.
Their
first
translator,
Marsilio
Ficino
foretold
itself
new
(1548-1600),
was burned
the
was a corruption
was based on
sons:
building,
interest to
ma-
108
he recalled
also the
Hermes was
arts
of the "symbolism"
Romans thought
sounds or things, as
is
hawk
or falcon
named."56
were
He
"translates"
fish,
an
inscription
with a
and a hippopota-
mus, as "you who are being born and you who are dying, the
god hates shamelessness." But in
fact this symbolical expla-
to
mean
"children of the
make
sense. 58 Apuleius, in
pherable letters," some of which were animal forms that represented "condensed versions of liturgical learning."59
A
that
allegori-
were closer
Some
of these less
109
temple scribe Chaeremon, who presumably knew the language. His definition of the hieroglyph of a
hawk was
"soul,
and
its
also
is
But unfortunately,
hieroglyphics,
Greek
treatise
on
many
This
is
explanations are
still
more complicated
and
fanciful.
known
name
is
a combination of the
style of the
for the
treatise
fourth century A.D. Sometimes "Horapollo" bases his interpretations on the actual
hawk
(the god
Ho-
and
all
it is
also a
symbol of
straight
hawk among
the birds
flies
flies
and in the
hiero-
Renaissance, came
were
little
"mysteries" in themselves.
it
Hermes were not what they appeared to be, and some two hundred years after that it was shown definitively that Horapollo's
interpretations of hieroglyphics were wrong* the fundamental
110
rit-
was modeled on
own
secret
symbolism alchemical
Horapollo.
It is
brilliant
Some
now
is
ernment
new, and that "a sunburst and eye are above the
Deity." 64
emphasize
The
ex-
The eye
of the
hawk
di-
sighted rays of
Grand Architect
and
of the Universe.
65
The Masons
we
are dealing
reality.
with a historical
fiction that
In
was
intended to put the initiate into contact with the divinity, and
111
it
was to famil-
with the practices and liturgy of that particof mysteries to education in fact
It
ular cult.
The connection
work of European
fiction,
was
who was
Professor of
66
Of
have
from Egypt. 68
Terrasson's Sethos purports to be a translation of
cient manuscript found in the library of
an an-
an unnamed foreign
nation that
is
author
is
sec-
ond century
Here Terrasson
the Hermetica,
are translations
But
he a
Terrasson
assures
is
"translated" for
them
is
112
fiction;
He
he
assures
them
through-
"it is
natural to suppose"
lost),
such
by unknown
priests
The
gives no
warning
to less
war.
The
story begins at
is
it,
king. Thirteenth-century
and
sciences.
priests,
an
art gallery,
specimens, medicines, and chemical preparations. The chemical gallery leads to the galleries of
and there is a large outdoor zoo. There is also a gallery of mathematics (the author assures us that the study of geometry originated in Egypt), agricultural machines, and hydraulic
lifts.
had been
113
was
here,
library,
to
was
gus studied. There were art galleries with statues and paintings,
The
result,
The
pyramid
before
serious archaeological
it
An
inscription over
about to undergo:
Whoever goes
thro' this
by water, and by
air;
and
if
from the bowels of the earth, he shall see light again, and
he shall be
mind for
Isis.
76
114
Tterrasson's basic
sively described
and the
hero must descend to the world of the dead and return. But
Tterrasson has
sources.
The idpa that the hero cannot look behind him durOrpheus and Eurydice. 78 The notion that the soul
purified in
fire,
ing his journey to and from the Lower World derives from the
myth
of
must be
water,
and
air
we
by the threatening
pyramid. Three
he
tries to
men warn him that they will block his way if return. He is led to a place where he must endure
air:
hot iron bars; then he must swim across a canal, and subse-
air.
Isis,
and
ments of the
rite also
sources. In the
myth
called kykeon
80
was given
to initi-
The
initiation described
above, however,
was only
await him during a final period of twelve days, including fasting, silence,
and a course of
lectures
on morality. Tterrasson
115
cult of Isis. 81
some
him
at his word.
who completed
the
of
Isis, Osiris,
who
Lower World. 83
vast knowledge. Terrasson assures us that a vague and distorted picture of this secret world survives in the
Greek
afterlife.
city,
omy:
its
hero's travels
around the
conti-
nent of Africa. Sethos discovers a debased version of the Egyptian mysteries in Guinea, and he establishes a sacerdotal college
there, with initiation rites
virtue. 85
and
lectures,
and instruction in
Egyptian
initiation of the
116
elects to
celibate.
He
renounces
why
this long
and tendentious
and
trials
therefore accessible.
a starting
point, offered
in familiar terms.
There was,
first
of
all,
his trials,
and
and
to be lived
among the
priests. 88 It is
and
117
A verse
tragedy based on
it
it
pro-
mann's Osiris
(1781). 89
it
as the
translated
in|x>
English, German,
and
Italian,
features of
Sethos's initiation
tries.
Amad6 Mozart
was
also introduced to
treatise,
new Journal
for
Freemasons.
In his treatise, von Born set out to write the history of
Egypt.
He
described by Terrasson. 93
to
One
was
them
to
civilized people,
between Masonic
rites
Among these
of
ori-
118
the priests, the four elements, the Sun and the symbolism of
light
According
to
96
von
Born,
that
goal
was
shared
by
Freemasonry.
to
him his
Magic Flute
in
an Egyptian
choir. 97
church
In the
first
and mi-
The high
priest,
is
Sethos, alludes to
cation the hero
places
upon him. 99
we can
fellow
get
some sense of
was a
Mason, Johann
German
translation
(1777-78).
The
many
the
life
is
threatened by a snake;
119
alive;
a serpent.
He brings
it
back
is
rescued
like Sethos, is
impressed with
him
he
is
watched by
priests
taken almost
from Terrasson.
is
101
nying Tamino,
too frightened
able
in
initiation.
102
The men
pyramid in
of difficulties, will
become
he can
water,
air,
and
earth.
And
if
this level,
104
he
The
in certain
MaThe
and the
ritual of purification
through the
four elements
is
ways
in
Magic Flute.
105
initiates
must triumph
as he does in the
120
Bible. 107
Masonic
three, five,
and
six.
final
humanism
The opera
irra-
But the
was understood
to represent the
day,
and
Egyptian
rites.
110
He
in
fact,
no one at the
cir-
and that in
effect
rites
based
not,
to
Roman, but
121
And, understandably,
it
was
this
Masonic view of
rituals adopted
by black Masons
country.
FIVE
In
Four Elements in
vance of the
trial is timeless;
is
based
di-
The Masons
Memphis
ritual
had served
As
they saw
it,
throughout the world by a natural process of imitation, the ancient Greeks being early
and fortunate
beneficiaries of the
122
123
FIGURE
But
From
gradual evolution a
Now,
the story,
their
who
as
own achievement.
characteristic of all ancient
Greek
When
124
ideas.
Clement wrote in
authors
he was prepared
to
new religion.
I will also
explain
why I believe
that these
new charges
or estab-
phy as
is
it
was developed
in the fifth
B.C.
discuss the
work
of
own
who
Greek philosophy.
Perhaps the most influential Afrocentrist text
is
Stolen
its
pub-
125
were not the authors of Greek philosophy, but the Black people of
tion,
North
Africa,
this asser-
Hellenistic
James wants
to assert
for the
tle
tionalistic
forming
effect"
that the early Greek philosophers did their "most important research" in Africa "empowers black people to reclaim their rightful place as
them a
126
myth
seeks to shelter
other ethnic
full
namely the
What
tory? While
knows
Isn't treat-
the
myth
if it
Why
discriminate against
them
de-
when
them
myth
and robs
Stolen Legacy
eigh-
for
what
it
WHAT
and
racially distinct
127
than
it
deserved because
it
was
in Africa,
is,
many
in this country
is
who
not
all,
their
was
far
He also observed, with restrained irony, the lengths white writers of his
Edward Wilmot
St.
back
to Africa. Blyden,
prolific
and accomplished
knew the Greek and Latin classics well, but he brought to his
learning the distinctive viewpoint of an African; as one obitu-
ary writer observed, "Dr. Blyden is the only man we have ever
known, or heard
of,
Science, Philosophy,
8
still
128
among the ruins on the banks of the Nile, will for a moment
doubt that there was the connection, not of accident or of
adventitious circumstances, but of consanguinity between
the races of inner Africa of the present day, and the ancient
Blyden, like Douglass, had read Herodotus on the racial characteristics of the Egyptians.
a step
further.
He was
French traveler Count Volney (1757-1820) about the accomplishments of the black peoples of Egypt. 10
When he
visited
amazed to
caused him to
reflect:
sciences,
built
by blacks:
I,
This, thought
Feelings
felt felt
came over me
from those
have ever
I
had a
Pyramid
I de-
built ...
scended.
I
seemed
129
seemed
who
Could
my
I
voice have
would have
him
The
call to
important to note
mind
is
not the
was
still
being written
it is
and the
Masonic mythology.
The notion
tury. 13 It
historian W. E. B.
Du
15
Bois
(1868-1963). 14
The
anonymous writer
The Col-
Mason was a
in reit
was
far
more ad-
When
Saxonsthe
were
[sic]
and dropping
stones at wild animals for food, and eating that food uncooked, there
was on Africa's
soil,
Rome
today.
On
130
first
Every
woman was
educated.
is
and more
liberal in its
Even though an
in 1903
"official"
history of black
it,
Masonry published
first
makes no
reference to
17
have become an
arti-
black Masonry:
So out of Egypt and through the black man, the world gains
its first
culti-
vation of science.
arts, sciences,
The Negroes
It
was
own organization,
tion (UNIA).
19
the West African countries from which most slaves had been
taken.
They continued
to serve
many
useful purposes
among
131
To a large extent,
had a
Masons';
it
also
had a
fa-
UNIA
potentate's
to
its
European
civilizations.
own
race
22
In "African Fun-
for the
Blackman
to forget
and
cast be-
hind him his hero worship and adoration of other races, and
to start out
own.
tyrs,
We must canonize our own saints, create our own marand elevate
to positions of fame
132
Is
a Ne-
Negro ruled the world, when white men were savages and
barbarians living in caves; that thousands of Negro professors at that time taught in the universities in Alexandria,
letters,
and taken
the credit to
men
to their pride to
admit to the world today that 3,000 years ago black men excelled in
art, science
and literature. 24
on. In
1935 he
essay,
In the
when
the
civi-
lization of
Egypt was
men have
role played
133
and
After Africa
Philippine:
Napoleon fell
for
a Negro woman;
poem Garvey
black:
concerned. ...
As
for instance,
you
will
read
the Libyans,
etc.,
to discover the
do not
134
down
for the
idea that
all
influential,
and
IS
In his speeches Garvey did not discuss in detail how the Euro-
peans
M. James
offers
an extended
ac-
new
details
appear to be James's
seen,
own
As we have
he had
myth
of cultural dependency
from the Masons. From them he got the idea that there had
earliest times,
which
for
granted that
cluding
all
the
Carthaginians
and Cyreneans.
He
follows
is
prepared to re-
we have
no
work has
virtually
is
interesting nonetheless, as
"histo-
come to be written.
135
main
der,
transfer of knowledge
in 333 B.C.
the
Romans
augments his claim that Greek philosophy was stolen by ingenious arguments.
He adds new details to the basic description of the Egyptian educational "system." He attempts to show by
of summaries that the basic tenets of
in Egyptian thought.
means
Greek
philoso-
He
was
hostile to philosophy,
it.
and
He
provides
what
Because his
I
deserves to be,
believe that
why virtually none of his assertions is supported by the available evidence. To learn about Africa we must look where the
Afrocentrists fail to look, that
is,
to the historical
and
pharaoh has analogues in East Africa. 30 The practice of elaborate rhythmic hand-clapping at festivals, which Herodotus
visit to
where in
Africa.
31
136
he
fundamentally Greco-Roman.
He
Neophyte
edge. 33
must learn
self-control
and
self-knowl-
role in Terras-
ceremonies. 35
He we
Master Mind. 3 ^ As in
the University/Mystery system invented by Terrasson, Egyptian temples are used as libraries and observatories. 37 Like
tem as the
elsewhere.
and
38
at
de-
sys-
was
Greece accomplished? If
137
to
way
was supposed
have
been carried
out,
we
no historical data
order to construct
can be summoned
his argument,
to support
In
fact, in
James overlooked
or ignored
much
existing
evidence.
it is
went
there. Aristotle
was Alexander's
when Alexander
his military
had gone
to Alexandria,
it is
hard
to see
how he
The
li-
Aristotle's.
Most of the
40
James makes no
life
is
because
and
all
suppress
of his
life
But
used to
went
and had
borrowed
James
also relies
on the
why all
138
"lofty cul-
had
as
James
asserts,
As
it is,
between two
the other
is
titles.
the Soul,
and
ian texts, The Book of the Dead. 44 These funerary texts, which the Egyptians themselves called the Book of Coming Forth by
its
dangerous
its
way
at a translation of The
treatise
soul's
It is
James
profdif-
he accounts
is
by claiming
139
soul, as described in
the Egypt-
On
any
why
es-
pecially if those ideas are widespread, like the notion that hu-
man
guments
Some
of
Aristotle's surviving
full
have needed
James
have
learned everything he
said to have
teacher,
He
does not
why Aristotle's work differed from his predecessors': he was a great original thinker, who naturally was able to go beyond
what he had learned from his teachers.
that Aristotle's
cal, poetical,
James insists
own
and
theoretical, are
What
curricu-
description,
based on
the forty-two books carried by Egyptian priests in the procession described by Clement of Alexandria in the second century
140
A.D., five
tained
but as
we have
seen,
by "phipriests'
losophy" Clement
meant simply
learning,
and the
James
was
by Egyptian
have been copied from an ancient papyrus. The archaic language of the text suggests that the original dates from sometime in the second millennium
Aristotle took from the
B.C.
50
According to James,
his doctrine that
Memphite Theology
eternal, along
matter, motion,
of opposites,
this in-
been able to read it. But even if Aristotle had had some way of
finding out about
it,
philosophical writings.
The Memphis
text, like
the Egyptian
Book of
the Dead, is a
work
treatises.
The Memphite
then known (that
section
being
in,"
that
is,
who was
identified
The Memphite
inscription relates
how
141
universe and
creatures in
it:
"for
god came about through what the heart devised and the
tongue commanded." From one of his manifestations, the
mordial waters of chaos, the sun-god
pri-
Atum was
born.
When
was
satisfied after
he had made
all
things and
divine words."
52
universe that
a metaphysical argument.
eternal substance,
and behind
that,
an immaterial and
eter-
what is
"unmoved
on).
This force
Memphite Theology.
two
have in common
is
verse.
argue that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the story of creation in the first book of Genesis.
The
final
number
is
Such
he suggests,
142
many
them were
200
B.C.
had
Or was
it
filled
106 book
and we know of
lists
of
under one
title,
the
lists
such as the Greek tragic poets, where the same work might
be
listed twice
titles.
Where
did
James
One
list
attributed to Ptolemy by
titles.
an Arabic
only ninety-two
air.
57
to have
James
the source of
Thales's idea about everything coming from water, Anaximander's idea of the boundless,
all
life
from
143
Hebrew
drew
their
Memphite Theology
inspired Heraclifire,
cosmos was
Anaxago-
Atoms.
60
one
is
differences
among
same Egyptian
was created
fire.
We
is
On
the
and likewise
Like
Herodotus,
Sum-
mum Bonum
Aristotle.
62
He
on Freemasonic literature
to claim that
we have
144
James also asserts that Democritus's theory of Atoms, in addition to being derived
in-
spired
sketch of Democritus's
life,
He
never ex-
to
have learned
about atomism from the Egyptian magic. But James apparently is prepared to use
to
seem
plausible.
He
and therefore he must have taken them from the Mystery System.
tion:
He even
"silence of history" as
145
and con-
demned
to death.
66
He
studied astrology and geology, and also learned about the doctrine of self-knowledge,
self
was written on
all
the temples. 67
But
works only
if
trial for
impiety
Greek in
origin? It
was
why doesn't he
point out
is
70
If no an-
left
Greece at
all
He
and
self-
and writers
like Iamblichus,
virtually
made
ology Plato took the doctrine of opposites, and the notion of the
146
demiurge responsible
good and of
virtue.
But James
is
He also seeks to show that Plato, like Aristoof the works traditionally assigned to
Italy.
Even
if
reliable source
it
would be unwise
such
dependency
literally.
means
Often
72
73
is
He
(i.e.,
up
to the time of
we
Greeks." Therefore,
of the chariot
James asserts,
Plato's
147
Is-
But why
have come
James seems
know about
not
them
in the
century
B.C.
mean they
James has
epic,
Homer's
battle.
Iliad,
By
the
was techno-
many
of the
Olympic and Pythian games. Plato would have had many opportunities both to read about chariots
and
to see
them
por-
trayed in
art,
action.
Such eagerness
none
James
alleges
was
hostile to philoso-
creative powers. 75
He
at-
and noncontemplative
for
He
them
credit
any
success.
He
it
teacher of Plato."
79
148
we have
seen,
he can
was such a
make
Perhaps
less
committed to his
As
it
stands, he
Instead, he lists the sources he has consulted only at the of individual sections, so that
it is
end
impossible to
know which
citation. 81
claim
is
of
and that
books like
Zeller's History
149
Readers who try to find the passages cited will often discover
that references to both ancient and
plete or simply wrong.
83
modern
But
historical accuracy
Some
and temnein
("cut"). It is
waa a
habit of the
to the
cites only
name
it
Io 9
which
James
little
would prove
after the
Io's
name
85
unknown,
proper
names.
James
name
of uncertain origin.
James appears
was
to
Church of Rome."
is
86
we know
"black"),
may
87
The name
it
And why does James were secret symbols, when has been known that they
89
letters?
150
many fundamental flaws in his argument and documentation, no one who has
Because of all these inaccuracies, and the
seriously studied the ancient world has found James's argu-
ments persuasive. Nonetheless, in 1987 Martin Bernal complained that the Cornell University Library did not contain a
it
known
Bernal
is certainly justified
demic value. The book has a place in research libraries because of the wide influence
it
it
seems
circles.
all
of his
them
off as his
they went
existence of a few
of inventing the
many
151
basically true.
to knowledge, it
has
Mother of Western
"their
major
[that
efis,
Egypt's]
B.C.,
when he "had
Egypt."
92
full
run of
all
educational institutions in
He removed the names of African authors from the books in the Library and put his name "on African works that predated his own birth by thousands of years."93
Ben-Jochannan seems more concerned about the alleged
sacking of the library than interested in the materials Aristotle
was supposed
to
was
it is
Greek
had
to write
final
show that
ideas,
Timaeus
Heliopolis.
is
transmitting Egyptian
152
ideas
was created
Heliopolis,
was
also
is
a proof of dependency.
of order
and laws. 95
Diop claims,
is
an inte-
re-
semblance
is
obscured.
96
is listed
in
mopolitan cosmogony the gods are paired as opposites, for example, the hidden and visible, night and day.
One
therefore sees
how
abusive
it is
to credit Heraclitus
was a commonplace
Egyptian priests and who were using almost word for word
the 'laws of opposites" of the Hermopolitan cosmogony, or
is
a considerable difference
deities,
different forms
and
identities,
153
because
it is
He
in-
was a sphere
and
knew how
to determine
knew
was
surface (sides
and bases)
the
No comparable
98
formulation exists in
Egyptian mathematics.
by
step
is to
downplay contradic-
tory evidence; then to deduce from the limited facts one has
own
make
the evidence
is
that
is
mare world
154
"By 2050
earlier
is,
probably
all
real
knowledge of Old-
speak [that
The whole
What Orwell
earlier,
so
became both
tory to
SIX
CONCLUSION
If
the
is
no
why
should
it
myth
way
own
155
156
histories.
new mythologies
could
harm African-
the
myth unhistorical,
it is
it is
As we have
seen,
is
fundamen-
tally
own
troubles.
Another
is its
concentration on
Egypt.
tions,
its
and
Why focus on one African nation which has won European admiration for
its
achievements?
all
present.
That
is
forms of
Europeans alike? Are they one single race, and all Africans
another? Anyone
izes that neither
ity or nation.
who has
so
much
as glanced at a
is
map
real-
Conclusion
157
is
that
As we have
no
historical sub-
stance to
many
no
There
is
no reason
to think that
Even
if
tually
went
during their
religious
the
false.
because the library was not built until after his death. There
never was such a thing as an Egyptian Mystery System. The
notion of mysteries, or rituals of initiation,
is
fundamentally
described by
their
priest
own
Jean Terrasson.
all
Because of
158
teaches what
untrue;
it
known
and to in-
It
does not
warn
Greeks had learned their philosophy from a large theoproduced by Egyptian writers, surely some
retical literature
and we
it.
We have
Romans used
creations.
it
own
adherents. Instead,
it
illusion,
both about the true course of history and also of the ways in
which people have always been able learn from cultures other
than their own.
As
observed in chapter
2, it
sume that history is culturally determined, and that each culture or ethnic group can write
particular, cultural relativism
its
own
history differently. In
and
Knowledge
achievement was to
Conclusion
centric frames of reference,
159
objectivity of
knowledge referred to by European scholars could not be separated from the consciousness of the social-cultural world and
that Europeans brought that consciousness with
them when-
That declaration
is
centrists.
trust a
word
have said in
not
who speak, but my skin that speaks for me? To return for
I
raised in
that Socrates
is black,
but
lieve
me, because
am
classicist,
and
by
self-interest, self-
cause he said
for the
it,
moment
happened
selves,
ity,
them-
it first
may
seem, because
it
requires
its
adherents to confine
have
little
reality.
160
We come now
him
As
his
mode
comes
by in-
seems
be African
is
in reality actually
European in
is
origin, as
we saw
What is
and I
what
When Professor Asante and I debated the issue of Egyptian influence on Greece on a radio program in May 1993, we agreed about many issues. As I recall, we discussed the evidence and agreed
that the Egyptians were an African people, and that the Greeks
did not steal their philosophy from Egypt. It
is
possible to say
that some things are true, and others are not, and some things
are
more
likely to
would
like to join
David Hollinger in
a wider
Conclusion
161
IS
may disagree
not true that
it is
Likewise,
it is
true
that the Greeks were influenced in various ways over a long period of time
culture at
we
talk about
we
lating a story, or
In historical and
may
opposite direction.
We
all
bias
amounts
am aware that I am likely to be biased for any number of reasons, and try to compensate for my
alent to indoctrination. If I
bias, the result should
ter
Drawing a
clear distinction
evi-
162
ought to be irrelevant.
is
What matters
is
whether
for-
enfor
does
not
become
vehicle
and liter-
a university
to consider
to assess the
Are
mean
what
something like "point of view." But even then not every point of
view,
across, or with
I
intensity
may
sincerely be-
with Moses
(like
about
that
all
mean
lived (if
indeed he lived at
in
common
true,
would need to be supported by warranted evidence. And it cannot be. The notion of diversity does not extend to truth.
Conclusion
If it is not possible for the
163
same thing to be
at once false
and
true, there is
versity.
Should we
money
to staff)
this course
it
of such a course,
some limited
ously.
or at least
Now suppose that our primary goal were to "empower" Jewish students. If the course
it
really
matter
if its
sities today, it
be no,
it
taught
is true,
or
is
it
would be wrong
promote particular
social goals
Laws
curriculum. But
I believe
that
we would be
better advised to
164
knowledge, then
"knowledge" on
the quality of
offer. If
be irreversible
notions of try-
we abandoned
we
should try to
keep students from knowing about erroneous theories or hypothetical possibilities, or from reading
works
like Hitler's
my own
and
was
of African descent,
in all
on Greece. But
tions
why
made by
the
make up
their
to conceal
a considerable
to instill
resentment
and
curriculum.
Plato,"
even
someone wants
willing
to teach
Even as
Conclusion
165
sonable to ask faculty members at least to explain why particular courses needed to be offered. But
questions seems to
ciples
many people a violation of the basic prinof university life. When I suggested that Afrocentrists
discuss the evidence for their claims about the past, one critic
complained that
erance."
3
my viewpoint was
"McCarthyite in
I
its intol-
Why
said nothing
Rather,
was trying
of speech gives
me
the right
that
it is
clear that
what
am
expressing
it is
my
opinion,
and and
that
factually accurate
this country,
better
Whether freedom
though
tion is competence within a field. Faculty are appointed as instructors in particular subjects, not as generalists. For example,
I
was hired
to teach
should
have no creden-
is
that
know
only a few
166
acquire such credentials no one, not even the most avid par-
want me
to do so, because I do
it is
many
people to
means
to be fluent in or knowledgeable
its literature,
and
culture.
For the
same reason,
it is
who
is
compe-
We
who
even
is flat,
because there
a considerable
false,
much more
is
difficult to identify
where there
is
many valid
ways
a literary
of literaits
basic
content (Hamlet
is
But in certain
and
identity have
woman
may make me
women in Greece and Rome. But being female did not help us
Conclusion
interpret ancient documents
167
for that
we needed to have
and
civilization. Similarly,
may be
civilization of ancient
Egypt than
someone from another ethnic background. But African ancestry alone will not help
him understand
ancient Egyptian
reliit
gion or enable
him
to read hieroglyphics.
As we have
seen,
was
reality.
certification is
we are hired to teach people who want to learn about our subjects. We will not be serving our students well if we insist
is
would be better
them
if
we
did do so. If
some
we
was
object if
flat,
a geographer repeat-
to disagree
IF
ANYTHING?
earth
Akin to this
by
flat-earth theory,
will
why make a
problem
is
the least
difficult option, it is
168
ber that
Some
students,
if
even if only a few, will be learning nonsense. What happens a student who thinks that the earth
neer?
It is
is flat
becomes an engiall
our
Of
and
falsely maligned,
but to their
descendants.
Why
Greeks can
deci-
sively be
shown to be wrong?
we can
and
and
attention to
what
is
is
why
flat-
earth theory
wrong involves
amount
portunity to
questions.
As
Plato points out in the Republic, the search for the truth inevitably causes pain to those
it.
Conclusion
169
know
that
the earth
is
not
flat,
Even though
and contents
of
faculty.
There
is
another reason
why we
dents
who
know about
who
the quality
ing that course. But these students are being graded by the
instructor
question.
to
comment
no
instructor,
and
it is
un-
is
reasonably accufairly.
Why do
we even need
facilities if
We
tence
to our faculties,
and
170
let
them do it,
or that
colleagues will
for noninter-
them
to do
it is
questionable whether
much benefit
Who
When
as an undergraduate
I
dard instruction,
was
told,
as students are
being
told,
effect,
has
to do
it.
turned
it into,
its original
was designed
that
academic freedom.
meant that
and But
of.
Conclusion
171
straints
to that discipline. I do
it
has come to
be an active
mean
member
Nor do
teaching what
tence, even
when such
acceptable to stu-
stu-
is
a brilliant scholar on
but
it
should not allow him to teach beginners. Similarly, instructors should not use their classrooms systematically to arouse
who
subscribe to these
same prejudices or
What
(if
have sugif
we
begin by debating
the
take time, because people are never eager to relinquish cherished views and established practices, especially
egos are involved. Specifically,
I
when
their
even
if
it is
172
shown to be
purposes of
in-
doctrination?
The
New
York by Professor
Leonard
antiquity that
sity did not
of
Jeffries.
But in
his
made a
City
and academic
freedom.
He
why
own
students by
them
and ab-
room. In
he said that
it
was the
University's business,
right,
because
if
the courts,
The problem
Appeals Court
is illustrated
for the
Conclusion
173
and remanding
its prior
decision decision
v.
Churchill, a
Supreme Court
fire
an em-
making a
ond Circuit court found that the City University was justified
in disciplining Jeffries, because
what he said
in 1991 in a
speech might
have had.
The
member, because he
still
had
or
him
specify
anti-Semitism, or because
willing repeat-
known to be false.
From the
incompetence
the
more
but what
is
a reluc-
and a refusal
to present to
174
if scientific
state, as if it
were a
ment
context of academe
made on the
basis of all
stole
known
evidence.
that
it is
untrue.
decision suggest
many
made by
uni-
versity administrations
and
faculties are
the courts. Because courts can only wield the "clubs of free
,,
be the prime aim of the university, dissemination of knowledge. So far as the courts are concerned, "truth
and nonsense,
edge?),
is
we enforce social justice, or do we disseminate knowlwe have reached the point where academic discourse
ment
we
accept the
many truths,
or different
Conclusion
ethnic truths,
nity.
175
This
is
we cannot hope to have an intellectual commuwhy we cannot each remain in our own separate
who share
similar
and concerns.
we need
even
if
someone
is
why a course needs to be offered, and to request an explanation of why instructors choose to igto
ask
nore and/or suppress evidence. At the very least they could insist
may
think
it is
a matter of
from
it
Egypt. They
may
many
others like
it,
everyone, because
if you
to ignore or to conceal
a substantial body of
ing that, you can have no scientific or even social-scientific discourse, nor can
university.
EPILOGUE
it
was widely
re-
Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, and The Times of London. Basic Books sponsored an internet debate between Martin Bernal and myself,
one of the
first
much, or indeed
book raises
is-
accurately as possible
rather to
instill
young people
to
177
178
whom it is
Do we study
remind
may
be defined, use
sented?
I tried to
I ar-
try to underit
to
plishments as accurately as
we
all
that
we want
some things
shown
have happened, on
to
also
know that on
occato
am
no exception to the
working of this
rule.
This book
have sug-
needed by scholars
about.
I also
want
Epilogue
179
ITS
CRITICS
finished writing
facts in a rational
my
would be able
sion
to be de-
bated. 2
How
Greek
I shall
It is
ics
thesis of this book: that the Greeks did not steal or even bor-
row
on
has
its
foundation in Masonic
in historical
fact. It is
because
it is
180
is
It
modern
times.
The
book's title
my
article.
less,
and
"the issue
real purpose of
my
The purpose
am not mistaken, is to
But
distract readers
and so
my readers
should
book, as they
it,
Blyden.
These
is to
my
purpose
Epilogue
ently they cannot see that
if I
181
made by
James
M.
or Y. A. A. ben-Jochannan,
because
believe that
their claims
made by a person
to
European descent,
have
criticized the
this
book
and
still
more extensively
my
has
my aim
But in the present climate of debate, even the most aband impersonal disagreements quickly tend
to be
stract
make a
stronger or
an apparently
many
of
my
critics
must be doing
cul-
When I
have no particular
am
simply
not aware of it. Here the reviewers seem to be using the type
of
pists,
what
if I state explicitly
to
182
classics,
critics into
the force
One leading
Afrocentrist,
New York
WBAI, accused me
The
"debate" itself was conducted more in the style of an inquisition than a discussion, with
an
Out
of Africa
deliberate, eurocentric,
and
to show,
have an
(p. xii), I
observed that
re-
markably,
calls
am
am part of a
The
fol-
lows:
(2) I
Epilogue
tion of Scholars (which so far as I
183
am
tives"
allies
(3) I re-
How fair are these criticisms? In the case of the first, I am being held accountable for what is said about my book by reviewers and commentators over whom I have no control and no influence. In the second and third, I am found guilty by association,
it is
readily
assumed that
agree with or
am influenced by people
that
shared
all
whom I am supposed to be so closely associated, or that these people told me what to think and what to write, my critics
have
failed to
structed" versions of
my
work)
how
my
historical
not on
who
I
am supposed to be
I invite
who
am but on the
evidence
it
could be
shown (and
my critics
or even
am
an academic
tradi-
evidence
of
why
not about
me
such
it
discussion
and
184
Some
to
show that
am intemperunreli-
ate, emotional,
and lacking in
control
and therefore
able.
what I meant it to
specific in-
boils."
from
article.
14
The astonishing statement about the boiling rage 15 was immediately seized
of
my
When
George
some
critics
unslayable
alarmist
critic
complained of
my
ern identity
where in
do that?
Is it
where
said that
myth that
en-
dangerous
(p.
52)?
idee),
Reinforcing the
ate
is
an intemperwritis
was obviously
it
have said
Epilogue
I
185
case or that
my
homework.
19
my My
almost
entirely in a
number
None
of these
is
cause
it
much of the
tailed research
on which
it
Athena
Revisited.
But even
if
why would
it
matter,
when
my
critics
made by George
James
in Stolen Legacy
and by
Dr.
it is
who taught
at a
was a victim
of malicious
justify the
22
numerous
his argument.
who helped
to res-
his
own
some
critics
to write
One
critic,
own
186
inno-
what institutions
own
classroom,
about the schools and universities where Afrocentric curricula have been adopted. But even
if falsified
it
would be a cause
a professor's use of
come under
claimed
in the current controversy about a professor's alleged placing of Holocaust denial propaganda on the Northwestern University website.
26
If
fair
from specu-
and backgrounds.
1 will
are saying?
What about
all
their hid-
to revise radically
Epilogue
with courses of study and even with
vising?
"facts" of their
187
de-
own
They want us
differently
and learn
lization
therefore superior to
Greek
At
the
same
under the circumstances they could not have done any better.
Can't they see that most of these ideas would sound distinctly
racist if they
scent?
feel justified in
ignoring or downplaying
the importance of the historical evidence because they sincerely believe that facts really do not matter so
tives
much
as mo-
(as defined
by
themselves) will write the best or most "useful" kind of history (see also pp. 49-51, this volume).
to
jective
and
all
The
qual-
criteria
such as an author's
we
be to everyone's
ulti-
Not everything
is possible
or even probable,
and as
far as
we know, some
188
on some as yet unknown Egyptian models. This book demonstrates that these statements are supported
by historical
evi-
it is
is
it
should be judged
on that basis.
made
if
we can
neutral terminology.
fluence
Why not
and
it
discussion
is
borrow
it
until I return
to
if I
borrow your
I
ideas,
you
go
It is also
is
important to remem-
We
also
need
what
use
it
as the ancients
who has
But in
cialized,
this
book
modern
sense, to
Epilogue
Babylonians were learned and had what
189
call
we would now
advanced
civilizations;
chosen to do
so.
was invented,
so far as anyone
is to
been the kind of extensive Egyptian cultural influence on ancient Greece that the Afrocentrists claim,
we would
expect to
we have
Roman poets who from early times adapted and quoted Greek sources. But that is precisely what we do not findin Egypt
or
anywhere
Mediterranean
in the area
is
of what is thought of as
nothing in
writratio-
and
As
3,
even
if
we assume
that
writers in
Roman
times
talking about
stud-
190
what
is
it is
Egypt.
What are the chances that there was an Egyptian phiwhat has always been known as Greek,
trace, especially given the
all
losophy, similar to
that has
things
Egyptian? Surely
literature,
if
about
it
acknowledge
it.
Greeks tended
were eager
could.
we
still
In the Phae-
drus and the Philebus, Socrates told a story about the god
Theuth's invention of letters; in the Timaeus and in the in-
tell
the story of
own
way
Plato used
Egyptian
lore, it is
Epilogue
Egypt, especially
mentation.
191
if
we
We
many
reasons
main reason
classical scholars
have not
re-
examined
all
Roman civi-
and tend
to devote propor-
that
it
has encouraged
to
look again, and in depth, at possible sources of foreign influence. It is time to look again at the possible influence of
century
B.C.)
of the
adventure novel.
In considering the extent and nature of Egyptian influence,
a fuller assessment needs to be made of the extent of the connections of ancient Egypt with Nubia and other African civilizations (see p. 135, this volume). Discussion should continue
mathematics, and science, although not without acknowledging the Greek contribution to those disciplines.
We can assess
we
From
these
we
knew about
192
and some of
their drugs. 31
But
in dis-
been shown to work or claim for the ancient Egyptians discoveries that
history,
pable of transporting
ancient Egyptians,
well.
One example
is
womb wandered
human ex-
within her abdominal cavity. The "medicines" used by Egyptian doctors to restore
it
crement. 33
It is
came
into contact.
As students
remind
us, the
many
34
Although
certainly true
made
their
own
contribution
and
have
dere-
veloped
lied
new
seems
is.
The
requirement, however,
scholars
who have
Epilogue
cally
193
litera-
tures,
and
civilizations.
Too
much
been
Some
critics
have
tells
what happened in
classical schol-
the past.
What
evidence
is
there that
modern
is
it is
we
can,
past.
We owe
to preserve the
memory
of
manner as
possible. That,
and
not self-promotion,
is
NOTES
PREFACE
1.
(New Brunswick,
N.J.:
Rutgers
University Press,
[hereafter
vol. 1 [hereafter
BA
1],
1987; vol. 2
BA 2], 1991). For a review of the literature generated by BA 1, see Molly M. Levine, "The Use and
Abuse of Black Athena," American Historical Review
no. 2 (1992): 440-60.
97,
The
project as
a whole
is
assessed
eds.,
in
Mary
R. Lefkowitz
University of
[hereafter,
BAR],
Mary R.
lic
Lefkowitz, "Not
Out
of Africa,"
195
196
3.
Notes
to pp.xii-xvii
and
(New
The Majority
Ibid., p. 39.
Mary
CHAPTER
1.
1:
INTRODUCTION
Its
War on An-
Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Jr.,
1992), p. 99.
ed., Alternatives to
Afrocen-
for the
New
American
Community,
5.
1994).
Carl
J.
and
Notes
to pp.
6-13
197
and Modern:
Classical Republicanism
Hill:
and
the
University of North
Modern Historiography
nia Press, 1990),
p. 30;
For one such instance, see Mary R. Lefkowitz, "Afrocentrism Poses a Threat to the Rationalist Tradition,"
Chronicle of Higher Education
(May 6,
1992): A52.
CHAPTER
1.
2:
On
Daphni, 1988).
2.
Cf. especially
Jr.,
198
4.
5.
Notes
to pp.
13-20
Herodotus
2.55.1.
al.,
"Clines
and Clusters
(Summer
ed.
1992):
also
in
Mary
Hill:
R.
Lefkowitz and
Uni-
BAR],
3 (1990): 87,
who assumes
briefly, I
7.
that because
Bernal,
BA
1, p. 3;
cited approvingly in
Martha Mala-
Why Blacks
Dream
Civilization or
Barbarism:
An Au-
Meema Ngemi
Diodorus Siculus
1.44.1.
12. Apollodorus,
3.14.1.
13. Apollodorus,
3.14.8.
14. In Aeschylus's
in
most
later
sources,
(299),
Hera
responsible for
Io's
transformation
Zeus (679-82).
15.
Notes
trilogy, see R. P.
to pp.
21-25
199
Diodorus Siculus
1.44.1.
17.
On
Ruled Ashkelon,"
2 (March/April
no.
BAB,
p. 276.
Israel in Ancient
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1992),
20.
Herodotus
2.41.2.
1, p. 84.
BA
The weakness
of this etymology
e.g.,
several reviewers,
in
"When
is
BAR,
J.
p. 34.
Heinz
Thissen,
in
Sprache
der
und Epigraphik 97
250.
23. Diop, Civilization or
Barbarism,
p. 379.
en Grece,
Bernal,
Dupont, 1826),
p. 2. Cf.
BA
186.
he
200
Notes
to pp.
26-31
BA 2, p.
108.
p. 192.
At a
Abraham
the
Thomas
and
Mary
Eugene M.
(Summer
Tritle,
1994): 7.
35.
On this
Lawrence
Monthly
17, no.
94; also in
36.
BAR,
p. 325.
Jr.,
Frank M. Snowden,
Ben Edwin
Illinois
Press,
(I
Vita W.l
213).
(I 81),
Vita Lolliana
Min. la, lb
37.
On
From Byzantium
to
Italy (London:
Notes
39.
to pp.
31-33
201
see Augusto
Chiantore, 1944),
p.
p. 40;
270.
1.
Syrian
woman
(see n. 52).
and
eyes."
p. 163.
Jr.,
Frank M. Snowden,
Before Color
Major
1991 [1970]),
44.
Ben-Jochannan
cites
p. 59;
Groves in turn
Church
Clarendon
p.
apparently
it
exists also in
drea,
Massimo
Editoriale Pro-
gramma,
1985), p. 67.
On
202
Notes
to pp.
33-34
collec-
Mastandrea, Massimo,
p. 27.
47.
Mastandrea, Massimo,
p. 27; for
p. 313.
Of
his
is
mentioned on surviving
Weidmann,
1961).
48. Peter
Sanctarum Perpetuae
et Felicitatis 2.1.
2.1, in
The Acts
Introduction,
On Augustine's background
name,
see
James O'Donnell,
ed.,
ford:
52.
230.
Notes
53.
to pp.
35-41
203
p.
style, see
On
Histories,
Dreams and
1990), p. 17.
57.
Whitehorne, Cleopatras,
Men
of Color
(New
York:
61.
Was Rogers
black
chariot,
62.
"Bernal's 'Blacks'
and the
p. 120.
Men of Color,
p. 130.
Van Sertima,
Brunswick,
123-34.
ed.,
Black
Women
in
Antiquity
(New
pp.
N.J.:
Transaction
Publishers,
1984),
204
Notes
to pp.
41-44
p. 39.
The letter is
cited in Martin,
Jewish Onslaught,
p. 59.
1993), p. 27.
(1990):
287-88.
76. Asclepiades, in A. S. F.
lenistic
Gow and
compare
and
"darkening"
(melaneusa)
Philaenion
was probably
than
an African,
parsley";
78.
cf.
p. 21.
somewhere between
light
and
dark and
is
und
Notes
to pp.
44-66
205
Frank M. Snowden,
Jr.,
Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, Professing Feminism (New York: Basic Books,
1994), p. 50.
84. Ibid., p.
85.
39
n. 7.
The two
(n. 50,
tic
references
are
Women
in Hellenisp. 53.
86.
and the
87.
Science,"
Academic Ques-
88. Bernal,
89.
BA
1, p. 73.
p. 86.
1-2 (1993-94),
p. 40.
BA
1,
pp. 240-46.
3.
On the
206
Notes
to pp.
56-64
Dissent," Arethusa,
See Charles C.
Gillespie,
"The
Scientific
Importance of
For
Jean-Marcel
Ibid., pp.
404-41.
8.
See
don:
J. P. Mallory,
9.
and His
"Sources" trans.
Ltd., 1989); O.
J.
G.
Howie
the
Egypt
(Amsterdam:
10.
11.
Gieben, 1985).
St.
Martin's Press,
12. Bernal,
13.
BA 1, p.
100.
tions.
14. 15.
Herodotus
2.50.1.
1.10.3.
16.
David Grene,
trans., Herodotus:
153.
Compare
Notes
to pp.
64-65
207
eds.,
names
of
the gods.
George Rawlinson,
Wars
gods
"
la litera-
ture grecque
and
"be
angry"
(odyssomai);
Pfeiffer,
History of Classical
to the
End
of the Hel-
For other
examples,
Eduard
Fraenkel,
Aeschylus:
Agamemnon,
704.
and
Classical,
trans.
John
Harvard Univer-
to
BAR,
p. ix.
BA
23. JasanofF-Nussbaum,
"Word
Games,"
in
BAR,
pp.
208
Notes
to pp.
65-70
und Epigraphik 97
(1993): 239-52.
1 (Leiden: E. J.
II, vol.
25. 26.
See
Martin
Kaiser,
"Herodots
Begegnung
mit
(Zurich: Artemis-Verlag,
Herodotus 2.123.
31.
John A. Wilson, The Burden of Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 305.
32.
Museum
Press,
and
(Cambridge, Mass.:
p.
Harvard
University
Press,
1972),
126.
Lloyd,
Herodotus Book
34.
II, vol. 1,
Herodotus 2.171.
Herodotus Book
II, vol. 3, p.
35. Lloyd,
209.
II,
vol.
3,
Notes
to pp.
70-76
209
38.
Herodotus 2.156.6.
333 TGrF.
40. Ulrich
135-36.
41. Kaiser, in
pp. 254-55.
42. Strabo 17.1.12. 43. Lloyd,
Herodotus Book
II, p.
281.
to the Liter-
ary and Artistic Sources (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 107.
48. Diodorus 1.96.4.-97.2.
49. Diodorus 1.97.7.
50.
Diodorus
1.98.2.
ofLycurgus
4.5.1.
Herodotus
1.30.1.
53. Plato
Timaeus 20e-22c.
De Iside
et Osiride
1970), p. 285.
55. Iamblichus Life of Pythagoras 19.
Gillian
Clark,
ed.
and
trans.,
On
the
Pythagorean
Life,
John Dillon
eds.
and
trans., Iamblichus:
On
210
Notes
to pp.
77-80
the Pythagorean
Way of Life,
vol. 1, p. 50.
p. 126;
57. Froidefond,
he Mirage Egyptien,
cf.
Democritus 68 A
99, II
58.
107-8 Diels-Kranz;
B5,
II 137.
Democritus 68
7, II
59.
Democritus 68 A 1,
II 81;
94 Diels-Kranz.
1
= Oenipodes 41 A 7,
394 Diels-Kranz.
461 Diels-Kranz;
36, I
31
(1993):
= Oenopides 41 A 11,
394 Diels-Kranz.
Eudoxus
Eudoxos von
Kommentare
(Berlin:
W. de Gruyter,
Eudoxus, Eudoxus,
frag.
287 Lasserre.
291 Lasserre.
frag. 301,
66.
251-BAR,
71. J.
Gwyn
Griffiths,
15 (1965): 77-78.
Notes
72. Bernal,
to pp.
80-83
211
ence/' p. 603.
73.
Raymond
Book of
the
Dead
Andrews
(Austin:
Diodorus
1.96.3.
the Life
n. 13.
and
Phaedo
80c.
Phaedrus 274e.
Timaeus 21e-22b.
Laws 2.656d-657b.
Book
II, vol. 1, p. 56.
81. Rosalind
in
Classical Athens
Herodotus 2.143.
83.
Mary
85. Bernal,
BA
1,
pp. 106-7.
86.
writer Satyrus:
when
he responded by writing
drama Oedipus
87. 88.
Diogenes Laertius
frag,
228 in
212
Notes
to pp.
83-85
ed.,
Augustus Nauck,
menta
(Leipzig:
B.
G. Teubner,
and Annette
(Leiden:
and Archelaos
Among
Mary R.
Lefkowitz, "Aristophanes
and Other
Histori-
28 in the
ed.,
Hercher,
91. Tertullian,
200
n. 26.
Brian
P.
bridge:
Cambridge
University
pp.
xxvii-xxix.
92. Plato
Timaeus 47a.
Diogenes Laertius
37 (= Thales 11
A 1, 1 68-69, 71
98.
On Isis and Osiris 354e. Homer Iliad 14. 201; Plutarch On Isis and Osiris 364d (= Thales 11 A 14, I 78 Diels-Kranz). Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride, p. 428, thinks Thales may
Diels-Kranz); Plutarch
have gone
to Egypt, but
cf.
p. 91.
Notes
99. Wilson,
to
pp. 85-87
213
p. 317.
und Untersuchungen
p. 44;
Akademie-Verlag, 1964),
Mary
R. Lefto
"Ethnocentric
History
from Aristobulus
Artapanus 726
Fragments
a
the
fragments,
see
James
H.
Charlesworth,
(Garden
898-903.
102.
City,
N.Y.:
pp.
Musaeus 2
A 6-7,
P.
Frogs 1032-33;
ford:
M.
984
n. 182,
vol. 2,
103. Charlesworth,
pp. 823-24.
104. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, vol. 2a, p. 695; vol. 2b, pp.
dubium 1025.1-2
dubium 1131.1
in Nauck; Charlesworth,
vol. 2, p. 829.
966
n. 111.
108. Walter,
frag. 3; Fraser,
Ptolemaic
2b,
p.
966,
n.
Ill;
2,
Schxirer,
A History
of the Jewish
214
Notes
to pp.
87-88
T.
A. Burkill, et
al.
(Edinburgh,
3, pp.
1975),
pp.
di
frammenti
frag. 12;
Walter,
frag. 3
and p.
44;
65
n. 18.
Christian Thought
and
13-14.
ed.
p. 35; Riginos,
Pla-
65
n. 17.
113.
Howard
15; G. E. R.
and Science
to the
Notes
to pp.
88-94
215
Cambridge Uni-
6.3.
iiber Isis
und
Osiris
(Darm-
117.
Origins,"
Science," p.
119.
230-BAR,
p. 211.
2.
Ann E. Keep
Ma-
ECA Associates,
4.
5.
Plutarch
Ibid.,
354b-c.
216
6.
Notes
to pp.
95-97
many
forms; here he
is
Lexicon Icono1,
Hermes
Hermetic treatises
discussed below, he
Nicholas
Hymn
to
Demeter
On
the
Alexandrian
rite,
Zeph Stewart
On Aion at
9.
12. J.
Gwyn
Griffiths, ed.,
Isis-
302, 305.
14. Siegfried
zum
Lebenszusammenanhang
Agypten-Antike-Abendland,
Notes
15-18;
to pp.
97-100
217 Ass
the Golden
Homer Odyssey
11.
p. 92.
20.
18.
For translations,
and
trans., Iamblichus:
On
the
Pythagorean
Life,
John Dillon
the Pythagorean
Way of Life,
285.
Fragments
J. Brill, 1923).
On
M.
810 and
n. 46;
Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 54-56.
24.
Osiris;
see
Gwyn
Griffiths,
Fow-
27. Cf.
218
Notes
to pp.
100-103
p. 501.
P.
on Religion,
Copenhaver,
On
the
Mysteries
p. xvi.
of Egypt
8.1.260-61;
Copenhaver, Hermetica,
31.
On
posture," in Pseudepigrapha
pp. 8-35.
More
specific
19-20;
John Morgan,
"Make-Believe and
Wiseman
(Austin: Univer-
32. Iamblichus
On
the
Mysteries
of Egypt
8.5.267-68;
Hermetica
p. 58.
Copenhaver, Hermetica,
Graecolatina (Copenhagen:
1984), pp. 23-25, 53-54.
Notes
37.
to pp.
103-107
219
(Cambridge:
Porphyry Epistle
to Anebo 2.13.
1.2.7;'-
39. Iamblichus,
1.1.2.
among
the Greeks
Classical Lec-
Harvard University
44. T. G.
Land and
Ann E. Keep
Mysteries, pp. 182-83, but these pages are about the significance of Masonic symbols.
46. Vail, Ancient Mysteries, p. 185.
47.
p. 35.
the
1989),
pp.
220
Notes
to pp.
107-110
54.
55.
Ancient Egyptian
Writing,
trans.
On Isis and Osiris 354f. Plutarch On Isis and Osiris 363f; Gwyn
De Iside et Osiride,
pp. 422-23.
Griffiths,
Plutarch's
59. Apuleius 60. Iversen,
11.22.
Its
Hieroglyphs, p. 49;
Chaeremon 618
Greek Historians.
61. Horapollo
On
Hieroglyphs
1.6;
translation in George
(New
Iversen,
Its
Hieroglyphs,
pp. 48-49.
62. Stevenson, 63.
p. 86.
(New
New York:
M. Ward, Freemasonry
Notes
to pp.
110-114
221
and
the Ancient
Great Pyramid,"
(Summer
1992): 137.
Franc-Maqonnerie
France, 1981),
66.
p.
Presses
Universitaires
de
14
Ancient Egyptians, 2
J.
vols., trans.
all
Thomas
Le-
diard (London:
Walthoe, 1732);
references below
Edward
J.
On
ch.3.
69. Terrasson, Sethos, vol. 1, pp. i-v.
70. Ibid., vol. 1, p.
xiii.
71. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 64-85. 72. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 86-97. 73. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 84-85. 74. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 152-96.
75.
On
p. 61;
see above.
Virgil Georgics
4.453-527
10.4r-77,
222
Notes
to pp.
114-117
Empedocles
lation in
frag.
31
115, 1
Hymn
to
Demeter, pp.
hymn itself.
pp. 250-81.
85. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 90-97. 86. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 427-60.
87.
Paul Nettl, Mozart and Masonry (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957), p. 69.
that
Inca Sun-priests
90. Iversen, 91.
See
ibid., p. 3,
On Masonry
in Vi-
Notes
to pp.
117-119
223
New
enl., ed.
Hermann
p. 122.
96. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 470. 97. Cf. Dent, Mozart's Operas, p. 254.
98.
Mozart
and
Masonry,
pp.
64,
72.
On
Albrecht Koch,
ed.,
101. Jacques
Chailley,
The Magic
Flute,
Masonic Opera,
(New
1971), p. 240.
102. Dent, Mozart's Operas, pp. 224-27.
103.
104. Scene 28, text translated from the original libretto re-
produced in Eckelmeyer,
Mozart's Magic Flute,
Mozart's Operas,
p.
The
Cultural
Context
of
vol.
228.
224
Notes
to pp.
119-122
105. Chailley,
pp. 158-65.
109.
110.
ou Uantiquite de la franche-maqonet
nerie prouvee
modernes
111.
112. Terrasson,
pp.
175-76;
Lenoir,
La
(via
Franche-maqonnerie,
113.
p. 72.
The idea
of Egyptian mysteries
also
survives
But these
tian rituals for the dead with Greek mystery cults for
14).
Hugh Nib-
ou Uantiquite de la franche-maqonet
nerie prouvee
Notes
to pp.
124-128
225
modernes
,
(Paris: B. Fournier,
1814), p. 244.
On
the
artist
see
Christiane
Jean-Marcel Humbert,
and
Jean Terrasson, Life ofSethos, Taken from Private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians, trans.
Thomas Lediard
160-61.
(London:
2.
3.
J.
Walthoe, 1732),
vol. 1, pp.
6.3.
George G. M. James, Stolen Legacy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954), pp.
1,
164, 158.
4.
February
5,
1995, sec.
M,
5.
Cf.
John Miller
Mary R.
Myth
From
Social
Texts
"Assimilation," a
commencement address
at Case
ed.,
Negro
7.
Ibid., pp.
8.
885.
9.
Christianity,
226
Notes
to pp.
128-131
Character,
etc.,
ed.
Henry Maunsell
(New
York: A. D.
11.
F.
3, 7-9.
As quoted by St.
12.
to Palestine,
Pan-Negro Patriot 1832-1912 (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 55. 13.
14.
vol. 1, pp.
131-32.
Wilson
J.
New
York:
20 (Colum-
88
n. 37.
16. Anon.,
can Magazine
no.
William H. Grimshaw,
Official History
of Freemasonry
Among
reprint,
18.
a White
Freemasonry in America
Robert A.
Hill, ed.,
Notes
to pp.
131-136
227
is
any
direct continuity
p.
88
n. 37.
vol. 1, p: brii.
and
gro
Improvement
Association
(Westport,
Conn.:
Greenwood
The Majority
As quoted in ibid.,
p. 83.
As quoted by Howard
ical
Brotz, ed.,
25. Garvey,
Injustice," in
Robert A.
Life
Hill
and Barbara
Marcus Garvey:
and
UNIA
meeting of
March
sal
p. 255.
Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 33-34.
31.
Herodotus 2.60.1; Alan B. Lloyd, Herodotus Book II (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975-88), vol. 2, p. 274.
32.
228
Notes
to pp.
134-139
ch. 4.
36. Ibid., p. 101; see ch. 4. 37. Ibid., pp. 47, 119.
38. Ibid., p. 13.
40. P.
M.
pp.
1,
6-7, 320-35.
p. 2.
and
to
have
Everard
Flintoff,
Tyrrho and
India," Phronesis
parallels.
same
ideas; see
An-
Fernanda Decleva
Caizzi, Pirrone:
136-42.
43.
p. 154.
45. See
Raymond
Book
p. 125.
Notes
49.
to pp.
139-145
229
Clement Miscellanies
6.4.
See
ch. 4.
50. Siegfried
52. Translation in
Miriam Lichtheim,
ed.
and
trans.,
An-
54-55;
and
27-30.
53. Aristotle Metaphysics 11.1072b7;
W. D. Ross, Aristotle
Ingemar During,
1966), p. 33.
menta
58.
59. Ibid., p. 67. 60. Ibid., pp. 68, 74-75. 61. Ibid., pp. 71-72. 62. Ibid., p. 73. 63. Ibid., p. 81. 64. Ibid., p. 79; Diogenes Laertius 9.35. 65.
p. 89, cf. p. 2.
66. Ibid., p. 94. 67. Ibid., pp. 88-89. 68. Plato ApoZogy of Socrates 19c.
69.
230
Notes
to pp.
145-149
it
was sim-
By
B.C.,
Plato
was
ac-
many
186.
73.
Mary
Exodus
14.7;
75.
for
was published
82. E. Zeller,
Alleyne from
German
edition (London:
Longmans, Green,
and
Co., 1881);
(Boston:
ford,
Athenaeum
in Ancient Times,
Series in History
Co., 1938).
Notes
83.
to pp.
149-153
to
231
ancient
For examples
of incomplete
references
sources, see James, Stolen Legacy, pp. 11, 109, 112; for
the
moon
(in the
p.646Adler).
86. 87.
p. 149.
Jr.,
On
Blacks
Harvard University
Chantraine,
Dictionnaire
etymologique
de
la
vol. 2,
90. Bernal,
BA
1, p.
435.
Civilization or Barbarism:
An Au-
Meema Ngemi
by Robert
and the
232
99.
Notes
to pp.
153-173
is
An
extreme example
reported by
Wade
Nobles, a director
program
compared ancient
Greek culture
to
"the Greeks gave back the vomit of the African way." Ac-
become "vomit-drinkers."
100. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
(New
York: Har-
CHAPTER
1.
6:
CONCLUSION
and Knowlp. 117.
Mary
1994):
1994): B4.
Harleston, 828
F.
1993).
6.
Jeffries
v.
Harleston, 52
F.
3rd 9 (2nd
Cir. 1995).
The
the
to
hear
Jeffries's iappeal of
Notes
7. 8.
to pp.
233
Waters
v.
Newsday, August
9.
Nathan
Law Review
36,
See also
Guy MacLean
Rogers,
EPILOGUE
1.
The
internet debate
A8 and
in the Wash-
May 28,
1996, p.
All.
Some
of the
(JBHE) 12 (Spring
1996):
86-95; and in
Mary
(Summer
1996): 88-90.
Cf.
New
Modern
Hill:
University of
xi-xii, this
volume.
234
Notes
Really
to Epilogue, pp.
180-183 September
30,
Having,"
Dissonance,
1996
[http://way.net/dissonance/sundiata.html], p. 4.
5. 6.
p. 86.
7.
On the technique, see John M. Ellis, Against Deconstruction (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989),
pp. 141-45;
Alan B.
and Lies
9.
New
Attacks on
Afrocentrism Are as
Weak
as
They Are
False," Emerge,
July/August 1996,
10.
Ibid., p.
p. 66.
68.
Newsweek, February
Roger Kimball,
ume.
12. Bernal,
JBHE,
cor-
and
Notes
13.
to Epilogue, pp.
184-185
235
18,
December
1995, p. 37;
Tom
Carson, "Greece
is
Glen Bowersock,
p. 6.
New
York
Carson, "Greece
is
the Word,"
p. 20;
Out of Africa:
tember 1996,
A Reaction,"
p. 9.
says
them
own
He
Some
was
initiated into
some of the
Nathan
Glazer, letter to
New
March
17, 1996, p. 4.
18. Bernal,
JBHE,
cit. p.
JBHE,
Hilliard
Asa G.
lisher's insert to
(New York:
236
Notes
to Epilogue, pp.
186-192
this volume,
p. 42.
25. Berlinerblau, "Black Athena Redux," p. 46. 26. Chicago Tribune, 27.
December
19, 1996, p. 1.
(in Bookpress), p. 11.
American
29.
Greece
1987), p. 38.
30. Richard B. Rutherford,
p.
81
p. 1.
A History
19,
of Medicine,
I,
pp.
"Women and
Herodotus
(5587-486
B.C.)
Dirt," Helios
no.
recalls
how
the
Persian
king
Darius
34. Bernal,
18;
"Whose Greece?"
Review of Books),
p.
Near
Notes
in
to Epilogue, p.
135
237
Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, trans. M. E. Pinder and W. Burkert (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 120-27.
35. Cudjoe,
p. 85;
Asante, "Ancient
Truths," p. 70.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES
page
L Afrocentrism in the Schools. Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, in Higher Superstition: The Academic Left
and
Its
made
in Hunter Havelin
Adams,
and
(Portland, Oregon:
Multnomah School
District, 1990).
Illiteracy
Among
Minorities. Part
I:
Multicultural
(Fall
Pseudoscience,"
Skeptical
Inquirer
16
1991):
Among
Minori-
Part
II:
(Winter 1991): 62-66; "Afrocentric Creationism," Creation/Evolution 29 (Winter 1991-92): 1-8; "Melanin,
Afrocentricity,
240
Supplementary Notes
Anthropology 36 (1993): 33-58; "Afrocentric Pseudoscience:
R. Gross,
Academy of Sciences, Vol. 775 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1996) pp. 561-72; "Avoiding Egyptocentric Pseudoscience: Colleges
Essays," in Alterna-
(1996).
p. 47,
remarks that
did not
and Wellesley
I
men-
was
available about
class-
more
universities could be
added
in-
many
schools
Camden Board
of Education, n.d.),
which
is
Supplementary Notes
based on the source materials
cording to
public,
241
Andrew
The
New Re-
November
Chester E. Finn,
Jr.,
"Cleopatra's Nose,"
Commentary
nation,"
(May
1996):
http://www.detnews.com/menu/stoCity
ries/48444.htm.
Schools,
Kansas
for
has
two
Afrocentric
el-
and plans
(November
7,
1996):
1, 4.
did
not observe that this country's founding fathers preferred republicanism to democracy.
But
am
talking
brief discussion
was
meaning
242
Supplementary Notes
into everything, insists that
my motive
Of
course
13.
and
DNA
who
settled in the
of humankind,
south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenthcentury scholars had supposed) invaders from the north.
vol. 1
(Cambridge:
Cam-
129-54.
22.
nasty and the Minoans: "In return for protecting the sea
harbour
facilities
and access
to those precious
commodi-
Museum
of-
on
p.
88 of his
JBHE
review,
he
criticizes
me
wisdom" of
"all" earlier
scholars in translating gegonotes to anekathen ap'Aigyptou (Herodotus 2.43.2) as "descended on both sides from
Supplementary Notes
243
Aegyptus" (rather than, as would better suit his purposes, "descended on both sides from Egypt").
The prob-
lem
is
in
means the
hero.
The
makes
is
it
coun-
meaning
"to
be
descended
from"
to designate place
to designate
is te
Other examples:
ek,
of place,
4.95.3); apo,
of person,
1.147.1,
3.55.2,
3.83.2,
(Oxford:
apo, III.l; R.
Kuehner and
42.
my discussion
244
Supplementary Notes
of Cleopatra's origins as an "irrelevancy."
But in his
Ptolemy
II
VIII's
Fragments
J. Brill, 1923);
and
P.
M.
180-81.
On
How a Disciand
Social
64,
tions about
my
and on pp. 155-58, see Glenn Loury, "Color Blinded," Arion 4.4 (Winter 1997): 168-85.
57.
when
mar began
which
it
maintain that
hi-
The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in Euro[1961], (Princeton: Princeton University
pean Tradition
had
deci-
Supplementary Notes
Hegel
(for one)
245
was unable
to learn
pollion's
work
and the
and
UCLA
(1.77.5),
from Herodotus
(2.177.2).
Athenian counterpart to
it.
There
is also
the probvisited
he enacted his
legislation (1.30.1).
Perhaps
But there
is
no reason
to
to go to
Egypt
to find out
B.C.
toil.
J. Brill,
clear from
have been
(1.79.4),
which
Here,
as
in
my
previous
example,
the
connection
246
Supplementary Notes
that Diodorus and his informants were always eager to
similarities
might represent a
Hellenistic period,
way they
83.
Hermes Trismegistus. On Hermes Trismegistus in his divine and human manifestations, see Garth Fowden,
The Egyptian Hermes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 22-31.
that Moses
was
identified with
Hermes during
his
life-
ed.,
James H. Charlesworth,
ed.,
The Old
Tes-
City, N.Y.:
Doubleday,
Supplementary Notes
88. Hellenistic Syncretism.
247
On
JBHE review,
tomb
p. 91,
Bernal as-
of Isis found in a
there
was an
and
is
Demeter; but
of the
known about
listed the
Emily Vermeule
aspects of
life
form
248
Supplementary Notes
Change: Ideology and the Eleusinian Mysteries," in Inventing Ancient Culture: Historicism, Periodization,
the Ancient World, edited
and
stepped on the threshold of Proserpina" allude to Egyptian funerary rituals/According to the instructions ap-
pended
living
if
Literature:
A Book
edge, Hierarchy,
and Philosophy
in Ancient
Egypt
New Haven,
ritual.
1989), p. 154,
But there
is
al-
"Egyptian
Frangoise
mysteries"
described
by
Apuleius;
see
la religion de l'Egypte
(1975): 170.
As Kevin Clinton
Supplementary Notes
249
Athens, 1992),
p. 131, "Isis
were
many centuries
later.
von Staden,
also
David
thority
from Augustus
Egyptian past."
121.
possible to
1870], (Eila,
based on
it,
Samuel Weiser,
1988).
Nothing
ini-
fiction (by
250
127.
Supplementary Notes
abolition
movement
gained strength and importance, writers of African descent called attention to Psalms 68:31: "Princes shall
was imported
130-143;
Leo
Spitzer,
Curtin
Age of Booker
bor: University of
and South
Africa
(New
criticized
me
for ignoring
who
The reason
origins
and shown
that
its
overestimated.
gins of the
ori-
myth
which cannot be
Supplementary Notes
251
I discuss),
or of George
no. 3
(1917): 334-44, or in
Africa
Howard University
Press, 1981), or in
Chan-
cellor Williams's
Civilization:
to
2000
p.
A.D.
Third World
Press,
1987),
e.g.,
297.
made
it
but
it
of the notion of
I
an Egyptian
Out of Africa,
plain just
stated that
seem "unable
to ex-
how the
American Afrocen-
among Afro-Americans
tury."
The
link is
to
made
Ancient Africa
Edward F.
Collins
and Alveda
King Beal
who
cites Albert
Mackey's En-
252
Supplementary Notes
cyclopedia of Freemasonry as the historical source for his
Kemet
tambu
Kwame Nan-
and
"Religious Heterodoxy
Why
and
the
Spoils of History
"atrocities are
(New
On
Egypt in
137.
In-
dian gymnosophists and was impressed by them; see Albrecht Dihle, "Indien," in Reallexicon fur Antike
und
vol.
But the
stories
them
follow conventional
The Brah-
mans
Supplementary Notes
149,
253
"uncut,
Egyptian
and
But even
if
the
is
no reference
Atum
down
to us. Democritus,
it oc-
is
no more real
den
e to
meden
156
somewhat
different
It
was only
asso-
by Gnostics in the
and
the
Many
[1971], trans.
John Baines
(Ithaca, N.Y.:
254
150.
Supplementary Notes
Greek
tablets
inspired by Egyptian
ways
pp.370-76.
151.
is also
to
Ancient
Kawaida
different
Communications in Hampton,
Va.,
H. Khalifa
il-
Comparisons
tivism,
Among McCarthyism,
Law Review
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Mary
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Intro-
Ann
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*Ziegler, Christiane,
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1."
Rowman &
littlefield, 1972.
-.
.
(Mythical
for
whom
Egypt
is
named; brother of
Danaus (q.v.).
Aeneas, Trojan hero who
Virgil's epic
Roman poet
the Aeneid.
collection of fables; virtu-
life.
B.C.),
tragic poet.
for the
Roman name
of
unknown etymology
B.C.),
334,
B.C.
by
281
282
Glossary
Delta; the library at Alexandria, primarily a collection of
to
B.C.
by
Demetrius of Phaleron.
500-428
B.C.),
philosopher resi-
B.C.),
a Democritean
Asian campaigns.
(b. ca.
135
A.D.),
orator
and
Archimedes of Syracuse
(ca.
287-212
B.C.),
Greek mathematician
and inventor.
Argos, city-state in the Peloponnesus,
home
of Io
and refuge
for
Homer and
Aristophanes
poet.
450-386
B.C.),
who
studied in
and natural
and
Timaeus and
cities,
Glossary
principal shrine is in Athens, identified
283
A.D.),
title
known
in antiquity as the
by Day.
Cadmus,
Thebes.
Romans
Roman colony.
souls of the dead to the
Greek
A.D.),
Christian theologian
who
reli-
B.C.),
who
(q.v.);
Roman
Cyprian
(ca.
Cyrene, Greek colony on the coast of Libya, a large and important city-state.
Danaus, mythical Greek hero from whose name is derived one of the names by which the Greeks are designated (Danaoi). Son of Belus, brother of Aegyptus (for whom Egypt is named) and brother-in-law of Phoenix (for whom Phoenicia is
named), he
fled
artist
284
Glossary
fled from Athens to the court of King Minos of Crete. Demeter, Greek goddess of grain, mother by Zeus of Persephone, identified by the Greeks with the Egyptian goddess
Isis.
Democritus of Abdera
(b. ca.
460),
Didyme (308-246
Philadelphia.
B.C.),
II
who vis-
Egypt in 60-56
B.C.
and
theater, identified
by the
Osiris.
Empedocles of Acgragas in
492-432
Greek poet
Eudoxus of Cnidus
(ca.
390-340
B.C.),
an accomplished Greek
as-
tragic playwright.
A.D.), biblical
Eusebius of Caesarea
(ca.
260-339
scholar
and hisof
number
Glossary
285
B.C.
Carthaginian general
who invaded
god, identified
by the Greeks
Hermes Trismegistus
("Thrice-great"), (1)
a composite of the
(2) his
tween the god Hermes/Thoth and man; the purported author of treatises
now known
(fifth
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
century
B.C.),
author of a his-
whose
pictor-
Homer
(eighth century
B.C.?),
legendary poet to
attributed.
whom
the epics
the Iliad
Horapollo
(fifth
Hyksos,
name
(first
cen-
who
Iamblichus
(ca.
250-326
A.D.),
ras
and a
treatise
286
Glossary
cow by her lover, the god Zeus, and who travelled to Egypt,
where she became the mother of Epaphus
Isis,
(q.v.).
identified
Kemet
name used by
Lycurgus,
Greek
city-state Sparta.
Minos, used
Musaeus ("man
poet.
Namphamo of Numidia,
Neoplatonism, modern
a Carthaginian saint.
given to revival of Platonic philosothird century to the sixth
name
Oenopides of Chios
scientist.
(fifth
century
B.C.),
203
A.D.),
Christian martyr.
of the Under-
Glossary
world, daughter of the goddess
Philo of Alexandria
(first
287
century
wrote in Greek.
Plato of Athens
(ca.
429-347
B.C.),
vented the dialogue form and perfected the abstract terminology developed by earlier Greek philosophers, such as his
teacher Socrates.
(ca.
and
Osiris.
II
(ca.
B.C.),
Macedonian
Ptolemy
II
II
Philadelphus (308-246
B.C.).
Ptolemy IX Soter
ther by an
(142-80
B.C.),
unknown mistress
(Auletes), son of
Ptolemy IX by an
(q.v.).
unknown mistress;
Ptolemy Chennos
and philosophical
movement based in Metapontum in southern Italy. (q.v.), mother by Zeus of the god
name like
Ptah who
(2)
ruled
name
B.C.),
288
Glossary
profundity; he
was
tried
charges of impiety.
Solon of Athens (early sixth century
B.C.),
and
he is said
to
Strabo of Cappadocia
64
B.C.),
valuable picture of
life
century
B.C.
A.D.),
Roman
historian
who
described the
159
B.C.),
playwright
who
Roman stage.
and
ethicist.
B.C.),
first
important Greek
Theuth (Thoth), Egyptian moon-god, patron of scribes and scholars, identified by the Greeks with their god Hermes.
Virgil (Publius Vergilius
Maro, 70-19
B.C.),
Roman
poet, author
of the Aeneid.
(q.v.).
A Dictionary
of
eds.
Ian
York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995); The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3d ed., eds.
(New
The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, trans. A. R. MaxwellHyslop (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987); The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2d
A. Livingstone
ed., eds. F. L.
Cross and E.
1983).
INDEX
135,137,139,140,144, 150-51
Amasis, 70, 75, 81 Amun (Amnion), 75, 101, 102, 105
Anacharsis, 24-25
analogy, 67, 74, 78
ancestry, African, 16, 20, 27, 29,
33, 37,
Nubia
Afro-American Studies, 193
Afrocentrism, radical,
xi, xii,
43
191
38,
239-42
Aion, 95, 216/i6
Lucius
Alexander,
Archimedes, 153
architecture, 193
144
Alexandria,
2, 3, 4, 7, 72, 80, 85,
289
290
INDEX
82, 150, 177, 181, 192,
161-64
Bible,
87
See
146
blacks: in antiquity, 13-48,
also logic
Aristophanes, 28
Aristotle, 2-4, 6, 8, 135, 137-44,
Afrocentrism
Blyden,
Edward Wilmot,
8, 80,
127-28, 180
Aryanism, 182
Asante, Molefi Kete,
241, 243-44
Asia, 13, 18, 31
astrology, 77-78, 107, 145
xii, xiii,
138-40,
Underworld
Hermes Trismegistus;
Atum,
Cadmus,
Hyksos
74
Babylpn, 77
barbaroi. See Foreign
Casaubon, Isaac, 57, 100 Cecrops, 17, 18, 23 Chaeremon, 98 chariots, 146-47
Charon, 74
chronology, problematic, 7, 9, 58,
32-33,151,181,185
Berbers, 31-32, 34. See also
Africa,
81,82,144,158
citations, inaccurate,
38-40,
North
xi, xvii,
Bernal, Martin,
23-26,
Clarke,
Index
classicists, xv, 16,
291
46-48
99,
139-40, 163
Cleopatra, 9, 14, 34-52, 157,
Book of the
Dead,
debate,
On
the Soul;
transmigration of souls
1, 11,
160
20
41
deconstruction, 186-87
186-87
204/w77-78
comedy, Athenian, 27-28
253
dependency, cultural, 76, 81, 83,
88, 90, 123, 134, 142, 146,
152
diaspora, 129, 130
evidence
245-46
Diogenes, 79, 80, 84-85
193
cosmogony, 151, 152
creation, 140-43, 146
cults, mystery,
73-74
Diop, Cheikh Anta, 16-24,
Mystical Egypt
cultural history, 4, 8-9, 49-51,
diversity,
151-53,157-60,166 161-64
Dodona, 66
Douglass, Frederick, 127, 180
Du Bois, W. E. B.,
128
151,165-75 Baron de, 56 Cyprian, Saint, 32, 34 Cyrene, 14, 132, 134
Cuvier,
78
Terrasson, Jean
education, in United States,
1-6, 48-52, 158-75
292
INDEX
foreign (to Greece), 14, 20,
242
empowerment,
Epiphanius, 95
4, 125,
163
130-34
geology, 145
Erechtheus, 17-18
Ethiopia, 13, 29, 31, 34, 47, 59,
61, 78, 127,
250
174-75
etymology, 23-24, 26, 149,
207/il8, 231/i85
Greece: legacy
of, 6;
origins
of,
14-26
gymnosophists, see India
hair, 13,
127
Ham, 127
Hannibal, 30-31, 36, 157 hawk, as symbol, 108-10 Hebrew, 18, 65, 86-89. See also Jews Hecataeus, 79, 81 Helen of Troy, 83 Heracles, 25-26, 242-43 Heraclitus, 143, 152-53 Hermes: books of, 99; Greek god, 81
193
eye, as symbol, 136, 146
164-75
Fairchild, Halford, 125
Felicity,
martyr, 32-33
Hermes Trismegistus,
107,113,246
57, 83,
Jean
flat-earth theory, 165-68, 174
179,249
Index
hero pattern, 114-18
Herodotus,
9, 13, 23,
293
25-26, 54,
188-89, 190-92
initiation, 69,
57-77,79,81,85,89,
126-27, 135, 143, 193,
93-98, 110,
242-43
hieroglyphics, 25, 57, 96, 99,
244-45
historians, Afrocentria See
22-25
73-74,
10,
of Sicily; Hecataeus;
Herodotus
historians, Jewish,
84-90
historicism, new, 50
history, politics in, 16, 46, 161,
Jews,
xii, xvii,
of,
anti-Semitism;
Hebrew
Kemet (Egypt),
97, 147
Khoiak festival, 69
Kimball, Roger, 182
181-82
Inachus, 18, 20, 24, 25
India, 137, 228;i42, 252
187-88
Libyans. See Cyrene
linguistics, 24,
26
76
294
INDEX
Mut, 75
mysteries: Egyptian "Mystery
179,
See
Magic Flute,
Mysteries; initiation).
Amad
magic, 144
249
myth, xv-ocvU
Masonry,
names, etymology
of,
63-64,
Namphamo,
32, 33
Napoleon, 56
narratives, Egyptian, 190-91
National Association of
Scholars, 183
Naucratis, 68
Near East,
Neit, 65
16,
52
Neoplatonism, 103
Nile Delta, 18, 22
Nile, 18, 22, 62, 68, 72, 77-78,
melanin, 173
120,
article, 180,
182-83,
title,
180
Numidia, 33
Octavian, 35, 46
8, 68,
Musaeus,
73, 86,
88
143
Index
opposites, theory
295
of,
140, 143,
145, 152-53
oracle, 65,
239-41
portraits: of Socrates, 29; of
Cleopatra, 39-40
253-54
Orwell, George, 153-54
Osiris, 21, 63-64, 67, 69, 70,
Patai,
89 Daphne, 46
Pelops, 13
244
puns, 64
127
Pythagoras, 67-69, 77-78, 98,
104, 113, 143
phallus, 63
philosophy,
xi, xii,
xiv-xv, 2, 4, 6,
7,9-10,54,77,86-87,89,
91-93, 99, 100-104, 106,
110, 123-25, 127, 132,
race, 9, 14, 16, 29, 49, 127, 130,
racism,
xiii, 2, 4, 5,
174,180,182,191
relativism, 48-49, 158,
religion,
244
33-34 piety, 89
plagiarism, alleged, 123-24,
139, 142, 146, 150
Plato, 7, 9, 26, 29, 73, 75-76, 79,
Eleusinian Mysteries
arguments
responsibility, academic, 3-11,
151-52, 190-91
Plutarch, 39, 41, 47, 75-76, 85,
94, 108
161-75
right-wing politics, 182-83
296
INDEX
248-49.
symbols, 52, 105-6, 108, 110-11,
118, 136
Masonry
30-35, 47-48
Tacitus,
48
Romans,
6, 25,
Sappho, 45
Schlesinger, Arthur, 4
self-esteem, 4. See also
122,123,126-29,136,143,
145,157,249,252
TertuUian, 32-33
Thales, 85, 113, 143
empowerment
Semitic, 14, 21-23, 26, 31, 33.
Thamos,
56, 118
Memphite
theology
Thesmophoria, 69-70
Th6th, 81, 83, 100. See also
Hermes
Timaeus 190
(Plato), 146, 151, 152,
36-37
snub-nose, 29-30
Socrates, 9,
14, 26-30, 136,
245-46
Sophocles, 86
souls.
See dead;
On the Soul;
4, 9-10, 54, 70,
of;
transmigration of souls
stolen legacy, 2,
71, 88, 92-94, 123-26,
See initiations
Trismegistus. See
Hermes
of,
truth, determination
xiv, 10-11,
131-32, 134-39, 141, 143, 146-48, 150-51, 153-58, 160-61, 163-64, 168, 174,
235rcl4, 250-52 Strabo, 72, 79, 84
arguments; evidence;
history
dead;Duat
Index
Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA),
Volney, Count, 127
297
Wellesley College,
xii, xvii, 2, 4,
Marcus Mosiah
universities, 1, 3, 11, 16, 43, 48, 52, 135-36, 150-51, 155,
42,43
Will, George, 182,
184
240-41
Utopias, 85, 129-30
India
105
X, Malcom, 235?il4
Xenophon, 29
Zeus, 64-66, 75
Lucius
Virgil, 97,
120
Was
library in Alexandria?
democratic civilization
to
the Africans?
world are being written and shows how Afrocentrist claims blatantly contradict the historical evidence.
is
for the
Not
tasies
politically correct
historical fan-
with a thoughtful inquiry into questions of historical method and of academic freedom.
perplexed by multicultural education should read
it."
Anyone
-Arthur Schlesinger,
Jr.,
leftists
-WASHINGTON POST
the last word; hut this
In
historical
study there
s
is
no suck
tiling as
hook
It
is
is
the best
word
so far in
influence
on
classical
Greek philosophy.
it
also a rattling
good yarn.
quality.
Iliis
hook
will not
will radically
improve
its
brilliant, incisive,
and erudite
critique of the
husde
that
is
Afrocentrism
-Clarence
-Mary Lefkowitz
s
E.
that
if
schol-
peril."
-Diane Ravitch,
You
re carried
. . .
along not only hy the quality of her argument hut hy the scholarly excitement of
it
the hunt.
-Most of
Mary
is
Lefkowitz is the
in
the author of
in
is
and Women
New
Republic. She