A sober look at the "light from the East"

Walter Burkert's “Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture” is a sober and scholarly look at “Oriental” influences on Archaic and Classical Greece, published when the controversy surrounding Martin Bernal's “Black Athena” was at its peak. The book is probably too scholarly and tedious for the general reader – even I found Burkert's erudition asphyxiating at times. But then, I suppose you don't become a Professor Emeritus of Classics at Zürich without knowing your way through Orphicorum Fragmenta, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum or Akkadisches Handwörterbuch! Been there, seen that, done that…

;-)

Burkert doesn't deny the accomplishments of Classical Greek civilization, or that “the West” has emulated models taken specifically from Greece, a process which began already in antiquity, with Etruscans imitating Greek art, Romans worshipping Greek gods, etc. Burkert ties Greek accomplishments to the spread of literacy through the introduction of the alphabet, the rise of independent merchants and free artisans, the democratic “polis”, and (ironically) the peripheral position of Greece at the outskirts of the Near East theatre, which spared Athens from the ravages of the Assyrian wars and conquests. The Phoenician city-states developed in a similar direction (note that the Greek alphabet was based on the Phoenician), but couldn't quite make it, due to foreign pressure on the Phoenician motherland. The Phoenician colony of Carthage became more important, but apparently too late – Carthaginians travelled to Athens to study philosophy!

That being said, Burkert is nevertheless keenly interested in the pre-history of the so-called Greek miracle. After all, Greece was a late-comer among the high cultures of the East Mediterranean. What influence did the Semites, the Egyptians and the Persians have on Greece? Burkert's article “Orpheus and Egypt” is of particular interest. The author sees a connection between Osiris, Dionysus and Orpheus. He connects the mystery cult at Eleusis and Pythagoras with possible Egyptian influence. In another article, “The Advent of the Magi”, Burkert discusses possible Persian influence on Greek religion. One red thread throughout the book is the notion that Greek naturalistic philosophy presupposed knowledge of Persian and Egyptian myths. Semitic and Egyptian “wisdom literature” could be a source of inspiration for later Greek moral philosophy. Babylonian mathematics, geometry and astronomy were very advanced long before the Greek miracle. In passing, Burkert mentions possible Indian influence on Pythagoras' belief in reincarnation. (Parts of India were controlled by the Persian Empire.)

Although Burkert mentions Bernal's book non-polemically several times, it's clear from context that he doesn't really buy its main theses. In a curious footnote, Burkert asserts that it's “clear” that Phoenicians and Egyptians were neither Afroasiatic nor black, thereby showing stunning ignorance of the entire debate. Bernal, of course, never asserts that *Phoenicians* were black. He does assert that both the Egyptian and Phoenician languages are Afroasiatic, but so does everyone else! Perhaps Burkert was unaware of the exact meaning of the term “Afroasiatic”? It's a language family, previously known as Hamito-Semitic, not a race or ethnicity. Or perhaps the Professor Emeritus believes that the Phoenicians were Indo-Europeans? I don't have time for that particular controversy this week!

That being said, I recommend “Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis” to those (including philhellenes) who want to take a sober look at the crisscrossing cultural influences of Classical Antiquity, rather than getting bogged down in the ultimately unproductive “culture wars” of the 1990's.