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Martin Bernal (born 1937 in London) is a Professor Emeritus of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Cornell University. He is a scholar of modern Chinese political history and he is known for his claims that classical civilization in Ancient Greece was founded on Afroasiatic and Semitic cultures...
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Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization is a work by Martin Bernal. It expounds a hypothesis that ancient Greece, and hence Western civilization, derived much of its cultural roots from Afroasiatic (Egyptian and Phoenician) cultures. The work was published in three volumes: Volume...
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In "Black Athena", Martin Bernal agrees that the Greek language came with invaders from the North. However, he argues that classical Greek culture does not spring from the arrival of these Northerners, but rather from the subsequent imposition upon them of Semitic and Egyptian culture.
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Martin Bernal retired from the Department of Near Eastern Studies in 2001. He is the author of Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (Rutgers University Press, 1987), which occasioned Black Athena: Ten Years After, ed.
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Not since Martin Bernal's 1987 Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, which argued for the African roots of Attic civilization, have so many nonspecialists gotten into a lather about the sons and daughters of Hellen. Chief among them is Martin Bernal of Cornell.
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This review of Black Athena, Vol. II appears in: Free Inquiry 13.4 (Fall 1993), pp. 54-5. Free Inquiry is a Humanist magazine published in Buffalo, N.Y. It also published "Black Athena: An Interview with Martin Bernal," by Norm Allen Jr. (10.2, Spring 1990, pp. 18-22).
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The debate was conducted within a discussion group created for the purpose called athena-discuss. The two principals in the debate were supposed to be Mary Lefkowitz and Martin Bernal, whose Black Athena had been attacked by Lefkowitz.
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Black Athena 2: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence. Cadmean Letters: The Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean and Further West before 1400 B.C. Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to his Critics.
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It operates as a refuge for a civilizing element in short supply in contemporary America: honest criticism - The Wall Street Journal Subscribe Now and get unlimiteв access...
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Reviewed by Martin Bernal, Cornell University.
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