Review: Black Athena: The Sequel (Part 1)

Author(s): Mary R. Lefkowitz

Review by: Mary R. Lefkowitz
Source: International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Spring, 2003), pp. 598-603
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30224371
Accessed: 05-03-2015 22:16 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of the Classical
Tradition.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:16:00 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

598

International
Journalof theClassicalTradition/ Spring2003

BlackAthena:the Sequel(Part1)
MartinBemal, BlackAthenaWritesBack,ed. David Chioni Moore (Durham,N.C.: Duke
University Press, 2001),XVI+ 550 pp.
This book is a belated attempt to breathe new life into MartinBemal's moribund
BlackAthena(BA).' Two more volumes are promised: DebatingBlackAthena(DBA),a
collection of essays by scholarswho have received Bernal'simprimatur,
and BA III:The
his
that
Evidence.2
In
Bernal
states
the
volume
introduction,
(BAWB)
Linguistic
present
is a "directresponse" to BlackAthenaRevisited(BAR),a collection of essays about BA
edited by my colleague Guy Rogers and myself.3 In fact, it offers both more and less.
BAWBconsists of reviews and commentary,linked togetherby brief introductions,on
someof the essays in BAR.4Added to these are Bernal'sresponse to an articleby Josine
Blok, and brief reviews of the "recentbroadening scholarship"of SarahMorris,Walter
Burkert,and MartinWest.5 The last chapter of BAWBis a review of my book Not Out
of Africa(NOA).6 There is also a brief epilogue. In it, Bernal insists that the field of
Classical Studies has not yet reformed, and laments the apparent demise of Marxist
treatmentsof history. At the head of the epilogue is a quotationfrom Max Planck:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and
making them see the light but ratherbecause its opponents die and a new
generationgrows up that is familiarwith it. (p. 397)
How this quotation could be applied to BA is unclear,since his theories about ancient
history can hardly be characterizedas "scientifictruth."But at least it indicates that
Bemal has little hope that the present generation of scholars will be able to "see the
1. BAI: TheFabrication
NJ:RutgersUniversityPress,1987);
(NewBrunswick,
ofAncientGreece
and Documentary
BA II:TheArchaeological
Evidence(New Brunswick,NJ:RutgersUniversity

Press,1991).
2. In 1987Bernalplannedto callBAIII:"SolvingtheRiddleof theSphinxandotherStudiesin
(BAI:63).
Egypto-Greek
Mythology"
BAR(ChapelHill:Universityof NorthCarolinaPress,1996).
3. BAWB:1;
4. Bernalsays thathe did not respondto JohnColemanbecause"virtuallyall the pointshe
he leavesLoringBraceet al. and
makeshave beenraisedby otherreviewers"(BAWB:18);
FrankSnowdento ShomarkaKeitain DBA;commenton KathrynBardis not neededbecause "herpopularpiece does not mentionme [sic]",or on EgyptologistFrankYurco
becausehe disagreeswith him only on technicalmattersof chronology.He does not concritics."
siderMarioLiveraniandRichardJenkynsto be "substantial
5. J. Blok,"Proofand Persuasionin BlackAthena:theCaseof K. O. Mueller,"in:BlackAthena:
andtheOriginsof
S. P. Morris,Daedalus
TenYearsAfter= Talanta
28/29 (1996/97):173-208;
Dieorientalisierende
in dergriechische
Greek
Art(Princeton1992);W. Burkert,
Epoche
Religion
und Literatur,Sitzungsberichteder Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften,
WinterVerlag,1984).
Klasse,Jahrg.1984,Bericht1 (Heidelberg:
Philosophisch-Historische
M. L. West, TheEastFaceof Helicon:WestAsiaticElementsin GreekPoetryandMyth (Oxford:

ClarendonPress,1997).
6.

M. R. Lefkowitz, Not Out of Affica:How AfrocentrismBecamean Excuse to TeachMyth as

History(NewYork:BasicBooks,1997).

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:16:00 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review
Articles

599

light," and that he regards the scholars who disagree with him not as colleagues, but
as "opponents."What ever happened to the notion that scholarshipwas a cooperative
venture, dependent upon persuasion based on discussions of documentation and evidence?
But BAWBis not addressed to these old-fashioned academics. Bernal does not
expect any of his readers to have read BAR,or to be familiarwith the BARcontributors' other writings or to know any of them personally, because if they did, they
would realize that he was characterizingBAR and its authors as tendentiously and
unfairly as the nineteenth-centuryscholarswhose work he discusses in BA:
Some of the contributorsto BARattackthe general projectfor purely scholarly reasons, others from a mixture of scholarly and what I perceiveto be
right-wingpoliticalmotives.(p. 1, italics mine)
BAR,he claims, is "largely made up of previously published reviews," "contributed
with little alterationand with virtuallyno consideration
to therepliesto them I published
at the time" (p. 1). What can Bernal be talking about? About half of the material in
BARis new. I took Bernal'scomments into considerationwhen I revised the review of
BA, StolenLegacyand some other books that I wrote for TheNew Republicto serve as an
introductionto BAR.Edith Hall's chapter "Whenis a Myth Not a Myth?"is a revised
version of an article (which was not a "review")published in Arethusa.John Baines
reviewed BA II in The New YorkTimes,but his chapter in BAR (in his own words)
covers "differentground" (BAR:48). Robert Palter's chapter on science was revised
only slightly for publication in BAR, but Palter added a concluding summary that
responds to Bernal'scomments (BAR:256). John Colemanwrote about BA in Archaeology, but his chapter takes Bernal'scomments into considerationand adds new material. Only two chapters in the book consist of reviews reprinted without much revision: Emily Vermeule'sreview "TheWorldTurnedUpside Down" (from TheNew York
Reviewof Books)and LawrenceTritle'sreview "BlackAthena:Vision or Dream of Greek
Origins"(from LiverpoolClassicalMonthly).Loring Brace's"Clinesand Clusters versus
'Race"'and KathrynBard's "AncientEgyptiansand the Issue of Race"were reprinted
with only minor revisions, but neither was a review of BA. And none of these chapters
nor any of the other essays had previously appeared in a right-wingjournal.
Why does Bernal claim that his critics had political motives and insist that they
had not paid sufficient attention to his responses to their writings? His questions are
more revealing than his answers. He seems to think that his criticswould approachthe
evidence in the same way that he has himself, that is, for a political purpose, and to
achieve a particularend. He assumes that we are not interested in discussion, because
he himself in practice is not really interested in discussion, however much in theoryhe
subscribes to the importance of debate.7 Seeing oneself through Bernal's eyes is a
curious experience. As Socrates says after he heard his accusers' speeches: "I soon
forgot who I was, so persuasively did they speak" (P1.,Apol. 17a). If I were really the
kind of scholar he supposes me to be, one might easily suppose that my writings were

7.

"The scholarlypurpose of Solvingthe Riddleof the Sphinx[the original title of BA III]is the
same as that of the other two volumes: to open up new areasof researchto women and men

withfarbetterqualifications
thanI have"(BAI:73).

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:16:00 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

600

International
Tradition
Journal
oftheClassical
/Spring2003

simply bluster or mindless propagandaabout the "glorythat was Greece."8One might

even be prepared to suspect that I was motivated not only by territorialhostility to
outsiders to the profession,but by an unconscious racism.As Bernalhimself puts it,
what Lefkowitz finds intolerable[sic] is the proposal that an AfricanEgypt
had a central and formative influence on Greek civilization. This was what
George G.M. James claimed in the 1950s [in StolenLegacy]and I have argued since the 1980s.(BAWB,372)9
Never mind that I have repeatedly said how importantit is to acknowledge the debts
of ancient Greece to other ancient civilizations, including that of Egypt, or that I have
suggested that more needs to be said about Egypt's connection with the rest of Africa.10In Bernal'sworld, perceptions or "competitiveplausibilities"matter more than
reality, and Bernal is eager to perceive me as an evil antipode of himself. Just substitute Bernal's name for mine in the quotation above, replace "AfricanEgypt" with
"EuropeanGreece" and you will have a reasonable likeness of the author of Black
Athena.
The main purpose of BAWB,whatever its stated intentions, is to reaffirm the
competitive plausibilities he created in BA I and II, and to turn his recent critics into
the kind of straw men (and women) that he can attack with impunity. The strategy
worked well in BA I: many people, most of whom should have known better, were
prepared to accept Bernal'scharacterizationof classicists,both in the present day and
in the nineteenth century.11In BA I Bernalmade the discipline seem even more suspect by talking about an "Aryan"(ratherthan Indo-European)model of Greekorigins,
as if to imply that classical philology was somehow connected with the racist policies
of the Nazis.12 Of course, it isn't, and in fact no linguist I know of believes that
language is always an indication of what people now call "race."But since such
plausibilities and innuendos served Bernalwell in BA I, he is ready to recycle them in
BAWB.
In addition to guilt by (alleged) association,Bernalin his reviews and commentaries relies heavily on the old rhetoricaltechniquefalsum in uno,falsum in omnibus.If he
can show that something a particularscholar has said and written is questionable or
8. Readersof BAI will rememberthat Bernalbelievesthatclassicalstudieshave been corandracism,andthattrainingin classicalphilologyleads
ruptedby pervasiveanti-Semitism
to "intellectual
passivity"(BAI:3).
Cf. Bernal'sstatement "Whatis anathema for Mary Lefkowitz is the claim made in Black
Athenathat the 'Glory that was Greece'was the result of intercontinentalhybridity."Times
May 11,2001, 10.
LiterarySupplement,
10. See, e.g., TimesLiterarySupplement,
June20, 1997, 15-16.On connectionsbetween Egypt and
Africa,cf. NOA:135.
11. E.g., Wilson J. Moses speaks of me as "an obscure drudge in the academicbackwatersof a
classics department":Afrotopia:TheRootsof AfricanAmericanPopularHistory(New York:
CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998),8.
12. On Bemrnal's
use of Aryan (whereeveryone else speaks of Indo-European),see JohnColeman,
"Did Egypt Shape the Glory that was Greece?"in BAR:290-1. The designation has caused
considerableconfusion among critics who do not specialize in ancient studies: one Greek
journalist absurdly supposed that in NOA I was trying to argue that the ancient Greeks
came from Germany(!).

9.

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:16:00 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review
Articles

601

even wrong, he hopes that will give the impression that everything he or she has said
or written is to be distrusted. The technique allows him to debate his criticsnot on the
majortheories of BA (which they have long since systematicallyrefuted), but what is
for him a stronger ground, interpretationof specific details about which he has a
chance of being right, even if they have little or no importance in the debate as a
whole. As a result, the individual sections of BAWBtake the form of a series of specific
comments on specific statements,phrases or words. Almost always, these are cited in
partial quotation or are taken out of the context of the critic's original argument, so
that the readerhas only a partialsense of the largerargumentthat the criticwas trying
to make.
This procedure often makes Bernal's argument hard to follow, and even more
difficult to evaluate, unless one is prepared to read the whole of the critique that
Bernal is attacking seriatim.An example: in NOA (p. 253) I described Democritus fr.
B156 DK mallonto den e to medeneinai ("aught is no more real than naught") as a
"simple concept of nothingness,"because the statement is relatively straightforward.
Bernalclaims that I was saying something disrespectfulabout Democritus'mind:
No one has previously suggested that Demokritos was simple-minded; the
trouble his statement has caused later commentatorsstrongly indicates the
difficulty and subtlety of his thinking here. (p. 391)
This digression diverts the reader'sattentionfrom the main point that Bernalis trying
to make, which was that Greek atomoshas a direct connection to the name of the
Egyptian sun-god Atum (whose name is actually itm). The etymology (which was
originally suggested by G. G. M. James in StolenLegacy)is of course absurd; atomos
comes from the Indo-Europeanroots ne- "un"+ tem-"cut.13
But Bernaldoes not hesitate to use such tendentious critiquesas "evidence"of his
opponents' weaknesses, inaccuracies,and "sloppiness,"or to make their comments
seem more disputatious and unpleasant than they were. Lawrence Tritle "continues
with passionate hyperbole"(p. 61), Emily Vermeule "is shocked" (p. 87), Jasanoffand
Nussbaum are "scornful"(p. 126). Bernalhas no qualms about resortingto ad hominem
attack: "Why did Vermeule make so many mistakes?" (p. 85); "Lefkowitz's claim
reveals not merely a profound ignorance of the Mediterraneanin the Bronze Age but
also the strength of her desire to give Greeks (or at least peoples of the Aegean) a
greater dynamism than Southwest Asians or Egyptians" (p. 378);14Jasanoff and
Nussbaum are "Indo-Europeanistswith no knowledge of Ancient Egyptian and little
interest in, or understandingof, language contact"(p. 13);"[Lefkowitz]does not know
much about linguistics and she has virtually no understanding of language contact,
which is the relevant field when looking at the relations between Ancient Egyptian
and Greek" (p. 381). Bernaldoes not say exactly how language contact theory could

92. See esp. JayJasanoff,"StolenLegacy?TheEvidencefromLanguage,"

13. StolenLegacy:
in:
WeretheAchievements
of AncientGreeceBorrowed
fromAfrica?,ed. Andrea Ross and Anna Lea
(Washington:Society for the Preservationof Hellenic Studies, 1997),65-66.
14. Cf. NOA, 22-23. Of course I was not trying to make any comparisonbetween the Greeks
and any other Mediterraneanpeople; my discussion of the Minoan frescoes at Avaris was
simply meant to show that archaeologicalevidence could also be used to support the notion
of a movement of peoples from the Aegean world into Egypt.

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:16:00 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

602

International
Tradition
/ Spring2003
Journal
oftheClassical

verify his etymologies (or refute conventional ones). In fact, it is hard to see how
language contact theory could help his argument,since any theory he proposes would
need to be supported by referenceto historicalexamples.15But Bernalseems prepared
to make use of any argument or authoritythat supports his particularclaims, even if it
means accepting ideas that he is elsewhere eager to reject.He criticizes Jasanoffand
Nussbaum for accepting "the conventional wisdom of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries"(p. 126)but scolds me for my "defianceof nineteenthand twentieth century
classical scholarship"on a point of translationfrom the Greek (p. 380). Similarly,he is
critical of my use of explanatory analogies to the history of the English language (p.
382), even though he himself often relies on analogies from Chinese and Japanese.
The back cover blurb claims that in BAWB"Bernalprovides additional documentation to back up his thesis..." This documentationconsists of some new etymologies,
which are set out in his commentaryon Jasanoffand Nussbaum. Bernalsuggests that
Egyptianntr (Greeknitron= natron)provides an etymology for Greekanthos,"flower."16
Even though flowers and the dry sodium carbonate salts used in the desiccation of
mummies might seem to have little in common, Bernalclaims that the derivation has
an "excellent"fit, since ntr can mean creativepower (p. 129).17The constructionof this
etymology requires considerable sleight-of-hand. Bernal claims that the r in ntr is
"unstable"in the case of anthos,though he fails to explain why the r came through
unscathed in the recognized Greek derivative, nitron.Bernal goes on from there to
suggest that other words ending in -nthos(which have conventionallybeen thought to
derive from some lost Aegean language) ultimately derive from Egyptian.
Another new etymology, even more important for his central thesis, concerns
Athena, but confutes the title 'Black'Athena, since it connects the Parthenon with
Egyptian pr thn, "the house of crystal,"which by association might be supposed to
have some connection with her epithet glaukopis,"blue-eyed."Bernal readily admits
that the idea of Athena's blue eyes does not accord well with her supposed African
origin, "but it strengthens my overall case and that of the preferred title, African
Athena"(159-160).Unfortunately for the reader, Bernal fails to explain exactly how
Athena's blue eyes support his theories. If Athena's appearancecould be thought to
reflect (for example) Berberorigins, how does that fit in with Bernal'sEgyptian etymology for her name (supposedly from Ht Neit, "house of Neith")? But here, as elsewhere in BAWB,Bernal is concerned with making particular arguments, not with
constructinga coherenthypothesis.
Apparently Bernalis like one of those condemned men who are willing (as Plato
has Socrates put it) "to do anything and say anything in order to avoid paying the
penalty" (Apol.38d3). The only juries such defendants are likely to persuade are those
who want to believe in them, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. So Bemrnal
avoids offending the audience that has in the past responded enthusiastically to his
arguments.He separateshimself from what he calls "extremeAfrocentrism,"but he is
careful not to attack the basic premises of fundamental works like G. G. M. James'

andGenetic
15. SarahGreyThomasonand TerrenceKaufman,Language
Contact,Creolization,
214
California
of
Press,
1988),
(Berkeley:
Linguistics
University
16. PaceBernal,nitronis not what is now called niter (potassium nitrate,KNO3),but natron or
soda ash (sodium carbonate,Na2CO3).

see EugenStrouhal,
17. Ontheuse of natronin desiccation,
(Norman:
LifeoftheAncientEgyptians
Universityof OklahomaPress,1992),261-262.

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:16:00 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review
Articles

603

Stolen Legacy,which allege Greek philosophy and culture originated in Egypt.18In

fact, he associateshimself with James,as he did in BAI:
This was what George G.M. James claimed in the 1950s [in StolenLegacy]
and I have argued since the 1980s. (BAWB,372)
He has not given up on the idea that there was an Egyptian Mystery System from
which Greek philosophy was derived. He even tries to argue that the bureaucracyof
specialized scribes in ancient Egypt with their storehouses of papyri was (accordingto
modern "consensus")a "kind of university"(p. 389). In an attempt to "prove"that his
work has a wider scope than that of the Afrocentrists,he cites the opinion of Tony
Martin,the authorof the self-publishedTheJewishOnslaught:
The AfrocentristscholarTony Martin,though problematicin other respects,
is far closer to the mark [than Lefkowitz] when he writes ... that "[Bernal]
was as much or more concernedwith a Semiticorigin for Greekcivilization
as for Africaninfluenceover Greece."'19
Bernalchooses not to mention that Martinmade that observationabout Bernal's"Jewish" sympathies in order to distance himself from Bernal.In reality, however, as the
title BlackAthena indicates, Bernal has been primarily concerned with connections
between Egypt and Greece. As the Egyptologist Erik Hornung has said, Bernal has
played a centralrole in promoting the Afrocentristpoint of view:
MartinBernal... hatdurchseinBuchThe [sic]BlackAthena ... dieafrozentrische
Bewegung in den letzen Jahren auch in Europa und im Orient bekannt
Sicht vor Bernalist
gemacht... der bekanntesteVertreterdieserafrozentrischen
ScheichAntaDiopaus Senegal(1923-1986).20
In the end not even Afrocentristsmay derive much satisfactionfrom BAWB,since
Bernalsays relatively little about race. Certainly anyone who is interested in the important historical issues raised by BA will be disappointed. But BAWBis nonetheless
informativeabout Bernalhimself. It shows that even though he insists that he wants to
encourage debate, what he really wants to do is get people to believe in BlackAthena,
by any means he can, fair or foul. The title of the book shows that his own existence is
inextricablycaught up in that of his creation:he is Black Athena's Pygmalion. Why
else would he spend so much energy and ingenuity trying to insist on her existence,
even when his theories have repeatedly been shown to be based on out-dated eighteenth-centuryEuropeanhypotheses, which themselves are demonstrablywrong?
Mary R. Lefkowitz
of
Department ClassicalStudies
Wellesley College
18. G.G.M.James,StolenLegacy(New York:Philosophical
Library,1954).Fora discussionof
James'arguments,see NOA:134-154,254.
19. TonyMartin,TheJewishOnslaught:
(Dover,Mass.:
fromthe Wellesley
Despatches
Battlefront
TheMajority
16.
Press,1993),
20. ErikHomung,DasEsoterische
C.H. Beck,1999),190.
Agypten(Munich:

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:16:00 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions