Black Athena

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, its three volumes first published in 1987, 1991, and 2006 respectively, is a controversial book by Martin Bernal proposing an alternative hypothesis on the origins of ancient Greece and classical civilisation. Bernal's thesis discusses the perception of ancient Greece in relation to Greece's North African and West Asian neighbours, especially the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians who, he believes, colonized ancient Greece. Bernal proposes that a change in the Western perception of Greece took place from the 18th century onward and that this change fostered a subsequent denial by Western academia of any significant Egyptian and Phoenician influence on ancient Greek civilization. Black Athena has been heavily criticised by academics. They often highlight the fact that there is no archaeological or historical evidence whatsoever for ancient Egyptian colonies in mainland Greece or the Aegean Islands. Academic reviews of Bernal's work generally reject his heavy reliance on ancient Greek mythology, speculative assertions, and handling of archaeological, linguistic, and historical data. The book has also been accused that, by reopening the nineteenth-century discourse on race and origins, it has become part of the problem of racism rather than the solution that its author had envisioned. Bernal himself has been accused of pursuing political motives and enlisting Bronze Age Greece in an academic war against Western civilisation. Thesis Origins of Ancient Greek civilization