Introduction

The Black Athena Thesis of Martin Bernal

A Video Introduction (11 minutes) and Discussion Forum for Students

This blog is designed for students to explore Martin Bernal's three volume Black Athena.  

Bernal’s thesis or central argument is rather straight forward and comprised of three main ideas:

1. Ancient Egyptian civilization was fundamentally an African civilization.
2. Ancient Egyptian and the Semitic speaking peoples of Southwest Asia exerted influence on Ancient Greece.
3. The Greeks and Mediterranean peoples in the 2nd millenium BCE absorbed Ancient Egyptian and Semitic culture and languages.   

Students will be able to examine representative elements, and primary sources in historical texts and objects and other evidence from linguistics and archaeology.

By the end of this project students will, through a workshop session, be able to begin their own paper and commentary on the Black Athena thesis and its continuing relevance and controversy.  

For a chronology of Ancient Egypt go to the Digital Egypt for Universities.