[tied] Re: Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of ClassicalCiviliza

A newer book by Walter Burkert from Harvard University Press.

Amazon.com

Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis : Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture,
(Hardcover)
by Walter Burkert
Book Description
At the distant beginning of Western civilization, according to
European tradition, Greece stands as an insular, isolated,
near-miracle of burgeoning culture. This book traverses the ancient
world�s three great centers of cultural exchange�Babylonian Nineveh,
Egyptian Memphis, and Iranian Persepolis�to situate classical Greece
in its proper historical place, at the Western margin of a more
comprehensive Near Eastern�Aegean cultural community that emerged in
the Bronze Age and expanded westward in the first millennium b.c. In
concise and inviting fashion, Walter Burkert lays out the essential
evidence for this ongoing reinterpretation of Greek culture. In
particular, he points to the critical role of the development of
writing in the ancient Near East, from the achievement of cuneiform in
the Bronze Age to the rise of the alphabet after 1000 b.c. From the
invention and diffusion of alphabetic writing, a series of cultural
encounters between �Oriental� and Greek followed. Burkert details how
the Assyrian influences of Phoenician and Anatolian intermediaries,
the emerging fascination with Egypt, and the Persian conquests in
Ionia make themselves felt in the poetry of Homer and his gods, in the
mythic foundations of Greek cults, and in the first steps toward
philosophy. A journey through the fluid borderlines of the Near East
and Europe, with new and shifting perspectives on the cultural
exchanges these produced, this book offers a clear view of the
multicultural field upon which the Greek heritage that formed Western
civilization first appeared.

# Hardcover: 192 pages
# Publisher: Harvard University Press (November 17, 2004)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0674014898