Preface and Acknowledgments
Alphabet notation and phonetic values ​​of ancient characters
Maps and charts
Timeline

introduction
Chapter 1: Ancient Models of the Ancient Period
Chapter 2: Egyptian Wisdom and Its Transmission by the Greeks, from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance
Chapter 3: Egypt's Victory, the 17th and 18th Centuries
Chapter 4 Hostility to Egypt, 18th Century
Chapter 5: Romantic Linguistics: The Rise of India and the Fall of Egypt, 1740–1880
Chapter 6: The Hellenic Craze 1: The Decline of the Ancient Model, 1790–1830
Chapter 7: Hellenism 2: The Transition of New Learning to Britain and the Rise of the Aryan Model, 1830–1860
Chapter 8: The Rise and Fall of the Phoenicians, 1830–1885
Chapter 9: The Final Solution of the Phoenician Question, 1880–1945
Chapter 10: The Postwar Situation: Returning to the Broad Aryan Model, 1945–1985
conclusion

Appendix_Were the Philistines Greeks?

annotation
A small dictionary for reading 『Black Athena』
Translator Oh Heung-sik's commentary and review, from the book "Black Athena"
References
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* Why is the book “Black Athena” problematic?

"Black Athena," which shook up the Western historical world and generated much controversy, has been translated and published in Korea after 20 years.
In fact, globalization is nothing more than Europeanization or Westernization on a global scale.
However, there was no fundamental question raised about whether Western civilization, led by the United States, had the historical qualifications to lead globalization.
Has the history of Europe, as explained by Europe, or the history of the West, as verified by the West, truly been properly verified? Or is it merely a self-hypnotic historical narrative, common sense and enforced under the guise of scientific positivism?

Let's open a high school world history book.
Modern or universal values ​​such as democracy, philosophy, science, and humanism have been taught and learned to this day as a new flowering of European civilization after the Middle Ages, restoring the Hellenism of ancient Greece.
In other words, the root of the universality of Western civilization lies in the reintegration of the originality and excellence of Greek civilization into the modern values ​​of science and progress, and the global spread of that culture is the positive direction of historical progress.
In other words, it is a law of historical development that this Earth is following the path of Europeanization or Westernization, and its root is the framework of Greek civilization.
This basic framework makes no distinction between Western left and right.


* Why did Herodotus write that Egypt was the root of Greek culture?

However, Herodotus, who is called the father of history, clearly wrote that the roots of his (Greek) civilization were in the East.
In particular, it is confessed that the Egyptians colonized Greece, which led to the establishment of a Greek state, and that the Phoenicians introduced writing, which led to the establishment of a culture.
Not only Herodotus but also many other Greek writers tell this story.
In other words, it was recorded at the risk of national shame(?) that the cultural ancestors of Greece were Eastern civilizations such as Egypt and Phoenicia.
Are these ancient records really the ravings of lunatics?


* What happened in Europe in the 1820s?

The story told by author Martin Bernal is truly shocking.
Until the 1820s, it was common knowledge among Europeans that Greek civilization had been established under the direct influence of Eastern civilization.
(Bernall details how European views on Egyptian civilization evolved from the Hellenistic period onward.) In other words, Egyptian civilization continued to be revered as being older than Greek civilization and therefore a superior civilization that the Greeks took as their teacher.


However, by the 1820s, this perception of the East was dramatically overturned.
Why? The 1820s was the period when the so-called Metternich reactionary regime was established.
The French Revolution of 1789 had a tremendous impact on Europe.
The European monarchies were appalled by the popular character of the French Revolution and began to seek ways to avoid this historical development.
A return to the Christian state of the Middle Ages was no longer a possible path.
However, it was not possible to follow the path of the French Revolution.
A third way was needed.
Bernal emphasizes that the alternative that emerged here was the path to modernizing Hellenism based on Greek studies that had developed since the Renaissance.


* A Counter-Revolutionary Invention: Classical Hellenistic Civilization Becomes a Myth

The path forward for Europe was now a third way, embracing Greek Hellenism on the basis of medieval Christian Hebraism.
This was the only way to save the endangered ruling classes of Europe.
The specific measures were an emphasis on humanism centered on humans rather than on God, an emphasis on classical education and philosophy, and an emphasis on science and positivism.
But there was one stumbling block.
It is now a difficult story to say that Greece, which should be the father of modern European civilization, established its civilization under the influence of Egypt and Phoenicia in the East.


But what about the countless records of Eastern transmissions, including those of Herodotus? The methods of European classicists were surprisingly simple and decisive.
Through the modern technique of source criticism, these records are made into unreliable or insufficient myths.
Furthermore, it is about reconstructing past history by selecting only those things that suit one's taste.
This is so-called positivism.
(That's why Bernal uses the term ancient tradition instead of Greek mythology.
Some of the legends claim to be historical facts.
According to Bernal's interpretation, Hercules is not a divine being, but a descendant of a royal family of Egyptian descent.) This is how Greco-Roman mythology was born, according to author Martin Bernal.



* The birth of a great Aryan race destined to rule the colonies

There were also more realistic and external reasons.
This was a time when European colonialism was reaching its peak and the racism that underpinned it was being perfected.
What was the basis for Europe's colonization and domination of the world? It was, of course, the superiority of the European race.
Thus, the world is divided into the European race, chosen by God, and the non-European race, which was not chosen by God.
Or, they are classified into three races: white, yellow, and black, depending on their superiority.


It became impossible for Greece, the cultural ancestor of the superior Europeans, to be descendants of the African nation of Egypt.
It was the collective responsibility of so-called European positivist history to clothe these racial prejudices in the garb of science.
Modern European classical studies, which began at the University of Göttingen, waved the magic wand of science and progress and put all of Europe under mass hypnosis.
European superiority has now secured its place as an objective historical truth.
(What is more comical and tragic is that the magic of science and progress became the religion of the colonial intellectuals, the scapegoats of Europe.)


* When interpreting world history from a subjective standpoint

Despite the tragic culmination of European colonialism and racism in the First and Second World Wars and the Holocaust, Martin Bernal accuses the West of failing to reframe its historical self-image.
The author argues that:
“The political purpose of ‘Black Athena’ is to reduce European cultural arrogance.” Furthermore, the author argues that we must return to the ancient model that ancient Greek civilization was established under the influence of Egypt and Phoenicia.
It is necessary to liquidate the Aryan model, which manipulated ancient history and created a bloody history of colonialism and racism.
Finally, an explanation of the book's title may be necessary.
The goddess Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, the city-state representing ancient Greece, was originally an Egyptian goddess (goddess Neith).
So, it would be correct to call her the Black Athena Goddess.
Author Martin Bernal provides detailed evidence of the collective crime of European historiography in manipulating the black goddess Athena into a white goddess, using linguistic, archaeological, and symbolic data.