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Ancient Greek Civilization and Cultural D

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akritas View Drop Down
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  Quote akritas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Ancient Greek Civilization and Cultural D
    Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 17:01
As we know many "scholars" claim that the ancient Greeks adopted or "stollen" several cultural thinks from other civilizations(mainly Egyptian).As the "evidence" for the Greeks' Egyptian origins derives primarily from modern cultural aspirations and has virtually no foundation in historical fact.
The question of Greek cultural dependency is more complicated and in many ways more interesting.
There is no doubt that Greeks were influenced by other neighboring cultures during the whole course of antiquity.

The issue is rather:
What is meant by influence? In what respects?
And by which foreign cultures?
How large a role did Egypt-Phoinician-Pelasgian e.t.c. play in the development of Greek civilization ?
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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 17:10
I think the first thing we need to do in approaching this topic is not to have such a possessive attitude towards culture. It is not a question of one civilisation owning or stealing culture, but rather of a range of civilisations making advances, trading, exchanging and learning.

The Greeks made many important cultural contributions and likewise they were influenced by other cultures around them. Reading Herodotus, one can hardly ignore the claims made the large numbers of Phoenicians settled in the Aegean and it seems likely that this influx of such a seafaring people greatly influenced Greek skill in maritime trade and warfare. Herodotus also notes the close similarities between Greek and Egyptian religious practices, such as the sanctity of the temple and some commonalities in worship. We know from him also that the Greeks and Egyptians had engaged in dialogue and relations as early as the days of the Trojan War.

With regards to the Pelasgian role I am not too sure as these are a people of which my knowledge is quite limited. But Minoan culture should also be considered a contributor to Greek culture, their artistic styles and maritime culture may have been passed on to the mainland Greeks.
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  Quote akritas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 17:24
Constantine as you know several modern writers(e.g. afroeccentrists)  have rejected this complex model of influence because it assigns such a relatively modest role to the most prominent African civilization in the ancient Near East, that of Egypt. They argue that classicists have tended to overlook or to discount ancient accounts of the Egyptian legacy. Some even allege that the Greeks did not simply borrow, but actually stole their philosophy and science from Egypt. They argue that credit for this knowledge ought to be given back to Africa.
 
Classicists sholars  have always been interested in the quoted questions of my first post and have pursued all possible links. In general they belive that Greek sculpture was influenced by Egyptian sculpture,but that Greek language-poetry-myths and other aspects of their art were influenced by Near Eastern civilizations such as those of the Hittites and Phoenicians. On the basis of what is now known, classicists assume that foreign ideas and information came to the Greeks through nonviolent contact, especially trade as you quoted.

How accurate are these "writers" views about Greek cultural dependency ?



Edited by akritas - 01-Feb-2007 at 17:32
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  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 17:55

Originally posted by akritas



The issue is rather: 
And by which foreign cultures?

All cultures surrounding Ancient Greece, than medieval Greece, than modern Greece.
How large a role did Egypt-Phoinician-Pelasgian e.t.c. play in the
development of Greek civilization ?
 
Exactly the same as the role of Greek culture in influencing surrounding nations.
 
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  Quote Neoptolemos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 18:46
Originally posted by Anton


How large a role did Egypt-Phoinician-Pelasgian e.t.c. play in the
development of Greek civilization ?
 
Exactly the same as the role of Greek culture in influencing surrounding nations.
A rather qualitative question you managed to make it perfectly quantitative and answer it with precision. You must be a genius and/or know too much on the subject. Can you then tell to us that we don't know as much, what exactly is the role that Eg-Ph-Pelasgians played in the development of greek civilization/culture?
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  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 19:11
Originally posted by Neoptolemos

A rather qualitative question you managed to make it perfectly quantitative and answer it with precision. You must be a genius and/or know too much on the subject. Can you then tell to us that we don't know as much, what exactly is the role that Eg-Ph-Pelasgians played in the development of greek civilization/culture?
 
You must be much smarter than me and probably understand that questions you ask have no answer due to absence of available data. Some of them however are obvious - influence of Thracians on Ancient Greeks in religion, influence of Phoenician alphabeth on Greek alphabeth.
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  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 19:21
Being talantive enough you probably already look at modern examples of cultural exchanges between neighbouring and even distant nations. If you did that you found that there was no example of cultural influence of one nation on another without opposite influence of the second nation on first. Thinking a bit you will understand that there is no reason to expect that 3000 and more years ago rules of interaction between different people were different. And thus, Greeks influenced a lot other cultures being influenced by them as well.
 
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  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 19:31
And I will finish my posts be pathetic statement that culture and civilizations are not created by nations but by talantive and outstanding persons. God whatever His name is created them in all places of the world in all times. Some of them were Greeks. Especially those who created literary culture of ancient Greece to record not only their achievements but achievements of "Eg-Ph-Pelasgians ". All the details of authorships of these achievements will be just speculations.
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  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 20:20
Originally posted by akritas

Some even allege that the Greeks did not simply borrow, but actually stole their philosophy and science from Egypt. They argue that credit for this knowledge ought to be given back to Africa. 
 
Akritas, how could one steal a science? Only this statement of afrocentrists shows how inaccurate they are.
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  Quote Neoptolemos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 20:33
Anton, you posted this: "Exactly the same as the role of Greek culture in influencing surrounding nations." My point is that we shouldn't approach the issue from a quantitative perspective and say "you influenced them 150, they influenced you the, fair deal"... It leads the discussion to the wrong path. It's better to just give examples of how Egyptians, Phoenicians, Thracians and others [btw I meant no disrespect when I wrote "Eg-Ph-Pelasgians"] influenced ancient Greek culture, like Constantine did in his post and like the two examples that you posted.
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  Quote Anton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 21:31

OK, Neoptolemos, I agree with you. But in any case we should understand that we can only illustrate by examples whereas most details are lost.

Here is my point of view. It is not supported by any facts -- just matter of impression. And thus could easely be wrong.

I propose following following facts:

1. Greeks created literature and other form of fixing of human thoughts on a paper so that other can read, understand, use and develop them. It might not be even the first but definitely the basic. In ancient times literary culture was Greek and Latin. Afrocentrist may say whatever they want but we don't know much examples of african authors from those times.

2. Also my impression that their mind was sort of speak "numerical" and thus  nothing surprising to find people like Pythagoras and Ptolemeos in Greece. But this feature has bad side -- even beauty they tried to fix in numbers which in some cases was helpfull (f.e. in architecture) but not always. Thus I would agree that arts were more influenced by others. To my opinion the most beautiful art was Minoan. Note that Crete was much more close to Egypt than the rest part of Greece. Later, Greeks developed technical part but lost some "soul" in their art.  IMHO!!!
 
3. Clear influence could be found in beliefs of Greeks and influence of Thracian religion and required customs for that. Dyonisius and Orfeus were rather different from other Greeks Gods and tought people in different things. I would say they were more eastern than classical Greek gods. That is why it's a good question who tought whom -- Pythagoras tought Zamolxis or vice versa. I would suppose the opposite. But again both Zamolxis and Orfeus had been to Egypt so we could expect to find some origins of Orfic esoterism in Egypt.
4. Music was probably common Mediterranian product and here people influenced each other. But if we remember who were best opera singers of 20th century we can understand who played the first violin Wink Just kidding.


Edited by Anton - 02-Feb-2007 at 05:29
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  Quote Neoptolemos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Feb-2007 at 22:23
That's what I'm talking about!Smile
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  Quote akritas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2007 at 10:24
Anton just I want to add something in your last quote(that I agree with it).Diodorus Sikeliotis (book 3-11) briefly describes some of the problems he encountered:

We must make a distinction among historians, since many who have written about Egypt and Ethiopia have either believed false information or invented stories to attract readers, and thus may justifiably be distrusted. Most of what I have written has been taken from the accounts of Agatharchides of Knidios in the 2nd book of his history of Asia, and the compiler of geographies Artemidorus of Ephesus in his 8th book, and from some others who lived in Egypt-these have got it right in almost all respects. For when I was in Egypt myself, I met many priests, and I spoke with not a few emissaries from Ethiopia who were there at the time. I went over everything carefully with them, and tested what the historians told me and wrote my account to conform with what most of them agreed on.

Although the works of the historians Diodorus Sikeliotis  trusted are now lost at least he tells us that he began by studying the work of Greek writers. Clearly he made an effort to distinguish fiction from history. But he was not prepared to engage in what we would now think of as historical research.



Edited by akritas - 02-Feb-2007 at 10:26
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