The African Athena Controversy - Thesis Example

Another is that the lack of knowledge with regards to the ancient world puts historians inside a box with only plausible ideas looming overhead, not probabilities since everything is already in the past tense, and reconstructions are the only available options to build the events of past civilizations (Berlinerblau). However, those who contest the possibility of Phoenicians and even Egyptians influencing Pre-Hellenistic Greece argue that relying only on etymologies of the words found in the Greek language does not give enough justification but rather, it only reveals the patterns and the sphere of influence on the population in question (Lefkowitz).

Still, words are much the same as models, wherein they are seen as necessary symbols to represent a united representation of our reality (Bernal). Bernal’s Ancient Model regarding the origin of the ancient Greeks, or those of the Pre-Hellenistic culture states that there is an intermingling of Phoenicians and Egyptians long before the settling of the Aryan Race from the north, and that in this sense, the Pre-Hellenes or the Ancient Greeks were a race with strong Asian or Egyptian origins, and were eventually succeeded by the arrival of the Indo-Europeans or the “Aryans” (Bernal).

It is plausible because the Phoenicians were able to teach the alphabet to ancient Greeks, introducing a form of written language in the area, while the Egyptians taught them farming strategies, such as building irrigation systems to continually water the crops. The Egyptians would also be able to teach the Ancient Greeks about their gods, the names as well as how to worship them, since Egyptians have a long and solid history with regards to religion and the occult. With such a premise, Bernal was able to further provide readers an idea of his premise that there are indeed Semitic and African elements in the formation of the cultures of Pre-Hellenistic or Ancient Greeks