ANCIENT EGYPT : The impact of Ancient Egypt on Greek philosophy : Memphite & Theban

thought

Hermes the Egyptian

the impact of Ancient Egypt on Greek Philosophy

against Hellenocentrism, against Afrocentrism
in defence of the Greek Miracle

Section 1
the influence of Egyptian thought on
Thales, Anaximander & Pythagoras

Section 2
Alexandro-Egyptian Hellenism & Hermetism

by Wim van den Dungen

Introduction
Section 1
the influence of Egyptian thought on
Thales, Anaximander & Pythagoras

1 Egypt between the end of the New Kingdom and the rise of Naukratis.
1.1 The political situation in the Third Intermediate Period.
1.2 A few remarks concerning the Late Period.
1.3 Greek trade, recontacting & settling in Egypt.
2 Greece before Pharaoh Amasis.
2.1 Short history of Ancient Greece.
2.2 The invention of the "phoinike�a" for both vowels & consonants.
2.3 Archaic Greek literature, religion & architecture.
3 Memphite thought and the birth of Greek philosophy.
3.1 The origin of Greek philosophy : Thales, Anaximander & the
colonizations.
3.2 The Stela of Pharaoh Shabaka and Greek philosophy.
3.3 Pythagoras of Samos : the mystery of the holy & sacred decad.
3.4 The Greek pyramidion or the completion of Ancient thought.
Section 2
Alexandro-Egyptian Hellenism & Hermetism

4 The Greeks in Egypt.

4.1 Egyptian civilization after the New Kingdom.
4.2 The Ptolemaic Empire
4.3 Elements of the pattern of exchange between Egyptian and Greek
culture.
4.4 Religious syncretism & stellar fatalism.
5 The Alexandrian "religio mentis" called "Hermetism".
5.1 Formative elements of Hermetism.
5.2 "Nous" and the Hellenization of the divine triads.
5.3 The influence of Alexandrian Hermetism.
5.4 Crucial differences between Hermes and Christ.

Introduction
The direct influence of Ancient Egyptian literature on Archaic Greece has
never been fully acknowledged. Greek philosophy (in particular of the
Classical Period) has -especially since the Renaissance- been understood
as an excellent standard sprung out of the genius of the Greeks, the Greek
miracle. Hellenocentrism was and still is a powerful view, underlining the
intellectual superiority of the Greeks and hence of all cultures
immediately linked with this Graeco-Roman heritage, such as (Alexandrian)
Judaism, (Eastern) Christianity but also Islam (via Harran and the
translators). Only recently, and thanks to the critical-historical
approach, have scholars reconsidered Greek Antiquity, to discover the
"other" side of the Greek spirit, with its popular Dionysian and elitist
Orphic mysteries, mystical schools (Pythagoras), chorals, lyric poetric,
drama, proze and tragedies.

Nietzsche, who noticed the recuperation of Late Hellenism by the

Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, simplistically divided the Greek
spirit into two antagonistic tendencies : the Apollinic versus the
Dionysian. For him, Apollo was a metaphor for the eternalizing ideas, for
the mummification of life by concepts, good examples and a life
"hereafter", "beyond" or "out there". Dionysius was the will to live in
the present so fully & intensely as possible, experiencing the "edge" of
life and making an ongoing choice for that selfsame life, without using a
model that fixated existence in differentiating categories. A life here
and now, immanent and this-life.

And what about Judaism ? The author(s) of the Torah avoided the
confrontation with the historical fact that Moses, although a Jew, was
educated as an Egyptian, and identified Pharaoh with the Crocodile, who
wants all things for himself. However, the Jews of the Septuagint, the
Second Temple and the Sacerdotal Dynasties were thoroughly Hellenized, and
they translated "ALHYM" (Elohim) as "Theos", thereby confusing Divine
bi-polarity (kept for the initiates). It is precisely this influence of
Greek thought on Judaism which triggered the emergence of revolutionary
sects (cf. Qumran), solitary desert hermits and spirito-social
communities, seeking to restore the "original" identity of the Jewish
nation, as it had been embodied under Solomon (and the first temple), and
turned against the Great Sanhedrin of the temple of Jeruzalem.

Ancient Egyptian civilization was so grand, imposing and strong, that its
impact on the Greeks was tremendous. In order to try to understand what
happened when these two cultures met, we must first sketch the situation
of both parties. This will allow us to make sound correspondences.

"Herodotus and other Greeks of the fifth century BC recognized that Egypt
was different from other 'barbarian' countries. All people who did not
speak Greek were considered barbarians, with features that the Greeks
despised. They were either loathsome tyrants, devious magicians, or dull
and effeminate pleasure-seeking individuals. But Egypt had more to offer ;
like India, it was full of old and venerable wisdom."
Matthews & Roemer, 2003, pp.11-12.

What exactly did the Greeks incorporate when visiting Egypt ? They surely
witnessed (at the earliest in ca. 570 BCE, when Naukratis became the
channel through which all Greek trade was required to flow by law) the
extremely wealthy Egyptian state at work and may have participated, in
particular in the areas they were allowed to travel, in the popular
festivals and feasts happening everywhere in Egypt (the Egyptians found
good religious reasons to feast with an average of once every five days).
In his Timaeus (21-23), Plato (428/427 - 348/347 BCE) testified the
Egyptian priests of Sais of Pharaoh Amasis (570 - 526 BCE) saw the Greeks
as young souls, children who had received language only recently and who
did not keep written records of any of their venerated (oral) traditions.
In the same passage of the Timaeus, Plato acknowledges the Egyptians seem
to speak in myth, "although there is truth in it." According to a story
told by Diogenius Laertius (in his The Lives of the Philosophers, Book
VIII), Plato bought a book from a Pythagorean called Philolaus when he
visited Sicily for 40 Alexandrian Minae of silver. From it, he copied the
contents of the Timaeus ... The Greeks, and this is the hypothesis we are
set to prove, linearized major parts of the Ancient Egyptian
proto-rational mindset. Alexandrian Hermetism was a Hellenistic blend of
Egyptian traditions, Jewish lore and Greek, mostly Platonic, thought.

Later, the influence of Ptolemaic Alexandria on all spiritual traditions

of the Mediterranean would become unmistaken. On this point, I agree with
Bernal in his controversial Black Athena (1987).

"In the first place we find the survival of Egyptian religion both within
Christianity and outside it in heretical sects like those of the Gnostics,
and in the Hermetic tradition that was frankly pagan. Far more widespread
than these direct continuations, however, was the general admiration for
Ancient Egypt among the educated elites. Egypt, though subordinated to the
Christian and biblical traditions on issues of religion and morality, was
clearly placed as the source of all 'Gentile' or secular wisdom. Thus no
one before 1600 seriously questioned either the belief that Greek
civilization and philosophy derived from Egypt, or that the chief ways in
which they had been transmitted were through Egyptian colonizations of
Greece and later Greek study in Egypt."
Bernal, 1987, p.121, my italics.

Recently, Bernal has advocated a "Revised Ancient Model". According to

this, the "glory that is Greece", the Greek Miracle, is the product of an
extravagant mixture. The culture of Greece is somehow the outcome of
repeated outside influence.

"Thus, I argue for the establishment of a 'Revised Ancient Model'.

According to this, Greece has received repeated outside influence both
from the east Mediterranean and from the Balkans. It is this extravagant
mixture that has produced this attractive and fruitful culture and the
glory that is Greece."
Bernal, in O'Connor & Reid, 2003, p.29.

Bernal apparently forgets that Greek recuperation is also an overtaking of

ante-rationality by rationality, a leaving behind of the earlier stage of
cognitive development (namely mythical, pre-rational and proto-rational
thought). The Greeks had superior thought, and this "sui generis". Hence,
Greek civilization cannot be seen as the outcome of an extravagant
mixture. The mixture was there because the Greeks were curious and open.
They linearized the grand cultures of their day, and Egypt had been the
greatest and oldest culture.

"Most of the names of the gods may have arrived in Greece from Egypt, but
by Herodotus' own day, as a result of receiving gods from other peoples
(Poseidon from the Libyans, other gods from the Pelasgians and so on), the
Greeks have clearly overtaken the Egyptians in their knowledge of the
gods, if they have not indeed discovered all the gods worth discovering."
Harrison, in Matthews & Roemer, 2003, p.153.
On the one hand, Greek thinking successfully escaped from the contextual
and practical limitations imposed by an ante-rational cognitive apparatus
unable to work with an abstract concept, and hence unable to root its
conceptual framework in the "zero-point", which serves as the beginning of
the normation "here and now" of all possible coordinate-axis, which all
run through it (cf. transcendental logic). The mental space liberated by
abstraction, discursive operations and formal laws was "rational", and
involved the symbolization of thought in formal structures (logic,
grammar), coherent (if not consistent) semantics (linguistic & technical
sciences) and efficient pragmatics (administration, politics,
socio-economics, rhetorics).

Because of the Greek miracle of abstraction, rationality and

ante-rationality were distinguished, equating the latter with the
"barbaric" (i.e. coming from "outside" Greece and its colonies) or seeking
the inner meaning of Egyptian religion (i.e. the wise men who studied in
Egypt and later the infiltration of Greeks in the administrative, scribal
class). Although the inner sanctum of the temples of Ptah, Re and Amun
must have remained closed (excepts perhaps for exceptional Greeks like
Pythagoras), the Greeks adapted to and rapidly assimilated Egyptian
culture and its environment.

"In addition to the tangible exchange of objects and good, from the time
of Solon there appears to have been a certain kind of abstract
intellectual contact. There survive a growing number of works written in
Greek which demonstrate some measure of familiarity with Egypt and
Egyptian thought or at least claim to have been influenced by them. The
list of authors of such works is impressive : Solon, Hecataeus of Miletus,
Herodotus, Euripides and Plato to name only the best known."
La'ada, in Matthews & Roemer, 2003, p.158.

On the other hand, the Greeks had no written traditions and so no

extensive treasurehouse of ante-rational, efficient knowledge (no logs).
They had no libraries like the Egyptians. In their Dark Age, literacy had
dropped dramatically and only in Ionia and Athens could pieces of Mycen�an
culture be detected. The old language (Linear B) was lost. At the
beginning of the so-called Archaic Period (starting ca.700 BCE), the
Greeks could not erect temples, had a new alphabet adapted from the
Phoenicians, no literature and very likely an oral culture, containing
legends, stories about the deities and grand, heroic deeds (such as
recorded by Homer & Hesiod, ca.750 BCE).

When their abstracting, eager and young minds got in touch with the age
old cultural activity of the Egyptians, the encounter was very fertile,
enabling the Greeks to develop their own intellectual & technological
skills, and move beyond the various examples of Egyptian ingenuity. They
were able to deduce abstract "laws" (major), allowing for connections to
be made beyond the borders of context and action (minor) and the
application of the general to the particular (conclusion). Moreover, the
rich cosmogonies of Egyptian myth, the transcendent qualities of Pharaoh,
the moral depth of Egypt's sapiental discourses and the importance of
verbalization in the Memphite and Hermopolitan schools were readapted and
incorporated into Greek philosophy, as so many other connotations and
themes, adapted by their Greek authors to their Helladic taste.

This complex interaction between Greeks and Egyptians before and under the
Ptolemies, allowed Alexandria to become a major intellectual centre, home
of native Egyptians, Greek priests & scientists, Jewish scholars, Essenes
and Hermetics alike. It continued to be influential until the final
curtain came down on it in 642 CE, when general Amr Ibn Al As conquered
Egypt for Caliph Omar, the second of the Islam's Four Pillar Caliphs. And
so nearly nine hundred years of Graeco-Roman suzerainty had come to an
end.

Section 1
The influence of Egyptian thought on
Thales, Anaximander & Pythagoras

1. Egypt between the end of the New Kingdom and the rise of Naukratis.
1.1 The political situation in the Third Intermediate Period.
Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1075 - 664 BCE) : Dynasties XXI - XXV
Late Period (664 BCE - 332 BCE) : Dynasties XXVI - XXX
Ptolemaic Period (305 - 30 BCE)
Roman & Byzantine Period (30 BCE - 642 CE)
The "golden" New Kingdom ended (ca.1075 BCE) with a weak Pharaoh.
Politically, we witness a clear division between the North (Tanis) and the
South (Thebes). Theologically, "Amun is king" ruled, and so Egypt was a
theocracy (headed by the military). In the period which followed, the
Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1075 - 664 BCE), Nubia and the eastern
desert were lost again (as well as the northern "Asiatic" regions). At the
end of this period and for the first time since 3000 BCE, Egypt lost its
independence.

The last Pharaoh of the New Kingdom, Ramesses XI (ca. 1104 -1075 BCE) had
been unable to halt the internal collapse of the kingdom, which had
already filled the relatively long reign of Ramesses IX (ca. 1127 - 1108
BCE). Tomb robberies (in the Theban necropolis) were now discovered at
Karnak. Famine, conflicts and military dictatorship were the outcome of
this degeneration. With the death of Ramesses XI, the "golden age" of
Ancient Egyptian civilization had formally come to a close.

Dynasty XXI, founded by Pharaoh Smendes (ca. 1075 - 1044 BCE), formally
maintained the unity of the Two Lands. But his origins are obscure. He was
related by marriage to the royal family. In the North (Tanis) as well as
in Thebes, Amun theology reigned (the name of Amun was even written in a
cartouche), but in practice, the Thebaid was ruled by the high priest of
Amun. The daughter of Psusennes I (ca. 1040 - 990 BCE), called Maatkare,
was the first "Divine Adoratice" or "god's wife", i.e. the spouse of
Amun-Re, the "king of the gods". She inaugurated a "Dynasty" of 12 Divine
Adoratices, ruling the "domain of the Divine Adoratrice" at Thebes, until
the Persian invision of 525 BCE.

From the XXIII Dynasty onward, the status of the "god's wife" began to
approach that of Pharaoh himself, and in the XXVth Dynasty these woman
appeared in greater prominence on monuments, with their names written in
royal cartouches. They could even celebrate the Sed-festival, only
attested for Pharaoh ! All this points to a radically changed conception
of kingship, which became a political function (safeguarding unity)
deprived of its former "religious" grandure and importance (Pharaoh as
"son of Re", living in Maat). Indeed, all was in the hands of Amun and
Amun's wife was able to divine the god's wish and will ...

Stone sculpture on a grand scale was rare. But work of unparalleled beauty
& excellence was made on a modest scale (metal, faience). But in the North
(Tanis), matter were not univocal either. Libyan tribal chieftains had
been indispensable to the the Tanite kings, but with Pharaoh Psusennes II
(ca. 960 - 945 BCE), they lost their power to them ...

With Dynasty XXII ("Bubastids" or "Libyan"), founded by the Libyan

Shoshenq I (ca. 945 - 924 BCE), Egypt came under the rule of its former
"Aziatic" enemies. However, these Libyans had been assimilating Egyptian
culture and customs for already several generations now, and so the royal
house of Bubastid did not differ much from native Egyptian kingship,
although Thebes hesitated. After the reign of Osorkon II (ca. 874 - 850
BCE), a steady decline set in. In Dynasty XXIII (ca. 818 - 715 BCE), the
house of Bubastids split into two branches.

In the middle of the 8th century BCE, a new political power appeared in
the extreme South. It had for some generations been building up an
important kingdom from their center at Napata at the 4th cataract. These
"Ethiopians" (actually Upper Nubians) felt to be Egyptians in culture and
religion (they worshipped Amun and had strong ties with Thebes). The first
king of this Kushite kingdom was Kashta, who initiated Dynasty XXV, or
"Ethiopian", characterized by the revival of archaic Old Kingdom forms
(cf. Shabaka Stone) and the return of the traditional funerary practices.
Indeed, because they possessed the gold-reserves of Nubia, they were able
to adorn empoverished Egypt with formidable wealth.

Piye (ca. 740 - 713 BCE), probably Kashta's eldest son, was crowned in the
temple of Amun at Gebel Barkal (the traditional frontier between Upper
Egypt and Lower Nubia), as "Horus, Mighty Bull, arising in Napata". He
went to Thebes to be acknowledged there. After having consolidated his
position in Upper Egypt, Piye returned to Napata (cf. "Victory Stela" at
Gebel Barkal).

At the same time, in Lower Egypt, a future opponent, the Libyan Tefnakhte
ruled the entire western Delta, with as capital Sais (city of the goddess
Neit, one of the patrons of kingship). Near Sais were also the cities of
Pe and Dep (Buto), of mythological importance since the earliest periods
of Egyptian history, and cult centre of the serpent goddess Wadjet, the
Ur�us protecting Pharaoh's forehead. When the rulers of Thebes asked for
help, Piye's armies moved northwards. When he sent messengers ahead to
Memphis with offers of peace, they closed the gates for him and sent out
an army against him. Piye returned victoriously to Napata, contenting
himself with the formal recognition of his power over Egypt, and never
went to Egypt again. But the anarchic disunity of the many petty Delta
states remained unchanged.

Pharaoh Shabaka (ca. 712 - 698 BC), this black African "Ethiopian", also a
son of Kashta, was the first Kushite king to reunite Egypt by defeating
the monarchy of Sais and establishing himself in Egypt. Shabaka, who
figures in Graeco-Roman sources as a semi-legendary figure, settled the
renewed conflicts between Kush and Sais and was crowned Pharaoh in Egypt,
with his Residence and new seat of government in Memphis. Pharaoh Shabaka
modelled himself and his rule upon the Old Kingdom.

The first Assyrian king who turned against Egypt -that had so often
supported the small states of Palestine against this powerful new world
order- was Esarhaddon (ca. 681 - 669 BCE). For him, the Delta states were
natural allies, for -in his view- they had reluctantly accepted the rule
of the Ethiopians. Between 667 and 666 BCE, his successor Assurbanipal
conquered Egypt (Thebes was sacked in 663 BCE) and this Assyrian king
placed Pharaoh Necho I (ca. 672 - 664) on the throne of Egypt. With him,
the Late Period was initiated.
Conclusion :

In the Third Intermediate Period, or post-Imperial Era, we witness the

decentralization of Egypt, and the reemergence of new divisions, either
between Tanis and Thebes or between Sais and Napata. After the XXIth
Dynasty, the former "enemies of Egypt" ruled, i.e. the Libyans and Nubians
(both used as mercenaries at the beginning of the New Kingdom).

However, we cannot say these fully egyptianized Libyan or Ethiopian rulers

destroyed Egyptian culture, quite on the contrary. They were proud to
stand at the head of Egypt, to prove to the traditional pantheon that
their rule favored them and they Egypt (so that the deities of Egypt would
remember them). Indeed, just before and after the Assyrian conquest,
Dynastic Rule was characterized by a revival of archaic Egyptian forms.
The extraordinary wealth of Egypt was monumentalized on a grand scale by
artist and architects who were also state-funded archeologists of Egyptian
culture. They studied the papyri in the various "Houses of Life" and
rediscovered the old canon. They copied "worm-eaten" documents to make
them better than before. For in their minds, the Solar Pharaohs of old
were the true foundation of Egyptian Statehood (Old Kingdom nostalgia can
also be found in the New Kingdom).

1.2 A few remarks concerning the Late Period.

The XXVIth or "Saite" Dynasty (664 - 525 BCE) installed by Assurbanipal,

allowed for the resurgence of Egypt's unity and power. Necho I was killed
by the Nubians in 664 BCE and his son Psammetichus I (664 - 610 BCE) was
an able stateman. He was trusted by the Assyrians and left alone by the
"Ethiopians". Because the Assyrians could not maintain their military
presence in Egypt, Pharaoh was able to reunite Egypt. He immediately
revitalized the Egyptian form by relying on the vast cultural heritage and
its recorded memory. A short renaissance saw the light. And also in this
period, the Greeks recontacted the Egyptians for the first time since
generations. Carians and Ionians were enlisted by Pharaoh, who made his
scribes study Greek.

"Saitic Egypt, with her turning back to the great pharaonic times and her
consciousness of a great cultural past, the memory of which reaches back
to a time long forgotten ("Saitic Renaissance", Assmann, 2000), is seen as
the teacher of knowledge and wisdom, for she is recognized for her old age
and for her wisdom that derives from that antiquity. It seems to be
especially this "cultural memory" (Assmann, 2000) of Saitic Egypt that
determines the image of Egypt in later Greek generations."
Matthews & Roemer, 2003, pp.14.

The Saite Dynasty sought to maintain the great heritage of the Egyptian
past. Ancient works were copied and mortuary cults were revived. Demotic
became the accepted form of cursive script in the royal chanceries. These
Pharaohs focused on keeping Egypt's frontiers secure, and moved far into
Asia, even further than the New Kingdom rulers Thutmose I and III.

When Cyrus the Great of Persia ascended the throne in 559 BCE, Pharaoh
Ahmose II or Amasis (570 - 526 BCE) was left with no other option than to
cultivate close relations with Greek states to prepare Egypt for the
Persian invasion of 525. The latter led to the defeat and capture of
Psammetichus III (526 - 525) by Cambyses (who died in 522 BCE).

Under Persian rule (525 - 404 BCE), Egypt became a satrapy of the Persian
Empire. The Persians left the Egyptian administration in place, but some
of their rulers, like Cambyses and later Xerxes (486 - 465 BCE)
disregarded temple privilege. The gods and their priests were humiliated.
Only Darius I (522 - 486 BCE) displayed some regard for the native
religion. When Darius II died (404 BCE), a Libyan, Amyrtaios of Sais, led
an uprising and again Egypt would enjoy a relatively long period of
independence under "native" rulers, the last of which being Pharaoh
Nektanebo II (360 - 343 BCE).

A second Persian invasion (343 BCE) ended these short Dynasties (28, 29 &
30, between 404 - 343 BCE). But with Alexander the Great (entering Egypt
in December 332 BCE), Egypt came under Macedonian rule. The Greeks
respected Egypt and its gods and Greek communities had been living there
for generations. In 305, the Ptolemaic Empire was initiated (it ended in
30 BCE). Mass immigration happened : Greeks, Macedonians, Thracians,
Jews, Arabs, Mysians and Syrians settled in Egypt, attracted by the
prospect of employment, land and economic opportunity. Foreign slaves and
prisoners of war were brought to Egypt by the new rulers.

Between 30 BCE and 642 CE, Egypt was ruled by the Romans and the
Byzantines, before it became Islamic as it still is today.

1.3 Greek trading, recontacting & settling in Egypt.

Old Kingdom Egypt used mercenaries in military expeditions. Nubians

settled in the late VIth Dynasty in the southernmost nome of Elephantine
and were employed in border police units.

"Contact with Minoan Crete and the Mycenaean Greeks is well attested. The
image of Egypt is already firmly established in the Homeric poems and a
plethora of Egyptian artefacts has been unearthed in Greece, the Aegean
and even in western Greek colonies such as Cumae and Pithecusa in Italy
from as early as the eighth century."
La'ada, in Matthews & Roemer, 2003, p.158.

The presence of Libyans and Nubians is attested in the armies of Pharaohs

Kamose and Ahmose at the start of the New Kingdom. An alliance between the
Hyksos Dynasty and the Minoans existed.

"In return for protecting the sea approaches to Egypt, the Minoans might
have secured harbour facilities and access to those precious commodities
(especially gold) for which Egypt was famous in the outside world."
Bietak, M., 1996, p.81.

With Pharaoh Ahmose (ca. 1539 - 1292 BCE), Minoan culture enters Egyptian
history. Indeed, in the aftermath of the sack of Avaris (Tell el-Dab'a -
ca. 1540 BCE), the capital of the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period
(ca. 1759 - 1539 BCE), the fortifications and palace of the last Hyksos
king (Khamudi) were systematically destroyed. Pharaoh Ahmose replaced them
with short lived buildings reconstructed from foundations and fragments of
wall paintings of the ruins. The fragments were found in dumps to level
the fortifications & palatial structures of Ahmose. These paintings were
Minoan !

Their presence, 100 years earlier than the first representations of

Cretans in Theban tombs and earlier than the surviving frescos at Knossos,
whose naturalistic subject matter they share, shows the cultural links
between Crete and Egypt (before and after the sack of Avaris). These
frescos seem to owe little to Egyptian tradition and serve a ritual
purpose : bull-leapers, acrobats and the motives of the bull's head and
the labyrinth point to Early Cretan religion.

As a small amount of Minoan Kamares ware pottery was found in XIIIth

Dynasty strata (Middle Kingdom), it is not impossible Egyptian artistic
style influenced Crete as far back as the Old Kingdom (jewels). These
early periods do not evidence the systematic immigration of Greeks. The
links between Greece and Egypt, as with many other nations, were probably
foremost economical.

We know Pharaoh Psammetichus I (664 - 610 BCE) employed Carian and Ionian
mercenaries in his efforts to strengthen his authority (ca. 658 BCE)
against the Assyrians. He also put some boys into the charge of the
Greeks, and their learning of the language was the origin of the class of
Egyptian interpreters, and the "regular intercourse with the Egyptians"
began. He allowed Milesians to settle in Upper Egypt (not far from the
capital Sais). This was the first time Greeks were allowed to stay in
Egypt.

"With the enrollment of Greek mercenaries into his service, Egypt became
more important from the Greeks' point of view than the ruined cities of
Syria."
Burkert, W., 1992, p.14.

It is Herodotus who, in his Histories, informs us that camps

("stratopeda") were established between Bubastis and the sea on the
Pelusiac branch of the Nile. They were occupied without a break for over a
century until these Greek mercenaries were moved to Memphis at the
beginning of the reign of Pharaoh Ahmose II or "Amasis" (570 - 526 BCE).
They were reintroduced in the area at a later stage to counter the growing
menace of Persia (525 BCE).

The Greek inscription found on the leg of one of the colossi at Abu
Simbel, indeed indicates that mercenaries, under Egyptian command, formed
one of two corps in the army, whose supreme commander was also an
Egyptian. Under Pharaoh Apries (589 - 570 BCE), there was a revolt of
mercenaries at Elephantine ... Because the Ionians and Carians were also
active in piracy, the Egyptians were forced to restrict the immigration of
Greeks, punishing infringement by the sacrifice of the victim.

Herodotus (II.177,1) also comments that during Pharaoh Amasis, Egypt

attained its highest level of prosperity both in respect to crops and the
number of inhabited cities (indeed, an estimated 3 million people lived in
Egypt). It was under this Pharaoh that the Greeks were allowed to move
beyond the coast of Lower Egypt. Trade was encouraged and the sources,
mostly Greek, refer to trading stations such as "The Wall of the
Milesians", and "Islands" bearing names as Ephesus, Chios, Lesbos, Cyprus
and Samos.

A lot of Greek centres emerged, but the best-documented trading centre was
Naukratis on the Canopic branch of the Nile not far from Sais and with
excellent communications. It was founded by Milesians between 650 - 610
BCE (under Pharaoh Psammetichus I). From ca. 570 BCE, all Greek trade had
to move through Naukratis by law. So, before the end of the 6th century
BCE, the Greeks had their own colony in Egypt. The travels of individual
Greeks to Egypt for the purpose of their education, as well as Greek
immigration to Kemet, the "black" land, is usually dated at the time of
the Persian invasion (525 BCE). However, it can not be excluded that
Pharaoh Psammetichus I allowed Greek intelligentsia to study in Memphis.
Summarizing Greece/Egypt chronology (all dates BCE) :
ca.2600 : Neolithic Crete : first sporadic contacts with Old Kingdom
Egypt (Dynasty IV) ;
ca.1700 : neopalatial Minoan Crete : Mediterranean network of artistic
and iconographic exchange, communication between Minoan high culture and
Egypt (XIIIth Dynasty) ;
ca.1530 : Hyksos ruins in Minoan style (Avaris) are used by Pharaoh
Ahmose I ;
ca. 670 : Pharaoh Psammetichus I initiated the study of Greek, employed
Greek mercenaries against the Assyrians, set up a camp that stayed in
the western Delta and allowed the Miletians to found Neukratis ;
570 : under Pharaoh Ahmose II (Amasis) the Greeks were allowed to travel
beyond the western Delta - Neukratis became an exclusive Greek trading
centre complete with Greek temples. He cultivated close relations with
Greek states to help him against the impending Persian onslaught ;
525 : Egypt a satrapy of the Persia empire, start of a more pronounced
Greek immigration to Egypt ;
332 : Egypt invaded & plundered by the Macedonians ;
305 : Egypt ruled by Greek Pharaohs ;
30 : death of Queen Cleopatra VII, the last Egyptian ruler.

2. Greece before Pharaoh Amasis (before 570 BCE).

2.1 Short history of Ancient Greece.

The earliest traces of habitation on Crete belong to the 7th millenium

BCE. Continuous Neolithic habitation have been noted at Knossos from the
middle of the fifth millenium BCE. Towards the middle of the 3th millenium
BCE (ca. 2600 BCE) a peaceful immigration took place, probably from Asia
Minor and Africa, introducing the Bronze Age to Crete. Before establishing
a list of historical parallels, let us summarize the evolution of Ancient
Greek culture as follows (all dates BCE) :
Minoan Crete (ca. 2600 - 1150) : This period is subdivided on the basis
of the pottery or the rebuilding of the palaces.

The Palatial Chronology is :

prepalatial (ca. 2600 - 1900) : The arrival of new racial elements in

Crete brought the use of bronze and strongly built houses of stone and
brick with a large number of rooms and paved courtyards, with a varied
pottery of many styles - society was organized in "clans" ("genos"), and
farming, stock-raising, shipping and commerce were developed to a
systematic level - the appearance of figurines of the Mother Goddess -
Egyptian influence at work in golden & ivory jewels ;
protopalatial (ca. 1900 - 1730) : Centralization of power in the hands
of kings, and the first large palace centres with wide cultural
influence : Knossos, Phaestos, Malia and Zakros (and there must have
been more) - production of very fine vases or vessels of stone and
faience, sealstones of precious or semi-precious stones, elegant weapons
& tools - the emergence of naturalistic hieroglyphic and dynamic scenes
- the pantheon has the Great Goddess as its main element as well as the
use of sacred symbols such as the sacred horns and the double axe -
society is hierarchical and contacts with the outside world become
frequent - hieroglyphic script (derived from Egyptian models ?)
developed into Linear A (late protopalatial) - a terrible disaster,
perhaps caused by earthquakes, destroyed the first palace centres ca.
1730 BCE ;
neopalatial (ca. 1730 - 1380) : Minoan civilization reached its zenith
with the reconstruction of more magnificient palaces on the ruins of the
old - increase in the number of roads, organization of the harbours,
increase of trade - feudal & theocratic society installing & maintaining
the "Pax Minoica", facilitating the cultural development of Crete - main
deity is still the Great Goddess, portrayed as a chthonic goddess with
the snakes, the "Mistress of the Animals" (lions & chamois) or the
goddess of the heavens (birds & stars), worshipped together with the god
of fertility, who had the form of a bull - the hieroglyphic script
became Linear A (with two hundred surviving texts), used until the
collapse of the Pax Minoica - in ca. 1530 the Thera volcano on Santorini
erupted - from about 1500 onwards there was a significant increase of
Mycen�an influence - the rise of the use of a syllabic, ruling-class
language, Mycen�an Greek, now called "Linear B" (imported by the
Mycen�ans to Crete) ;
postpalatial (ca. 1380 - 1100) : after the final destruction of Knossos
in 1380, none of the Minoan palaces were re-inhabited - Mycen�an culture
took over (ca. 1450) and their presence is attested both by Linear B and
the appearance of typical pottery. Ca. 1100, the descent of the Dorians
heralded the demise of Minoan civilization.

Helladic Age (ca. 2800 - 1100) : This period is preceded by the

Neolithical Period. The earliest settlers reached Greece from Anatolia
during the 7th millenium. Good pasturage drew them to the plains of
Thessaly or Boeotia and the land round the gulf or Argos. They did not
know the plough. The transition from this Neolithic communites to a
metal-working culture (first half of the 3th millenium) was not always
peacefully accomplished.

Following subdivisions prevail :

Early Helladic I (ca. 2800 - 2600) : Greece inhabited by these so-called

"pre-Helladics" who did not speak Greek. At first, they lacked farming
expertise. They worshipped the Mother Goddess. Stone houses replaced
mud-bricks. The Stone Age sites they erected provided collective defence
against some external threat. Trade, especially by sea, began to
flourish. Political and economical agricultural urbanism. Local barons
ruled an area of up to ten miles' radius round a walled hilltop site.

Early Helladic II (ca. 2600 - 2100) : They eventually capitalized and

developed this progress and formed a civilized society.

Middle Helladic (ca. 2100 - 1600) : The arrival, in 2100 and later
between 1950 and 1900, of marauding barbarians who burnt and destroyed
the fortified towns.

"Greece, at all events, like Italy, Anatolia, and India, only came under
Indo-European influence during the migrations of the Bronze Age.
Nevertheless, the arrival of the Greeks in Greece, or, more precisely,
the immigration of a people bearing a language derived from
Indo-European and known to us as the language of the Hellenes, as Greek,
is a question scarcely less controversial, even if somewhat more
defined. The Greek language is first encountered in the fourtheenth
century in the Linear B texts."
Burkert., 1985, p.16.

These newcomers formed the spearhead of a vast collective migrant

movement originating somewhere in the great plateau of central Asia,
sweeping West and South from Russia across the Danube and penetrating
the Balkans from the North. The Greek language they spoke was a branch
of the Indo-European group (as is Vedic Sanskrit) and they are regarded
as the first, true "archaic" Greeks. The female fertility images
vanished and were replaced by a male sky-god cult and a feudal,
palace-based society akin to that of Homer's Olympians. These
warrior-aristocrats were totally unaware of seafaring and became
Mediterranean traders once the slow process of acclimatization was on
its way.

Mycen�an Age (ca. 1600 - 1100) : The mythical Danaus (ca. 1600 - 1570),
a Hyksos refugee, took over Mycen� and established the "Shaft Grave
dynasty" which lasted for several generations. Mycen�an Greece was split
up into a number of small districts (and hence to regard Mycen� itself
as a "capital" is misleading), with a scribal caste at the service of
warrior leaders, vigorous commercial economy (based on indirect
consumption) and a high level of mostly imported craftsmanship. New were
the "tholos" burials, with their domeshaped burial-chambers. Their
palaces followed the architectural style of Crete, although their
structure was more straightforward and simple. Linear B texts reveal the
names of certain gods of the later Greek pantheon : Hera, Poseidon,
Zeus, Ares and perhaps Dionysius. There are no extant theological
treatises, hymns or short texts on ritual objects (as was the case in
Crete). Their impressive tombs indicate that their funerary cult was
more developed than the Minoan.

During the mid thirteenth century (ca. 1200 - 1190) several

Peloponnesian sites suffered damage and within a century every major
Mycen�an stronghold had fallen, never to be recovered. Indeed, a vast,
anonymous horde with horned helmets and ox-driven covered wagons had
made its way, locust-like, across the Hellespont, through the Hittite
Empire, by way of Cilicia and the Phoenician coast to the gates of
Egypt, to be defeated by Pharaoh Ramesses III (ca. 1186 - 1155) in two
great battles. These nomadic "Dorians" destroyed what came in touch with
them, and after their defeat, they vanished amid the wreckage of their
own making. Athens never fell, and it is unconquered Athens we have to
thank for what survives of the Mycen�an legends, although their customs
vanished.

Dark Ages (ca. 1100 - 750) : Over a period of nearly two centuries,
beginning soon after 1100, we find eastward migrations, from mainland
Greece to the coast of Asia Minor. These movements were driven by
Mycen�an refugees, shaping a diaspora, speaking a dialect known as
Aeolic. The rich central strip of Ionia was colonized (after a bitter
struggle) after the Dorians overran mainland Greece. About 900, the
Dorians themselves spread out eastward from the Peloponnese. Aeolic,
Ionic and Doric elements intermingled. When Homer wrote his Illiad and
Odyssey (ca. 750) or Hesiod his Theogony, the Greek world was
desperately poor. The Dark Age practice of relying on a local chieftain
for protection was encouraged. Greece was a series of small, isolated
communities, clustering round a hilltop "big house".

Archaic Period (ca. 750 - 478) : This period has also been called the
"Age of Revolution", because after the slow recovery of the Dark Age,
there came a sudden spurt or accelerated intellectual, cultural,
economical and political efflorescence. Two divisions :
from the Dark Age to the "Greek Miracle" (ca. 750 - 600) :

The alphabet was derived from Phoenician, but scholars differ as to when
this has happened. Some say shortly before the earliest inscriptions
-found on pottery ca. 730-, while others propose an earlier date. The
latter do not accept an illiterate Dark Age. Phoenician attained its
classical form ca. 1050, and so a transmission of the alphabet in the
late Mycen�an age could not be excluded. However, by 800 there was unity
in language and, to some extent, a culture throughout the Aegean world.
And in the same period as seagoing trade resurged (ca. 750), writing was
reintroduced. Thanks to the use of a viable, fully vowelized,
Phoenician-derived alphabet rather than a restricted syllabary (Linear
B), literacy became a fact. This paved the way for the "Greek Miracle"
in sixth-century Ionia.

Government was based -through hereditary aristocracy- on landownership.

Between ca. 750 and 600, we find the crystallization of the city-state
and the rise in power of the non-aristocrats, allying themselves with
frustrated noble families and putting the hereditary principle under
pressure. The two main leitmotivs of this age are discovery (literal and
figural) and the process of settlement & codification.

With Hesiod (ca. 700), the poet-farmer from Ascra, described as the
forerunner of the pre-Socratics, we find a mere lay poet taking upon
himself the priestly task of systematizing myth according to the pattern
of the family tree (genos). He saw the world as a muddled, chaotic place
where the only hope lay in working out man's right relations with the
gods, his fellow men and his natural, barely controllable environment.
Homeric ideals, looking back five centuries in the past (to idealize the
Mycen�an age), were swept away. Although Hesiod betrays nostalgia for
the good old days, he knows that they are over. Those who have no power
to implement their wishes, must appeal to general principles. Hence, his
morality is that of the underprivileged and his emphasis on the
omnipotent Zeus, who bestows the gift of justice ("dike"). Shortly after
Hesiod, we see the rise of lyric poetry which -in the fifth century-
gave way to drama (in choral form) and to prose.

Although Homer (ca. 700) thought along paratactic (creating sentences

without subcoordinating or subordinating connectives), symbolical and
mythical lines, Hesiod did not know what an abstraction was. The idea of
the polis emerged, but was characterized by the tension between rational
progressivism and emotional conservatism, between civic ideals and ties
of consanguinity, between blood-guilt and jury justice, between old
religion and the new secularizing philosophy. Indeed, with the Ionians
Thales and Anaximander of Miletus, Greek philosophy was born (ca. 600).
Between 650 - 600 we also witness the rapidly developing emphasis on
human concerns : anthropocentrism. From about 675 onwards, the
"tyrannoi" began to seize power in the city-states all over the Aegean
world : Argos, Sicyon, Corinth, Mytilene, Samos, Naxos, Miletus and
Magara among other fell in their hands. They were an urban-based
phenomenon and were eager to promote fresh colonizing ventures.

from the "Greek Miracle" to the Classical Period (ca. 600 - 478) :

During this period, Greece's great revolution was brought to completion.

The stiff, Egyptian stance of the male statues ("kouroi") began to lose
its hieratic formality. Politically, the slow evolution of democratic
government at Athens and the rise of Persia have to be noticed. The
predominantly "scientific" interests associated with Miletus, gave way
 between 550 and 500 to a more mystically oriented movement, to which
Pythagoras, Heracleitus and Xenophanes each contributed. Between 514 and
479 all Greek history is dominated by the shadow of Persia, which
contributed to finally establish the right of mainland Greece to persue
its own way of life. A mere handful of Greek states did stand out
against the gigantism of the Persian Empire and the palace absolutism of
the Near East.

During this Archaic period, pre-Socratic philosophy developed.

Athenian Imperialism (478 - 404) : With the formation of the "Delian

League", Athens broke away from the "Hellenic League", which had fought
against Xerxes. In 469, Cimon took a large fleet to the eastern
Mediterranean and routed Persia's forces. He reopened the old
Levant-route to Rhodes, Cyprus, Phoenicia and Egypt. The drift of new
learning, both in the speculative as in other fields, was firmly
anthropocentric. The gods were left out or replaced by exotic,
enthusiastic and uncivic foreign cults. The Eleusinian Mysteries were an
attempt to provide this trend with some official outlook. The Sophists
emerged and pioneered the great liberal movement, criticized by Plato.
In 404, Athens at last surrendered to Sparta, and exchanged one
despotism by another.

Decline of the polis (404 - 323) : The next three decades, the
isolationist, old-fashioned and autocratic Spartan government ruled,
triggering the formation of an anti-Spartan coalition and Persia playing
each side off against the other. Thebes and Athens were thrown into
alliance, the latter breaking Sparta's hold on Greece. This proved a
mere repetition, but under a better leadership, of the Spartan
experience. Sparta, Athens, Elis, Achaea and Mantinea formed a coalition
against Thebes. With the rise of Philip II of Macedonia (359), the whole
picture changed, and in 338 all organized resistance to Macedonia
ceased. With the death of his son, Alexander the Great (323) a new era
began (namely Hellenism). The city-states vanished and became part of
the new imperial rule.

Chronological Table of the Aegean Bronze Age compared with Ancient Egypt
This historical sketch of Ancient Greece presents us with a lot of dynamic
players and is characterized by a lot of inner tensions and interactions
with the environment (invasions, migrations, colonizations). Natural
disasters, immigration, "Doric" invasions, Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian
War and the Macedonian rule were primordial in the formation of the Greek
mentality. This conflictual interpretation of the complexity of Greek
culture explains the extraordinary cognitive reequilibrations which
happened, before but especially after the Dark Age. This catastrophic
evolution being the outer side of an inner, mental state of discontent. It
also shows the importance of cosmopolitanism, individualism,
anthropocentrism and adaptability in the formation of the Greek cultural
form and its rationality.

Using another chronological order, five fundamental stages may be

discerned
Neolithic Age (7000 - 2600 BCE) : settlements of farmers in Crete and
mainland Greece ;
Bronze Age (2600 - 1100 BCE) : the Bronze Age, starting with the arrival
of peaceful immigrants on Crete, can be divided in two periods :
 Minoan : This culture was palace-based. Between ca. 2600 and 1600 BCE,
no Greek influence was present on the island. The Minoans reached their
zenith between ca. 1730 and 1500 (the "Pax Minoica"). Two scripts are
attested : hieroglyphic (not yet deciphered) & Linear A. The latter is
nearly always used for administrative purposes (the count of peoples &
objects). The last phase of the Minoan neopalatial civilization was
characterized by Mycen�an influence (i.e. after ca.1600 BCE).
Mycen�an : Initiated ca. 1600 BCE, the culture of these Greek speaking
people spread over mainland Greece and reached Crete. It was strongly
influenced by Minoan protopalatial (ending with the destruction of ca.
1730 BCE) & neopalatial culture, but remained loyal to its own Greek
character. Eventually they conquered Crete (ca. 1450 BCE) and caused the
elaboration of Greek Linear B based on Cretan Linear A, which is not a
Greek language as evidenced by the few tablets found in Linear A (for
example, the word for "total" -often used in administrative texts-
cannot be understood as the archaic matrix of a Greek word).

So Minoan and Mycen�an cultures interpenetraded : before 1600 BCE, Crete

had directly influenced the formation of Early Helladic Greece but was
itself non-Greek (Linear A) - after 1450 BCE, Mycen�an Greece took over
Minoan culture on Crete and Greek Linear B was used by the Minoan
treasury of Crete in the postpalatial.

Dark Age (1100 - 750 BCE) : Dorian Greece, pushing Greek culture a step
back ;
Archaic Age (750 - 478 BCE) : Greek culture reemerges ;
Classical Age (478 - 323 BCE) : the "polis" and the emergence of
classical, conceptual rationalism.
What happened with literacy during the Dark Age ? Although it is likely
the scattered Mycen�an refugees kept some of their linguistic traditions
alive, so that some were still able to read and write Linear B, it is
clear the cultural network which had existed beforehand had been destroyed
by the Dorians and with it a unified cultural form in Greece based on a
shared language. If these refugees wrote their literary texts (if any)
down on tablets in Linear B in the same way as had happened on Crete, then
the reason why none were found may be explained by the fact the clay of
these tablets had been dried only and/or reused. It is more likely though
their culture was oral.

During these obscure centuries, Greek culture, as a form shared by all the
inhabitants of Greece, was nonexistent. The marauding barbarians, who had
destroyed the fortified towns of the pre-Helladics, and had developed
(thanks to Crete) into the grand Mycen�an culture, were themselves
destroyed by horned plundering hords from the North, identified by some as
belonging to the Doric branch of the Greek family ...

The length of the Dark Age (300 years) must have thrown a devastating
shadow on the survival of Mycen�an culture. Note that the name of this
period refers to how little is known about it and also points to the
remarkable contrast between Doric Greece and Mycen�an culture. Fact is the
Dorians had no written language of their own and did not use Linear B.
Isolation and loss of skills characterized the period. About the religious
practices, Snodgrass (2000) says that :

"Such practices seldom leave a substantial material record, even in a

well-documented period ; they are known to us largely from literary
sources. We should not therefore doubt the possibility of their
transmission through the dark age, simply because we cannot find proof of
it in the material evidence."
Snodgrass, 2000, p.399.

In the memories of the few able to safeguard the original Mycen�an form,
Mycen� became legendary and heroic. In a sense, the Mycen�ans represented
the "mythical" past of the Ancient Greeks.

2.2 The invention of the "phoinike�a" for both vowels & consonants.

"The impact of writing as opposed to oral culture is perhaps the most

dramatic example of transformation wrought from the outside, through
borrowing."
Burkert., 1992, p.7.

Before the reemergence of writing in Ancient Greece at the end of the Dark
Age (ca. 750 BCE), linguists distinguish between pictographic
(hieroglyphic) writing, Linear A and Linear B writing.
hieroglyhic script : ca. 1900 (begin protopalatial) - 1730 BCE
(destruction first palace) : probably a Cretan, non-Greek language ;
Linear A : ca. 1900 - 1450 BCE (destruction second palace) : a Cretan
picture-based language which does not represent Greek words (reached its
zenith ca. 1650 BCE) - in the beginning it existed side by side with the
hieroglyphic script ;
Linear B : ca. 1450 - 1380 BCE (final destruction of Knossos) : a Cretan
and Greek sound-based, syllabic language representing the archaic matrix
of Greek words - recast of Linear A ;
Archaic Greek Alphabet : ca. 800 BCE : advent of one spoken language in
Greece - ca. 750 BCE : a Greek script derived from Phoenician and
adapted to Greek needs.

Hieroglyphic script on seals - Crete (Lyttos)

A pictogram is the representation of a complete word (not individual
letters of phonemes) directly by a picture of the object actually denoted.

This hieroglyphic script developed ca. 1730 BCE into Linear A. It is

called "hieroglyphic", because it resembles the signary of Old Egyptian.
This typical "pictoral narrative" can also be found on the Predynastic
Narmer Palette or the Label of Djer (Dynasty I - tomb of Hemaka).

Possibly their inspiration indeed came from Egypt, as sporadic trade was
initiated as early as the prepalatial period (during Egypt's Old Kingdom
and its Old Egyptian literature), as evidenced in Cretan ivory & gold
jewellery.

If so, then the script had various pictograms which would have received a
phonetic (consonantal) and/or an ideographic value (assisting in the
determination of the meaning implied). Vowels would be absent and the
artistic, contextual placing of the signs would have played an important
role.

Next to these formal considerations, there would have been the pragmatical
fact that Egyptian hieroglyphs were "sacred" signs, only used to write
down religious, funerary, literary & philosophical thoughts of monumental
& lasting importance. The Minoans had no "cursive" form of hieroglyphic,
mostly used for secular purposes (in Egypt, this "hieratic" developed
alongside hieroglyphic, starting ca. 3000 BCE).

Indeed, Linear B seems to have been an administrative & bureaucratic

language. No linear B literature has (yet) been found ...
 Linear A Tablet Co 907 - Crete (Knossos)
Linear A is mostly inscribed on stone. The shape of these signs suggests
an earlier development, but nothing can be said for sure.

Most inscriptions were found in the south of Crete. The script was
primarily used -unlike the sacred Egyptian hieroglyphs- for administrative
purposes. Linear A was in use when Egyptian had already entered its
classical, so-called "Middle Egyptian" format. Linear A is not a Greek
language. Although phonograms may occur, Linear A is (like the
hieroglyphic script) picture-based. It also appeared in religious
contexts.

Linear B Tablets 13 & 85 - Crete (Haghia Triada)

Linear B (derived from Linear A) is not picture-based (pictogram) but
sound-based (phonogram). A series of 87 signs are used. The basic
syllabary consists of 60 biliteral signs. With these the phonetic value of
words are written down. The basic syllabary is the combination of 5 vowels
with 12 consonants. Linear B adds 16 optional signs and 11 signs are not
yet identified. The optional signs are used to allow one to identify words
more precisely or to represent two basic signs. It is read from left to
right. Linear B (also used in the last phase of the Minoan culture) was
the script of the Mycen�ns (ca. 1600 - 1100 BCE) and its language was
Greek. Archaeological evidence showed that Linear B was not used a lot in
mainland Greece. No private use of the language has been discovered. It
was deciphered by Ventris in 1951. Apparently, Linear B was only used to
keep records in Greek at Knossos and later at the palaces of Thebes,
Mycen� and Pylos.

"L'�criture semble avoir �t� employ�e exclusivement comme un outil

bureaucratique, le moyen indispensable de conserver les comptes et
documents administratifs, mais jamais dans une perspective historique et
encore moins profane. (...) le contenu des tablettes en lin�aire B
consiste, presque sans exception, en listes d'individus, d'animaux, de
produits agricoles et d'objects manufactur�s."
Chadwick, 1994, p.191.
Phoenicia, its language & alphabet

Phoenician alphabet of Byblos - ca. 1050 BCE

with Aramaic & Hebrew derivations
In Antiquity, Phoenicia was the region corresponding to modern Lebanon,
with adjoining parts of modern Syria and Israel. Its inhabitants, the
Phoenicians, were notable merchants, traders, and colonizers of the
Mediterranean in the 1st millennium BCE. Its chief cities were Sidon,
Tyre, and Berot (modern Beirut).

It is not certain what the Phoenicians called themselves in their own

language. It appears to have been "Kena'ani" (Akkadian : "Kinahna") or
"Canaanites." In Hebrew the word "kena'ani" has the secondary meaning of
"merchant," a term characterizing the Phoenicians well. The Phoenicians
probably arrived in the area about 3000 BCE. Nothing is known of their
original homeland, though some traditions place it in the region of the
Persian Gulf.

At Byblos, commercial and religious connections with Egypt are attested

from the IVth Dynasty. Extensive trade was certainly carried on by the
16th century, and the Egyptians soon established suzerainty over much of
Phoenicia. The 14th century, however, was one of much political unrest,
and Egypt eventually lost its hold over the area. Beginning in the 9th
century, the independence of Phoenicia was increasingly threatened by the
advance of Assyria, the kings of which several times exacted tribute and
took control of parts or all of Phoenicia. In 538 BCE, Phoenicia passed
under the rule of the Persians. The country was later taken by Alexander
the Great and in 64 BCE was incorporated into the Roman province of Syria.
Aradus, Sidon, and Tyre, however, retained self-government. The oldest
form of government in the Phoenician cities seems to have been kingship
limited by the power of the wealthy merchant families. Federation of the
cities on a large scale never seems to have occurred.

The Phoenicians were well known to their contemporaries as sea traders and
colonizers, and by the 2nd millennium they had already extended their
influence along the coast of the Levant by a series of settlements,
including Joppa (Jaffa, modern Yafo), Dor, Acre, and Ugarit. Colonization
of areas in North Africa (like Carthage), Anatolia, and Cyprus also
occurred at an early date. Carthage became the chief maritime and
commercial power in the western Mediterranean. Several smaller Phoenician
settlements were planted as stepping stones along the route to Spain and
its mineral wealth. Phoenician exports included cedar and pine wood, fine
linen from Tyre, Byblos, and Berytos, cloths dyed with the famous Tyrian
purple (made from the snail Murex), embroideries from Sidon, wine,
metalwork and glass, glazed faience, salt, and dried fish. In addition,
the Phoenicians conducted an important transit trade.

In the artistic products of Phoenicia, Egyptian motifs and ideas were

mingled with those of Mesopotamia, the Aegean, and Syria. Though little
survives of Phoenician sculpture, the round, relief sculpture is much more
abundant. The earliest major work of Phoenician sculpture to survive was
found at Byblos : the limestone sarcophagus of Ahiram, king of Byblos at
the end of the 11th century. Ivory and wood carving became Phoenician
specialties, and Phoenician goldsmiths' and metalsmiths' work was also
well known.

Although the Phoenicians used cuneiform (Mesopotamian writing), they also

produced a script of their own. The Phoenician alphabetic script of 22
letters appeared at Byblos ca. 1050 BCE, but earlier stages are likely.
The inscription on the sarcophagus of Ahiram (ca. 1000 BCE), shows a
scripture which had already attained its classical form. This method of
writing, later adopted by the Greeks, is the ancestor of the modern Roman
alphabet. It was the Phoenicians' most remarkable and distinctive
contribution to arts and civilization.

This writing system developed out of the North Semitic alphabet and was
spread over the Mediterranean area by Phoenician traders. It is the
ancestor of the Greek alphabet and, hence, of all Western alphabets. The
Phoenician alphabet gradually developed from this North Semitic prototype
and was in use until about the 1st century BCE in Phoenicia proper, when
the language was already being superceded by Aramaic. Phoenician colonial
scripts, variants of the mainland Phoenician alphabet, are classified as
Cypro-Phoenician (10th - 2nd century BCE) and Sardinian (ca. 9th century
BCE) varieties. A third variety of the colonial Phoenician script evolved
into the Punic and neo-Punic alphabets of Carthage, which continued to be
written until about the 3rd century CE. Punic was a monumental script and
neo-Punic a cursive form. Punic was influenced throughout its history by
the language of the Berbers and continued to be used by North African
peasants until the 6th century CE.

The Phoenician alphabet in all its variants changed from its North Semitic
ancestor only in external form. The shapes of the letters varied a little
in mainland Phoenician and a good deal in Punic and neo-Punic. The
alphabet remained, however, essentially a Semitic alphabet of 22 letters,
written from right to left, with only consonants represented and phonetic
values unchanged from the North Semitic script. Phoenician is very close
to Hebrew and Moabite, with which it forms a Canaanite subgroup of the
Northern Central Semitic languages.

Phoenician words are found in Greek and Latin classical literature as well
as in Egyptian, Akkadian, and Hebrew writings. Phoenician and Hebrew
scripts, both monumental and cursive, were closely akin and developed
along parallel lines. Modern decipherment of Phoenician took place in the
18th century (Swinton, Barth�lemy). Phoenician epigraphic material is far
from impressive.
the Greek adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet

Archaic Greek Alphabets derived from Phoenician

Although the Greeks played no important role in the formation of their own
alphabet, they added a crucial dimension : the five vowels. Indeed,
Phoenician, like Aramaic and Hebrew, was essentially a Semitic alphabet.
It consisted of 22 letters, written from right to left, with only
consonants. Semitic languages remained written from right to left, while
archaic Greek inscription had both directions before fixating the opposite
direction (from left to right). Moreover, the order of the letters was
also fundamentally Phoenician, and the Hebrew meaning given to the
individual letters corresponded with the Greek name for the letter :

aleph / alpha (ox), beth / b�ta (house), gimel / gamma (camel), daleth /
delta (door), he / epsilon (window), vau / upsilon (nail), zain / z�ta
(sword), cheth / �ta (fence), teth / th�ta (serpent), yod / iota (hand),
kaph / kappa (hollow hand), lamed / lambda (ox-goat), mem / mu (water),
nun / nu (fish), sameth / xi (prop), ayin / omicron (eye), pe / pi
(mouth), tzaddi (fish hook), qoph (back of hand), resh / rho (head), shin
/ sigma (tooth), tau / tau (cross-mark)

Seven Phoenician consonants (cf. "phoinikeia grammata", the "Phoenician

letters") were unnecessary in Greek (identified by their Hebrew names) :
"aleph", "he", "vau", "yod", "ayin", "tzaddi" & "qoph".

These unnecessary consonants were used to represent the vowels and two
consonants, "tzaddi" and "qoph", were dropped. The "vau" was taken out of
the Phoenician alphabetical order and added as "upsilon" at the end of the
new Greek alphabet, together with four typical Greek sounds.
the "aleph" was used for "a" ;
the "he" was used for "e" ;
the "vaw" was used for "u" ;
the "yod" was used for "i" ;
the "ayin" was used for "o" ;
Finally, they added four Greek sounds :
the "phi", for "ph" ;
the "chi", for "ch" ;
the "psi", for "ps" ;
the "omega" for "oo".
This alphabetic system provided the Greeks ca. 750 BCE with 7 voweled
sounds : "a", "e", "ee", "i", "o", "oo" and "u". The complete alphabet
ensued : (a) alpha, (b) b�ta, (g) gamma, (d) delta, (e) epsilon, (z) z�ta,
(�) �ta, (th) th�ta, (i or j) iota, (k) kappa, (l) lambda, (m) mu, (n) nu,
(x) xi, (o) omicron, (p) pi, (r) rho, (s) sigma, (t) tau, (u) upsilon, (f
or ph) phi, (ch) chi, (ps), psi and (oo) omega.
In all Ancient Semitic languages vowels were omitted. Even in Ancient
Egyptian, only the consonantal structure was recorded. Vowels are
dynamical, and constitute the variety & adaptability of a script to
concrete situations like gender, number and measurements. In Linear B,
vowels (a and o) were used to define gender and were recorded. By adding
vowels to their alphabet, the Archaic Greeks allowed the written language
to reflect the spoken one, so that a text seemed a fixating copy of the
concrete, living situation which triggered its composition (in Egypt, the
difference between the spoken word and the "sacred" hieroglyphs was
considerable). Thanks to vowels, the event could be exactely recorded, and
made present "in abstracto" as text. Hence, Greek cultural forms could be
transmitted with more precision, which triggered the formation of a
"historical memory" based on records which reflected the past as it was
(devoid of the ante-rational connotations & contexts necessary to decipher
non-voweled texts). Literacy meant thus much more than access to the
sacred (as in Egypt) : by writing down their language using a voweled
alphabet, the Greeks were able to captivate & describe the living,
concrete context in such a way that the text better represented the real
or ideal thing.

In my opinion, binding vowels fits well the linearizing and defining state
of mind of the Greeks. In Mycen�an Linear B, the system was till syllabic,
joining each vowel with a consonant. In Cretan Linear A, the pictogram
ruled but phonetic value might have been present. But Linear B offered a
clear advantage : it was sound-based and fixated the vowels, though not
absolutely. With the adaptation of the Phoenician script at the beginning
of the Archaic Age, the Greeks took a fundamental cognitive step forward
and eliminated the exclusive consonantals, identifying each vowel with an
alphabetic sign of its own !

The evolution of cognition may hence be linked with these various scripts
as follows (for Ancient Egypt see : theology, verbal philosophy and magic)

hieroglyphic script : mythical mode : loose pictograms on Creta ;

Linear A : mythical mode : pictoral system ;
Linear B : pre-rational mode : syllabic system with relatively fixed
vowels ;
Archaic Greek : proto-rational mode : alphabetic system with fixed
vowels.
The fixation of the vowels in an absolute, phonographic sense, allowed the
Greeks to define a series of categories which had remained outside the
scope of any other script of Antiquity. The vowels could be used to write
down gender, verbal inflections and suffixes making the language fluid.
Suddenly, about 750 BCE, the Greeks had a tool to define meaning with an
unprecedented precision and clarity, adapted to the spoken tongue.

This accomplishment must not have passed unnoticed when -under Pharaoh
Psammetichus I- they arrived in Egypt. There was however no direct
information available to the Greeks about Egypt as a whole, for -as a
group- they were forced by law to remain in the western Delta, a situation
which would change when Pharaoh Amasis ascended the throne of Egypt in 570
BCE.

2.3 Archaic Greek literature, religion & architecture.

at the treshold of archaic literature

At the beginning of recorded Greek literature stand two grand epic

stories, the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer, and the works of
Hesiod (White, 1964), like the Theogony.

Some features of the Homeric poems reach far into the Mycen�an age,
perhaps to 1500 BCE, but the written works are traditionally ascribed to
Homer. In their present form, they probably date to the 8th century
(recorded ca. 750 BCE). It goes without saying that the elaborated
compositional framework evidenced in these masterpieces proves the
existence of an oral tradition.

"The likely conclusion is that the Homeric political system, like other
Homeric pictures, is an artificial amalgam of widely separated historical
stages. And yet there is natural and almost irresistible urge to look for
a single period in which as many features as possible of the picture can
be credibly and simultaneously set."
Snodgrass, 2000, p.389.

Implicit references to Homer and quotations from the poems date to the
middle of the 7th century BCE. Archilochus, Alcman, Tyrtaeus, and Callinus
in the 7th century and Sappho and others in the early 6th adapted Homeric
phraseology and metre to their own purposes and rhythms. At the same time,
scenes from the epics became popular in works of art. The pseudo-Homeric
"Hymn to Apollo of Delos," probably of late 7th-century composition,
claimed to be the work of "a blind man who dwells in rugged Chios", a
reference to a tradition about Homer himself.

The general belief that Homer was a native of Ionia (the central part of
the western seaboard of Asia Minor) seems a reasonable conjecture, for the
poems themselves are in predominantly Ionic dialect. Although Smyrna and
Chios early began competing for the honour, and others joined in, no
authenticated local memory survived anywhere of someone who, oral poet or
not, must have been remarkable in his time ...

With Hesiod, the farmer-poet from Ascra, apparently of the eighth century
BCE, described as a forerunner of the pre-Socratics, we encounter a lay
poet taking upon himself the task of systematizing myth. He saw the world
as a muddled, confusing, chaotic place where the only hope lay in the
hands of the Pantheon, one's fellow men and natural factors around him.
The barely controllable essence of the world springs to the fore. Brute
necessity is more important than Homeric ideals, and the individual
emerges out of the collective in a desperate mode. Grim might seems right
here. Zeus however, has the gift of justice ("dike") and crime does not
pay. Hesiod stands midway Homer and the Milesian philosophers.

There is no evidence to substantiate the existence of Greek literature in

Linear B, although Indo-European poetry is attested as an art form in
"measured lines with fixed poetic flourished, some of which appear in
identical form in Vedic and Greek." (Burkert, 1985, p.17, my italics).

The use of leather, combined with a sea climate, makes it unlikely to ever
discover original Mycen�an texts. The Linear B tablets found survived
because of catastrophic fires which destroyed the buildings they were
stored in (for the original were only sun-dried). It is likely that under
the Mycen�ans and the Dorians, the bulk of all Homeric and Hesiodic ideas
were transmitted exclusively orally. Let us speculate, and assume Mycen�an
poets at times wrote down a brief sketch of their works, assisting memory
with small inscriptions in Linear B on leather and sun-dried clay, and
assuring the continuity of the synopsis of their thought (combined with
extensive oral training). A strong contra-argument has always been the
absence of inscriptions on pottery (instead, geometrical forms were used).
But this is apparently less significant in Greece in terms of scriptoral
capacity than it was in Ancient Egypt, with its "magical" and "divine"
interpretation of language and its eternalization.

"... the criterion of ceramic style as an indicator of major cultural

changes is less satisfactory. We have found it misleading ..."
Snodgrass, 2000, p.393.

towards Archaic Greek religion

Minoan religion was associated with the miracle of nature, and our
principal source of knowledge are artistic representations inspired by a
deified natural world and depicting or facilitating religious cult.

"They might be described as high-class hedonists with a strong religious

sense ; and their religion, characteristically, seems to have been a gay
open-air everyday faith, with holy spots on mountain-tops and in groves or
by springs and well-houses, with fertility goddess and an Artemis-like
Mistress of Beasts ..."
Green, 1973, p.34.

Three important features of the Minoan religious experience stand out :

the sacrality of the tree : the tree marks a sanctuary and is surrounded
by a sacred enclosure. During processions, the anthropomorphic Great
Goddess is enthroned beneath it. The same holds for pillars, columns and
stones ;
the chthonic powers : sacrifice of the bull (symbol of the fecundity of
nature, the male god of vegetation), bull-games, double axe and sacral
horns point to the mastering of the chthonic powers of the mother
goddess, who played a central role ;
the epiphany of the deity from above in the sacred dance : it seems that
mystical communion with the god (i.e. the direct experience of the
Divine) was important and momentary scenes of epiphany show the deity
besides the sacred tree, in front of shrines, next to a stepped altar or
on a mountain peak.
Although obvious differences are present, Minoan and Egyptian religion are
of the same family. Both are based on nature, the exhaltation of life and
divine kingship. They share identical iconography : the bull as symbol of
permanence, the sacrality of trees and elevated places, the ample use of
colorful representations of fauna and flora and similar jewelry. On Crete,
nature at times was a rumbling, bull-like underground which knocked down
their best palaces. Hence, to find and keep the proper "equilibrium" was
what was needed to allow the acrobat to jump over the back of the bull. In
Egypt, were chaotic Nile-floods could cause famine and wreck social order,
the image of the balance expressed a solidarity with nature, despite its
darker, destructive sides.

The famous "Bull-leaping" fresco, East wing of the palace of Knossos -

15th century BCE
But in Egypt, the mystical approach in the daily ritual was restricted to
Pharaoh, son of Re, and his representatives, although the Egyptian people
had a strong religious sense and organized many yearly festivals and
special days. Also : the Minoans apparently did not share Egypt's
convictions regarding sacred script and the magic of words, both spoken
and written. The hypothesis of a direct influence of Egypt on Crete should
not be excluded. If so, this started as early as the Old Kingdom.

The Palace of Nestor at Pylos - tentative reconstruction by Higgings of

the Throne Room
The contrast with Mycen�an religion, with its Indo-European "sky-god" and
"father of the Olympians" should be clear. The Elysium, ruled over by the
Cretan Rhadamanthus, the judge of the dead, was unlike the gloomy Hades.
Here a happy Sunlit paradise, there the darkness of wandering shades. For
the Mycen�ans, the human was placed at the centre of the universe and
military confronted with nature. The human was no longer part of nature,
but endowed with the power to protect and fortify himself. The palaces
also point to the difference : the Mycen�ans built according to a rigid
plan, based on rectangular units ("megaron"), whereas the Cretan palaces
possessed a plastic layout (also true for the Egyptian temple).

Plan of the Palace of Minos at Knossos - in its heart is a rectangular

central court
The Mycen�an sense of linearity will become the outstanding feature of
Archaic and Classical Greece. The "megaron" returned in the Dorian temple
and contributed to the finished and complete sense of any major Greek
building.

"Les dieux �gyptiens ressemblent, de par leur nature et leurs

manifestations en mutation constante, aux temples du pays, qui n'�taient
jamais achev�s, mais toujours 'en construction'. La forme axiale des
temples en �gypte est clairement ordonn�e, articul�e, et pourtant n'exclut
jamais la possibilit� d'extension et de transformation continues. (...) En
cela, l'�gypte diff�re consid�rablement de la Gr�ce, o� temples et dieux
sont relativement finis et complets."
Hornung, 1986, p.235, my italics.

On Linear B tablets found at Knossos, the names of Zeus, Hera, P�an,

Enyalios & Poseidon appear. A rich and differentiated system of Mycen�an
gods was worshipped by priests in a lifelong, official position.
Sacrificial rituals are attested.

But although rooted in Minoan and Mycen�an elements, Archaic Greek

religion is not to be equated with it. For example, nowhere at any time is
the triad : altar, temple and cult-image, found in the Minoan-Mycen�an
world.

At the end of the Dark Age, external elements caused the Greek cultural
form (nearly extinct during the Dark Age) to rejuvenate and reemerge.
These may be summarized as an "Oriental influence", in which Egypt played
a prominent factor :

"Alongside the fragmentary, but undeniably effective Mycenaean-Minoan

tradition, there are therefore repeated, noteworthy impulses from the
East, or more precisely from the Hittite/North Syrian area, which must be
registered, with Cyprus having a special importance as the meeting-place
and centre for dissemination. Intensive contacts exist in the twelfth
century and then again in the ninth/eighth centuries, when Greek traders
establish settlements in Syria, until there is a true breakthrough of
Eastern fashion about 700 with the Orientalizing Style ; then from 660
onwards, thanks to the role of Greek mercenaries in the twenty-sixth
dynasty, Egypt sets the tone. But before the seventh century is over, the
culture drift is reversed ; Greek art now comes into its own and for
centuries is taken as a model by both East and West. In particular cases
it is often difficult to decide in which phase of East-West relations a
given element of religious culture has been taken over ; even the Homeric
epic does not always provide clear clues. But the history of religion
cannot disregard the fact that it was precisely during the dark age, the
time of confusion and debilitation, that the gates to an Oriental
influence were opened."
Burkert, 1992, p.52, my italics.

archaic architecture

Mycen�an palaces were fortified citadels. These feudal and local barons
lived of commerce and plunder. Each ruled an area of up to ten miles'
radius around a hilltop site. Their architecture was military and stern
(cf. the "megaron"), although superficial resemblances with Minoan
architecture are obvious.

The Citadel of Mycen� - reconstruction by Higgings as it would have been

in the 13th century BCE
The major structural improvement made by the Archaic Greeks was the outer
colonnade, also called "peripteros", around the sacred space of the temple
(the "cella"). In Egypt, columns were used in the hypostyle hall, which
referred to the primordial marsh of creation or to the forests that had
vanished along the Nile. Colonnade-temples as such did not occur.

Originally, the "peripteros" was made out of wood, for the temple, in
Minoan fashion, was conceived as a space surrounded by trees. The "cella"
was the "open" space in the sacred, original "wood", eventually
represented in a rigid, linear way. Because the rich donated money to
replace the wood by stone, the wooden sanctuary eventually became a stone
temple ...

One of the oldest examples of a Greek temple or palace, was found on the
island of Euboia :

Temple or Palace of Lefkandi - 9th/8th century BCE

"Even if the Greeks had wanted to build monumentally before they found
themselves on the banks of the Nile they would have lacked the technical
know-how for quarrying, transporting, and installing megalithic masonry.
It is plausible that Egyptian technology served as a primary player in the
re-emergence of monumental architecture in archaic Ionia. This is not to
say that the Ionian Greeks simply copied Egyptian temples. Indeed, quite
to the contrary, the evidence suggests that the Ionian Greeks created
structures that were unique, and the evidence for this will be taken up
later. For now, the main point is that the Egyptian techniques for
monumental construction and the exemplars they had produced stimulated the
Ionian Greeks. And that from Naucratis where they had a thriving colony,
no more than a weekend's travel away, the Ionians had extraordinary access
to a grateful Egypt."
Hahn, 2001, p.69.

Temple or Hera in Olympia shows the hesitations of the first archaic

architects :
two colonnades in the cella instead of one in the middle (statica) and
plump Dorian columns
the original wooden columns of the peripteros were slowly replaced by
stone ones - ca. 600 BCE
The leap forward realized by the Greeks in their Dorian temples is evident
in the linearization of the layout, as well as in the precise cardinal
orientation of the edifice. However, it takes some time before these
architects feel confident enough to erect slender buildings. In contrast
with sculpture and painting, which are judged according to "eros" (mutual
attraction) and "mimesis" (likeness), architecture is defined by abstract
mathematical standards of symmetry and proportion. In the latter, the
natural numbers (introduced by Pythagoras) played an essential part.
Indeed, natural numbers (the set 1, 2, 3 ...) can be squared, raised to
the third power, and placed in a series etc.

First Temple of Hera in Poseidonia, Paestum, called "basilica" - ca. 540 -

530 BCE
These symmetries introduced a play of proportion and "natural number"
symbolism, which has been defined as the classical standard of beauty. And
although each temple is indeed a representation in stone of a particular
mathematical equilibrium or "logos" (word), they may be placed together
with no real consideration for the overall architectonic balance between
them, as we see in Poseidonia, with its two Hera temples erected bluntly
next to each other :

Foreground : first Temple of Hera in Poseidonia, Paestum, called

"basilica" - ca. 540 - 530 BCE
Background : Great Temple of Hera - ca. 460 - 440 BCE (contemporary of the
Parthenon)
For the Greek architects, symmetry was a system of proportions, which
regulated coherence, reciprocity and balance. These defined harmony.
Proportions could be expressed numerically in "natural" numbers. The
influence of Pythagorism on Greek architecture was therefore decisive.

3. Memphite thought and the birth of Greek philosophy.

Greek philosophy & science has been acclaimed as the most original
contribution of the Greeks to the intellectual tradition of the world.

"What does change as soon as philosophy appears on the scene is

perspective and verbalization, the kind of questions asked. Previously
religion had been defined by forms of behaviour and by institutions ; now
it becomes a matter of the theories and thoughts of individual men who
express themselves in writing, in the form of books addressed to a nascent
reading public. These are texts of a sort that did not exist before in
either form or content : the new is incommensurable with the old.
Philosophy indeed begins with the prose book."
Burkert, 1985, p.305, my italics.

It is clear the Greek philosophical mentality was unique, but it did not
come forth "ex nihilo", but was the result of the network of forces that
triggered the so-called "Greek Renaissance", which was based on
traditional Minoan & Mycen�an elements, but made explicit by a series of
"new" concepts derived from Mesopotamia, Iran and, last but not least,
Egypt :
"ta onta" : language refers to an object (correspondence & realism) -
when understood in its most general (universal, abstract, linear) form
as "being", it takes the plural "the beings" or "that what is", "things
that are" ;
"arche" : this being has a beginning in time and space and when this is
known, the essence of the entity can be ascertained ;
"phusis" : moreover, after its initiation as a "thing" by the "arche",
there is a process of becoming which can not be influenced by human
beings ;
"kosmos" : the totality of what exists is not a random amalgam, but has
intrinsic order, organization, lawfulness and determination ;
"aletheia" : besides being expressed through ritual acts in the domain
of justice ("dike"), truth qualifies as a particular type of speech,
pronounced under particular circumstances, by a figure invested with
particular functions ;
"sophoi" or "sophistai" : men who came forward with books about these
 matters, but who had as yet no name for themselves and their work and
designated as "wise". These men "understood" and "perceived" ("nous")
certain truths and commanded intelligence and eloquence.
These "new" concepts were fully developed in Ancient Egyptian literature
at the time when they first emerged in Greece to animate the Greek
Renaissance and its philosophy :
creation as the totality of existing things is attested in the Memphis
Theology as well as in the Hymn to the Aten :

"Thus Ptah was satisfied after he had made all things and all divine
words. He gave birth to the gods, he made the towns, he established the
nomes, he placed the gods in their shrines, he settled their offerings,
he established their shrines, he made their bodies according to their
wishes. Thus the gods entered into their bodies of every kind of wood,
of every kind of stone, of every kind of clay, in every kind of thing
that grows upon him in which they came to be. Thus all the gods and
their ka's were gathered to him, content and united with the Lord of the
Two Lands." (Memphis Theology, Lines 59 -61) ;

all things viewed as rooted in the "arche" is the Greek equivalent of

the Egyptian idea that all deities and creation itself emerge out of the
singular Atum, who creates himself "in the first time" and defies the
preexisting "ultimate cause", namely the primordial ocean ("Nun") ;
the "physis" of the process of becoming is the equivalent of Atum
simultaneously creating Shu and Tefnut (unfolding into an Ennead) and
therewith the whole of creation (0 > 1 = 2 ... 9 = ALL) ;
the Enneadic structure of the pantheon and the interconnectedness
between the Two Lands as well as their harmonization and unification by
Pharaoh, is suggestive of the pyramidal order of a society ruled by a
divine king who is the unique son of the creator (Ennead + Pharaoh = the
decad, completion) ;
the importance of Maat (in Greece also personified by a female deity
called "Themis" who -as in Egypt- was a daughter of the supreme god of
the sky, Zeus) is both cosmical (Pharaoh sustaining creation by offering
truth & justice to his father) and social (the accomplished discourse
discussed by Ptahhotep) : "He who lessens falsehood, fosters truth."
(The Eloquent Peasant, Sixth Petition, Middle Kingdom) ;
the wise of Egypt are able to live "in" truth & justice and are also
exceptional individuals, with particular verbal qualities, understood in
a "logoic" sense as well as reflecting a particular social position in
society (as Ptahhotep and the other sapiental authors, known by name,
confirm).
3.1 The origin of Greek philosophy : Thales, Anaximander & Anaximenes.

archetypal, Afrocentric, communicational

Regarding the historical origins of Greek philosophy, three hypothesis

have been put forward :
the Aryan model (Lefkowitz, 1996 & 1997) : denies the influence of
Ancient tradition on Archaic Greece and proposes a purely white,
European Greek archetype, rooted in the Indo-European experience. This
model is Hellenocentric and Europacentric and in conflict with what is
known about the historical interaction between cultures. Its core of
truth is the idea that a "Greek mentality" existed and with it the
particular linearity which allowed Greek rationality to see the light ;

the Afrocentric model (James, 1954) : denies the Greeks their own
cultural originality and proposes a "stolen legacy". This model is in
 conflict with the fact that the Greeks developed a rational system based
on open dialogue, abstract thought & syllogistic logic (absent in
Ancient Egypt and the cultures of the Middle East). Its core of truth is
the acknowledgment that qua practical experience (the "minor" of the
syllogism), the Greeks were "a young people" who had few or no written
traditions of their own and who indeed allowed themselves to be
influenced by the, in comparison, grand and old Egyptian civilization ;
the communicational (diffusionist) hypothesis : tries to understand the
emergence of a new cultural form in terms of the open interaction
between peoples and the formative, cognitive effects of communication
and apprenticeship arising between them. The pre-Socratics have, as a
group, been significantly influenced by Egyptians and Mesopotamians, but
Greece subsequently influenced these ancient cultures, namely by
linearizing and rationalizing their traditions. Between all cultures a
constant flow of information is present which allows for creative
interaction and exchange. Isolation is rare and contraproductive in
terms of cultural development. Economical, demographical, political,
social & theological variables are constantly at work. In this model,
the weight of all major players should always been taken into
consideration (as well as the versatility of new cultures, such as that
of Archaic Greece). It is clear that in Mediterranean Antiquity, the
long history of Egyptian civilization (entering history ca. 3000 BCE)
represented the ultimate accomplishment of human civilization. Hence,
for curious Greeks, there was a lot to learn in Egypt ...
Let us focus on the third hypothesis :

SENDER & MESSAGE

The Egyptians produced monumental funerary and other works of art, which
were intimately bound by the "divine words" inscribed on them. In fact,
the "neter medu" ("nTr mdw"), the "words of the god" or any book or
inscription in hieroglyphs ("sacred glyphs") were deemed more important
than the pieces which eternalized them. Moreover, every large temple had
its library, containing hundreds if not thousands of papyri, records of
the practical information & procedures (coded in the concrete concepts of
proto-rationality) pertaining to the various sciences studied and applied
by the members of these high places of Egyptian intellectual activity. The
Egyptians were constanty sending out messages and every Greek who was
intelligent enough to be interested in written traditions must have been
overtaken by all these various, pictoral symbol-sources. The coining of
the world "hieroglyphs" is suggestive of the fact that the use of a
special pictoral "sacred script" (Middle Egyptian) impressed the Greeks.
Indeed, they realized that the Egyptians also used cursive hieroglyphs,
hieratic and demotic. Egyptian beauty was far more scriptoral than was the
case in Mesopotamian art. This outstanding linguistic nature of the
Egyptian symbol-source should be taken into consideration.

RECEIVER & ENVIRONMENT

That the Greeks were curious people is evident. But as receivers, they
were ca.670 BCE in a special position, for their urge to learn was that of
an emergent Greek nation which had lost touch with its roots during the
Dark Age and which was left with Homeric poetical dreams, which were
nothing more than an amalgam of the Minoan and Mycen�an experience
intermingled with the grimness of the Dorians. No genuine track-record was
present. Before 800 BCE, the Greeks spoke various dialects and they could
no longer read and write ! So the Dorian catastrophe preceding the Greek
Renaissance, involved a major cultural crisis, which culminated in the
Greeks seeking out "new" models and "good" examples. Note that the
reception of Egyptian civilization was also a recognition and a
rememberance. For when the travellers returned home, they spoke of
Egyptian kings, monuments, rituals and festivals rooted in a religion of
nature which strongly resembled Minoan Crete. Were there traces of the
Minoan experience left in the Greek data-base which made them approve
Egyptian thought ? Did history repeat itself (Mycen�an Greeks influenced
by Minoan Crete, Archaic Greeks influenced by Egypt) ? It is clear the
Greeks became fruitful Egyptian info-sources, as Alexandrian Hermetism
proves.

" ... it is inaccurate to refer to the relationship between Ancient Egypt

and Ancient Greece as one of cultural theft. Probably the best description
of the relationship is as 'approbation'. The Ancient Greeks as a whole
were only partially guilthy of the more severe charge of plagiarism, as
they often cited their Egyptian and Oriental antecedents. It was the
classicists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who completed the
denial of the earlier sources, giving all the credit to the European
Greeks."
Bernal, 2001, p.393, my italics.

So, although the negative insight that there is not one single origin of
Greek philosophy holds, we may discern the following formative components
which induced the "Greek Miracle" :
the past Minoan factor : this non-Greek, Linear A civilization strongly
influenced the Greek mainland and the Greeks arriving there between ca.
1900 & 2100 BCE - the differences between Minoan and Indo-European
mythology are considerable, whereas, at some point, early Minoan Crete
was influenced by Egypt ;
the past Mycen�an factor : this Greek civilization was first influenced
by Crete and would eventually conquer the island and recast Linear A (no
vowels) into Linear B (syllabic). Although there are no direct sources
available, evidence suggests the presence of an original Greek pantheon
(with a focus on the sky god) and an organized society. Traces of the
typical "philosophical" questions posed by the Ionians have not been
found, but the stern, linear and fortified constructions of these
Greeks, as well as their grim shadowy funerary expectations, are
suggestive of the discontent and martial mental attitudes of the
Classical Greeks (thought as crisis & catastrophe), which contrast with
both Cretan myth and Egyptian thought ;

"The finished literary masterpieces of the Iliad and Odyssey, like the
curiously sophisticated and analytical mentality behind the contemporary
Late Geometrical paintings, show the magnitude of the renaissance that
now enveloped Greece."
Snodgrass, 2000, p.436.

Third Intermediate Period Egyptians : although the "age of empire" (the

New Kingdom) was over, Egypt stood, ca.1075 BCE, in comparison with
other nations, still at such a high point of cultural development, that
its decline took another millenium, during which time Egypt continued to
be outstanding and inspiring (most of the Egyptian temples we can visit
today were erected under Greek, Ptolemaic rule). The marvel of its
temples and the erudition of its priests very probably astonished the
Greeks, who quickly "approved" these realizations to readapt them to
their own linear mentality ;
other Mediterranean cultural formations : the Phoenicians, Babylonians,
Hittites, Jews etc. also influenced the Greek travellers, but my reading
of the evidence present today shows that the affiliation qua
 philosophical intent was not as marked as the Egyptian influence.
Although commerce (the invention of "money"), the voweled alphabet,
astronomy & the astral religions of the Middle East served as additional
ingredients, the focus on the mental (the heart of truth & justice), the
verbal (great speech, generative command, creative command), the
ceremonial (the magic of the just deed), the scriptoral (the magic of
words) and the dialogal (accomplished discourse) witnessed in Egyptian
thought, was truly unique (both qua persistence in time as qua internal
structure and balance). Egyptian thought came close to the philosophical
intent of wanting to understand creation and the place of humanity therein
and had developed theological (cf. Hymns to Amon), naturalistic (cf. Great
Hymn to the Aten), sapiental (cf. Maxims of Ptahhotep) and quasi
phenomenological (cf. Cannibal Hymn) answers, albeit in an ante-rational
mode of thought.

Over the millenia, the practical results of this proto-rational thinking

had been preserved on monuments and in the various libraries, to be
studied by Pharaoh and his representatives when a major task was initiated
(like erecting a new temple) or an unforseen problem rose (so as to seek
out what their predecessors did). When the first Greeks arrived, and given
the Egyptian conservative love of writing, we can only speculate about the
number of papyri that were carefully stored away in all the major and
minor libraries of Egypt. We have extant lists of books found in the
"House of Life" of major temples. They reveal categories and a system of
classification.

Egyptian thought was, ex hypothesi, the decisive (but not the only)
catalyst enabling Greek philosophy to emerge in Ionia ca. 600 BCE. It
played a crucial part in the Greek Renaissance giving way to Classical
Greece and its philosophy.

If asked which characteristics of Egyptian thought played a proment role

in the constitution of Greek philosophy, following points spring to the
fore :
the words of god and the love of writing : it should be emphasized, that
in Ancient Egypt, both spoken and written words were very important :
hieroglyphs were "divine words", endowed with magical properties, "set
apart" and distinguished from everyday language and writing (in hieratic
and later demotic). Pharaoh Unis (ca. 2378 - 2348 BCE) decorated his
tomb with hieroglyphs to assure his ascension and subsequent arrival in
heaven. Even if the offerings to his Ka would end, the hieroglyphs
-hidden in the total obscurity of the tomb- contained enough "inner"
power ("sekhem") to assure Wenis' felicity ad perpetuam ... Egyptian
rituals were a unity of gestures and words. The latter were vibrations
which opened the secret gates of the Netherworld, offerings of sound
(voice-offerings) and subtle bodies for the deities to dwell in (as "ka"
and/or "ba"). But ritual gestures were a "language" too. For example :
two raised hands -the hieroglyph for "ka"- indicated embrace. Each
morning, the cult-statue was likewise "embraced" by the officiating
priest to pass on vital energy and to invite the deity to dwell in its
idol.

In that sense, Egyptian civilization was quite unique in the

Mediterranean, and perhaps even in the world. It is remarkable that a
civilization producing such a vast literary corpus, never reached (as a
collective) the rational mode of cognition. Egypt's attachment to the
contextual and the local, as well as the special pictoral nature of the
"sacred script", all point to an ante-rational mentality, rooted in the
mythical, pre-rational (pre-concepts) and proto-rational (concrete
concepts) layers of early African cognition.

From a philosophical point of view, the fact the Greek word "nous"
(mind, thinking, perceiving) seems to be derived from the Egyptian "nw",
"to see, look, perceive, observe", is noteworthy. The "logoic" nature of
Greek philosophy, as well as its preoccupation with "aletheia" or
"truth", are thus possibly linearizations of the Memphite philosophy to
be found in both the work of Ptahhotep, the sapiental authors, and the
theology of the priests of Ptah.

accomplished discourse : The fundamental categories of Memphite

philosophy were "heart/tongue/heart" insofar as theo-cosmology, logoism
and magic were at hand and "hearing/listening/hearing" in moral,
anthropological, didactical and political matters. The first category
reflected the excellence of the active and outer (the father), the
second the perfection of the passive and inner (the son). The active
polarity was linked with Pharaoh's "Great Speech", which was an
"authoritative utterance" ("Hu") and a "creative command", which no
counter-force could stop ("heka"). The passive polarity was nursed by
the intimacy of the teacher/pupil relationship, based on the subtle and
far-reaching encounters of excellent discourse with a perfected hearing,
i.e. true listening.

The "locus" of Egyptian wisdom was this intimacy. Although Pharaoh was
also called "wise", the sapiental discourses alone name their (possible)
author. Wisdom was always linked with a "niche" defined by the vignettes
of life the sage wished to use as good examples to confer his wisdom to
posterity, to understand how he balanced Maat in all circumstances and
made the social order endure by serving "the great house", being at
peace with himself.

truth and the plummet of the balance : In Egyptian, the word "maat"
("mAat") is used for "truth" and "justice" (in Arabic, "al-haq", is both
"truth" and "real"). Truth is linked with a measurable state of affairs
as given by the balance :

"Pay attention to the decision of truth

and the plummet of the balance, according to its stance !"
Papyrus of Ani, Plate 3 - XXVIIIth Dynasty - British Museum
This exhortation summarizes the practice of wisdom and its persuit of
truth found in Ancient Egypt. It also points to their philosophy of
well-being and art of living happily & light-heartedly (for the outcome
of the weighing is determined by the condition of the heart or mind
alone). In this short sentence, the "practical method of truth" of the
Ancient Egyptians springs to the fore : concentration, observation,
quantification (analysis, spatiotemporal flow, measurements) & recording
(fixating) with the sole purpose of rebalancing, reequilibrating &
correcting concrete states of affairs, using the plumb-line of the
various equilibria in which these actual aggregates of events are
dynamically -scale-wise- involved, causing Maat (truth and justice
personified as the daughter of Re, equivalent with the Greek Themis,
daughter of Zeus - cf. "ma�ti" as the Greek "dike") to be done for them
and their environments and the proper Ka, at peace with itself, to flow
between all vital parts of creation.

The "logic" behind this operation involves four rules :

inversion : when a concept is introduced, its opposite is also invoked
 (the two scale of the balance) ;
asymmetry : flow is the outcome of inequality (the feather-scale of
the balance is a priori correct) ;
reciprocity : the two sides of everything interact and are
interdependent (the beam of the balance) ;
multiplicity-in-oneness : the possibilities between every pair are
measured by one standard (the plummet).
Truth & Justice as Cosmic Logos
Heart (cognizing) Tongue (speaking)
divine thought (what Ptah has on his mind, namely the image of Atum)
as the ultimate and efficient cause of words - the immaterial cause
of creation and excellent discourse - seat of the personality and
free will in the individual divine words as physical manifestations
of what is conceived by the heart of Ptah (or divine mind) - the
material cause of creation and excellent discourse, the agents used
by the creator to fashion creation (preexistence, first time, the
Ennead)
Truth and Justice as Social Order
Hearing (receiving)Listening ("verstehen")
the material entrance of well-formed sounds (language) in the
healthy ear - to grasp the meaning of what is said - the ability to
reproduce what has been said without "inner" understanding - the
non-wise who aspireto grasp the intent, possible hidden implications
and "Ka" of what was perfectly heard - to listen with the heart is
to truly understand the message with one's "inner being" - the wise
who live "in" truth

the colonizations : the imprint of the Greek foot

The second half of the tenth century brought a distinct easing off in
depopulation, isolation, metal-shortages, architectural and artistic
impoverishment & regional disparities, but this "true end" (Kirk, 1961) of
the Dark Age has also been called a "false dawn" (Snodgrass, 2000, p.402).
Because important centres of Greek civilization were still wrapped in
obscurity, one can not claim that the "Greek Renaissance" had already
begun ... Moreover, these changes are confined to the Aegean and its
coasts. It is only since the middle and late eight century that profuse
changes came about, which changed the outlook of Greek civilization
fundamentally. This "Greek Renaissance" was an Age of Revolution.
Exploration and codification (settlement) were its leitmotivs. The "second
colonization" of the Greeks, which accompanied this revival, took place
between ca. 750 and 650 BCE. The rise of Greek philosophy, the "Greek
miracle", happened in Asia Minor, starting in Ionia ca. 600 BCE.

The Corinthian expansion probably took place at the end of the ninth
century, while the establishment of a Greek settlement in the Levant is
slightly earlier. These colonizations did not leave a strong impact, while
the eighth century Greek colonies in southern Italy and Sicily shaped the
history of these regions for the next centuries. Hence, the forerunners
were probably voluntary and spontaneous venturers, whereas those of the
eight century were the work of organized bodies of Greeks, possibly led by
an individual aristocrat, and stimulated by the growth of population in
the Greek homeland.

Greeks may have been marauding the Egyptian Delta perhaps as early as ca.
800 BCE, if not earlier. Because Ionian mercenaries had successfully
assisted Pharaoh Psammetichus I (664 - 610 BCE) in his battle against the
Assyrians, the Greeks were welcomed in Egypt, enabling Miletus to found
Neukratis and the Greeks to settle in the Delta of Lower Egypt. Pharaoh
Amasis (570 - 526 BCE) allowed them to settle upstream (Heliopolis,
Thebes). So between 664 and somewhere in the reign of Pharaoh Amasis, the
only major temple-complex the Greeks had seen at work, was that of the
priests of Ptah of Memphis.

Thales of Miletus

There is a consensus, dating back at least to the 4th century BCE and
continuing to the present in our academical history of Greek philosophy,
that Thales of Miletus was the first Greek philosopher. According to the
Greek thinker Apollodorus, he was born in 624 BCE. The Greek historian
Diogenes La�rtius (ca. 3th century CE) placed his death in the 58th
Olympiad (548 - 545 BCE) at the age of 78. He also affirms Thales
travelled to Egypt, while Iamblichius explains how he advised other
intellectual Greeks to go to Egypt in order to learn :

"Thales advised Pythagoras to go to Egypt and to entertain himself as much

as possible with the priests of Memphis and Diospolis : it was from them
that he had drawn all the knowledge which made him a sage and a scientist
in the eyes of the masses."
Iamblichius : Life of Pythagoras, 12, my italics.

During his lifetime, the word "philosopher" (or "lover of wisdom") had not
yet been coined. Thales was counted, however, among the so-called "Seven
Wise Men" (the "sophoi"), whose name derives from a term designating
inventiveness and practical wisdom rather than speculative insight
(consistent with the Ancient Egyptians' notion of wisdom). In fact, today
we reckon Thales to be the only "philosopher" on that list ! Thales tried
to transmit to the Greeks the mathematical knowledge he had derived from
the Babylonians (who, when conquering Egypt in the Third Intermediate
Period, had influenced its astronomy profoundly). Thales sought to give it
a more exact foundation and used it for the solution of practical
problems, such as the determination of the distance of a ship as seen from
the shore or of the height of the Gizza pyramids. Though he was also
credited with predicting an eclipse of the Sun, it is likely that he
merely gave a natural explanation of one on the basis of Babylonian
astronomical knowledge (cf. the Saros-period between eclipses).

Indeed, it was the Greek writer Xenophanes (ca. 580/577 - 485/480 BCE),
who claimed Thales predicted the Solar eclipse that stopped the battle
between the Lydian Alyattes and the Median Cyaxares, evidently on May 28,
585 BCE. However, Herodotus spoke of his foretelling the year only. That
the eclipse was nearly total and occurred during a crucial battle,
probably contributed considerably to his exaggerated reputation as an
astronomer. No writings by Thales survive, and no contemporary sources
exist. Hence, the truth of his achievements is difficult to assess.
Inclusion of his name in the canon of the legendary "Seven Wise Men" led
to his idealization, and numerous acts and sayings, many of them no doubt
spurious, were attributed to him. Again according to Herodotus, Thales was
a practical statesman who advocated the federation of the Ionian cities of
the Aegean region. The Greek scholar Callimachus recorded a traditional
belief stating Thales advised navigators to steer by the Little Bear (Ursa
Minor) rather than by the Great Bear (Ursa Major), both prominent
constellations in the North. Although such stories are probably
apocryphal, they illustrate Thales' reputation.

Thales' significance for Greek philosophy, lies less in his choice of

water as the essential substance, than in his attempt to explain nature by
the simplification of phenomena. Indeed, Thales searched for causes within
nature itself rather than in the caprices of the anthropomorphic gods. He
was deemed the first Greek to give a purely natural explanation of the
origin of the world, free from all mythological ingredients and
unnecessary complexities (linearization and homogeneity). The claim Thales
was the founder of Greek philosophy rests primarily on Aristotle, who
wrote he was the first (Greek) to suggest a single material substratum for
the universe, namely, water, or moisture ... Aristotle apparently had no
knowledge of Heliopolitan theology (Old Kingdom) and New Solar Theology
(New Kingdom).

Even though Thales renounced mythology, his choice of water as the

fundamental building block of matter had its precedent in the Egyptian
tradition (cf. "Nun", the undifferentiated primordial waters before time
and space and its "Ba" or "soul", the autogenetor Atum). To Thales, the
entire universe is a living organism, nourished by exhalations from water
(cf. Egypt's organic, hylezoistic view on creation).

It is true Thales made a fresh start on the basis of what a person could
observe and figure out by looking at the world as it presented itself.
This procedure naturally resulted in a tendency to make sweeping
generalizations on the basis of rather restricted but carefully checked
observations. But it also allowed Milesian philosophy to move beyond the
localized and contextualized traditional thinking of the cultures
surrounding it. The catastrophe of the Dark Age, as well as the vitality
of the Greek spirit (its immaturity ?) favoured the rise of conceptual
rationality, a mode of thought devoid of contextual restrictions.

In geometry, Thales has been credited with the discovery of five theorems
:

(1) a circle is bisected by its diameter ;

(2) angles at the base of a triangle having two sides of equal length are
equal ;
(3) opposite angles of intersecting straight lines are equal ;
(4) the angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle ;
(5) a triangle is determined if its base and the angles relative to the
base are given.

Because of the ancient practice of crediting particular discoveries to men

with a general reputation for wisdom, his mathematical achievements are
difficult to assess. However, they evidence the linear and geometric
spirit of the Greeks. Surely, Egyptians and Mesopotamians had arrived at
the truths represented by these theorems before Thales, but their
theoretical record and fixation (in abstract, discursive, denotative and
context-independent terms) is highly original. It is this linearizing
activity which foremost characterizes the "Greek miracle", not
observation, recording and comparison. The latter can be done with
proto-rational concepts too. But formal reason is precisely this : a
reduction of a variety (a manifold) to a limited number of categories.

Anaximander of Miletus

Thales' friend, disciple and successor, Anaximander of Miletus (ca. 611 -

547 BCE), is said to have given a more elaborate account of the origin and
development of the ordered world (the cosmos). However, his writings are
lost, and although still available to Apollodorus of Athens (cf. Chronica,
ca. 140 BCE), they are not known to have been used by any other writer
later than Aristotle and his successor Theophrastus of Eresus (ca. 370 -
285 BCE). The latter's Phusikos Doxai is also lost, but repeated by
Simplicius (6th century CE). All ancient doxographers depend on the
latter's Physics (Diels) .

Doxographical evidence exists Anaximander wrote treatises on geography,

astronomy, and cosmology that survived for several centuries, and made a
map of the known world. He prized symmetry and introduced geometry and
mathematical proportions into his efforts to map the heavens. Thus, his
theories departed from earlier, more cosmogonical conceptions of the
universe and prefigured the achievements of later astronomers.

Unfortunately, we only possess one sentence of Anaximander's writings. In

this sentence, Anaximander explains a "need" or "necessity" (a moral
imperative at work in creation) operating between the elements (as well as
in human society) :

"But where things have their origin, there too they must pass away, as it
should ; for indeed, they give one another justice and penalty for their
injustice, in accord with the ordinance of time."
Simplicius : Commentary on the Physics, 24.13v, my translation.

According to him, the cosmos developed out of the "apeiron", the

boundless, infinite and indefinite (without distinguishable qualities).
Aristotle would add : immortal, divine and unperishable.

Within this "apeiron" something arose to produce the opposites of hot and
cold. These at once began to struggle with each other and produced the
cosmos. The cold (and wet) partly dried up (becoming solid Earth), partly
remained (as water), and -by means of the hot- partly evaporated (becoming
air and mist), its evaporating part (by expansion) splitting up the hot
into fiery rings, which surround the whole cosmos. Because these rings are
enveloped by mist, however, there remain only certain breathing holes that
are visible to men, appearing to them as Sun, Moon, and stars.

"The Greeks seem to have received from Egypt their old celestial
architecture, as well as that of their temples. It is only when conceived
in this way, as a roof, that the 'ouranos' can be described as 'brazen' or
(in the Odyssey) as made of iron. The reference is no doubt to the great
solidity of the edifice. Hesiod has much the same thing in mind when he
calls it, 'a seat set firm'."
Kahn, 1994, p.139.

Anaximander realized upward and downward are not absolute. Downward means
toward the middle of the Earth and upward away from it, so the Earth has
no need to be supported by anything (as Thales had believed). Instead, he
asserted the Earth remained in its unsupported position at the centre of
the universe because it had no reason to move in any direction and
therefore was at rest.

Starting from Thales' observations, Anaximander tried to reconstruct the

development of life in more detail. Life, being closely bound up with
moisture, originated in the sea. All land animals, he held, are
descendants of sea animals. Gradually, however, the moisture will be
partly evaporated, until in the end all things will have returned into the
undifferentiated "apeiron", in order to pay the "penalty for their
injustice", i.e. of having struggled against one another.

Anaximander subscribed to the philosophical view that unity could

definitely be found behind all multiplicity. In Ancient Egypt, the same
idea had ruled for millenia. The origin of creation was Atum, but the
moment he autogenerates he splits into a pair (Shu and Tefnut). Unity and
differentiation walk hand in hand. Also, in the Heliopolitan Ennead, the
first two "generations of gods" are natural principles : Shu, Tefnut, Geb
and Nut are hypostases of physical phenomena : Air, Moist, Earth & Sky. To
indicate the primordial ocean had no bounds, the Egyptians gave Nun no
cult. Only with the third generation, did the principles of human drama
enter the picture. They are represented by anthropomorphic deities (as is
to be expected). Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys are the prime actors in
the mystery play of the mythical "golden age", the grand story of Osiris.

Anaximenes of Miletus

Anaximander's successor, Anaximenes of Miletus (ca. 585 - 525 BCE), taught

Air was the origin of all things. Neither Thales nor Anaximander appear to
have specified the way in which "the other things" arose out of the water
or the "apeiron". Anaximenes, however, declared the other types of matter
arose out of Air by condensation and rarefaction. In this way, what to
Thales had been merely a beginning, became a fundamental principle
remaining essentially the same through all of its transmutations.

Thus, the term "arche", which originally simply meant "beginning,"

acquired the new meaning of "principle," a term that henceforth played an
enormous role in philosophy. This concept of a principle remaining the
same through many transmutations is, furthermore, the presupposition of
the idea nothing can come out of nothing. All of the comings to be and
passings away we observe, are nothing but transmutations of something
remaining essentially the same for ever (the law of conservation).

Both ideas are found in Egyptian thought.

In the cult of Re and the funerary theology of Osiris, the principle of

transformation is fundamental. The basic verb of Egyptian theology,
"kheper", ("xpr") represented by a scarab, means : "becoming, coming into
existence, transformation, manifestation", and shows the self-creative
capacity of the creator to perpetually rejuvenate, i.e. move through the
cycle of rebirth, death and resurrection, while his spirit ("akh", his
essence) remains the same. The fact preexistence was described in positive
terms, so that the "absent god" of pre-creation, Nun, was deemed always at
work in the background (except in the very short period of Amarna
theology), points to the Egyptian idea of a continuity of being,
manifesting in various modes, of which the primordial one "in the
beginning" is the undifferentiated water of original chaos (cf. the
cultless "Nun", the "father of the gods"). In the Late New Kingdom,
Amun-Re theology points in the same direction. Amun is hidden, one and
millions. He is behind the world (spatiotemporally) and hidden unity in
the world. As such, he is every god and every goddess. Amun-Re functions
as Anaximenes' "arche".

In Egyptian culture, the importance of Maat cannot be underestimated. The

goddess was a personification of a divine concept of truth and justice.
The transformation of Atum ends with the first dawn of Re. He sends forth
rays of light (petrified as an obelix) upon the "risen land", the
primordial hill whose emergence heralds the end of the "first time" and
the coming into being of phenomena (to be witnessed). Together with Re,
Maat appears. She personifies the law of the universe, a combination of
natural and moral insights and considerations. This law cannot be broken
and is offered by the divine king to his divine father. This "offering of
Maat" was the fundamental ritual of Pharaonic Egypt.
 The Greek mentality removed the mythical and pre-rational contexts which
the Egyptians had left intact in their (difficult) proto-rational
literature and eventually they linearized (simplified) Egyptian thought, a
process initiated by the Milesian "sophoi".

Milesian philosophy : individual observation and emergent

proto-rationality

Architecture (the Dorian temple) is a good example of the Greek linear

state of mind.

"The architects, along with the Milesian phusiologoi, were no doubt

stunned by their discoveries of geometric thought and its curious
application to a world of change, a world grasped first of all by the
senses. The imposition of certain patterns on physical things allowed them
to become intelligible in a manner previously unknown. No doubt it was
partly an inherited wisdom, from Egypt, Bablylon and elsewhere, but the
archaic Greeks in Ionia transformed that vision and so also its meaning."
Hahn, 2001, p.166.

The Egyptians kept extensive pictoral & written records of their

political, economical, funerary and, since the Middle Kingdom, personal
reflections, as well as of the dynamics of the Nile (the core of which
they never discovered, for the process is chaotic - Hassan, 1997). The
image of the balance (cf. supra) is essential to understand Egyptian
thought as a whole. To measure the distance from equilibrium with a
plumb-line in a process of confrontation between two opposing forces and
to reestablish harmony (the transcendent factor, projected on Pharaoh) was
the overarching, endless work of "justice and truth" ("Maat") which ruled,
as a natural moral law, since the first day of creation.

The mathematical Rhind Papyrus (second half of the 19th century BCE) shows
the empirico-pragmatics of numerals, units of measurement, multiplication,
division, addition of fractions, summing to 1, doubling of unit fractions,
division of numbers by 10, solution of equations, unequal distribution of
goods, squaring the circle, rectangles, triangles and pyramidal forms were
mastered by the Egyptians. Badawy (1965), based on a study of 55 case
studies belonging to all periods of Egyptian history, demonstrated that in
Egyptian painting, sculpture and architecture a "harmonic design" based on
the 8:5 triangle (approximating the golden section) was used.

The archaic mentality of the Greeks (prefigurated in the rigid Mycen�an

"megaron" as well as in the complex geometrical design of Dorian pottery)
was stern, courageous, young and geometrizing. But just like the rigid
Mycen�ans had been fascinated by Minoan Crete and its "African" natural
scenery, the Archaic Greeks were awestrikken by the formidable grandeur of
(Afro-)Egyptian culture. Their own insistence on this should be taken
serious. There was more than intellectual opportunism at work here. Of
course, as Indo-Europeans, the Archaic Greeks had a couple of typical
features of their own :
individuality / authority : at the beginning of the Archaic Age, there
was a "crisis of sovereignty" (Vernant, 1962). It implied a new
political problem : Who should rule and by virtue of what authority ?
The collapse of the Mycen�an palace civilization was followed by a
return to the small tribal organization (cf. the "ethnos"). This tension
between individuality and social unity is fundamental to understand
Greek philosophy (culminating in the judgment of Socrates). The view
that an individual had the right to rule by virtue of divine lineage was
undermined. Heroic individualism was slowly replaced by an egalitarian
 ideal, in which archaic aristocratic authority was challenged. The
building of temples was an "argument" for the appropriation of civic
authority and helpful to keep control of the foundation of the economic
power of the landowners, the aristocrats (Hahn, 2001, p.237). They
secured their claim by drawing a particular connection between
themselves and a given deity and integrated the divergent fractions of
the community through the regularity of worship ... This swing of the
pendulum between the particularism of the aristocrats and the
egalitarism of the democrats, remained a fundamental ingredient of Greek
culture & animated the Classical Greek "polis" ;
exploring mentality : at the beginning of the Archaic Age, the
population quadrupled and citizenship was increasingly connected with
land ownership, triggering a competition for land which motivated the
colonization. But besides these external causes, the fact remains that
the Greeks were a curious people, always eager to learn more by
approving new ideas and linearizing them in accord with their own
abstract frame of mind. The dynamic nature of the Greek cultural form
assisted a decontextual approach (while in Egypt, a sedentary mentality
reigned) ;
unique dynamical script : the importance of their new system of writing
should not be underestimated : by fixating the vowels, the Greeks were
able to describe an state of affairs with a precision no other script of
antiquity possessed. This referential, objective linguistic capacity
enabled them to communicate through writing with more ease, precision
and objective validity ;
linearizing, geometrizing mentality : proportion, measurement, number,
spatial organization, cyclical processes etc. "reveal" the structure,
form, order, organization of the cosmos. Numbers are more than practical
tools to categorize, for they reflect the genuine, authentic, essential
features of any object. A number never stands alone, for it entertains
numerous fixed mathematical relationships with other numbers and spatial
characteristics. These are described in general, universal, abstract
terms ("theoria"), to be distinguished from their particular, local,
concrete applications in architecture, sculpture, poetry etc. ("techne")
;
anthropomorphic theology : deities had a human face and in the Mycen�an
age, they were at times combined in one cult. At the beginning of the
Archaic Age, the pantheon was systematized by Homer and Hesiod, and each
deity received its task (as in human society). However, Greek religion
was undogmatic, for no sacred text existed (as in Egypt). Xenophanes was
critical about Greek anthropomorphic (and anthropocentric) polytheism,
proposing One Supreme God who was unlike anything human. Typical for
Greek soteriology (salvic theory), is insisting the human soul had to
liberate itself from the physical body through purification (cf.
"ascesis" in Orphism) or somehow trigger its release (cf. "katharsis" &
"ekstasis" in the Dionysian cult). Most major Greek emancipatoric
theories will return to this and understand the body as the prison of
the soul (cf. Plato & Plotinus). This would become the cornerstone of
the Greek idea of "mystery", as opposed to the Egyptian view.
The "Greek Miracle", i.e. the rise of Greek philosophy in Ionia, commenced
with the study of nature (which could be called the "materialistic
polarity") but, thanks to the Ionian Pythagoras, developed into a study of
proportion and number (the "mathematical polarity"). Natural philosophy
tried to do away with mythological explanations, whereas the symbolism of
Pythagoras coupled this naturalism with a mysticism of numbers, which
allowed natural phenomena to be related to each other in abstract,
theoretical terms.

The broad schemes developed by the Egyptians (cosmology, theology,

sapiental wisdom, literature, theocracy, architecture, art) were
decontextualized and linearized (simplified) by the Greeks. The
foundational stones of their forthcoming rational edifice : a pre-existing
"first matter", a co-existing divine moral law, a transformation of one
into millions, etc. were gathered by the Egyptian "barbarians" before
them. Milesian philosophy is a rationalization of mostly Egyptian
source-material. Likewise, Alexandrian Hermetism is a Hellenization of
Ancient Egyptian, Jewish and Greek thought. The Ancient Greeks were
extremely adaptable and flexible.

Two original components (naturalism and mathematics) define Greek

philosophy, which, with the thought of Parmenides and Heraclitus and their
study of being, acquired, its first, truly metaphysical orientation (it
has been argued that Parmenides importance for Greek philosophy is to be
compared with Kant's impact on modern philosophy). Add to this the
anthropocentrism, dialogism and relativism of the Sophists, and the stage
is set for the classical period of Greek philosophy.

3.2 The Stela of Pharaoh Shabaka and Greek philosophy.

the importance of the Shabaka Stone

The Memphis Theology is inscribed on the right hand side of the Shabaka
Stone, a near black block or slab of basalt, erected by Pharaoh Shabaka
(ca. 712 - 698 BCE), the Ethiopian, in Memphis (ca. 710 BCE). It is
probably the most remarkable and interesting opus of Ancient Egyptian
literature left to us, and this for various reason, not in the least
philosophical.

In Line 2 of the inscription, Pharaoh affirms (and the spatial disposition

of the text on the stone confirms) he had copied it from a worm-eaten
original (papyrus in hieratic script ?) and had made it better than before
(a new composition in hieroglyphs on stone).

Reconstruction of the layout of the Shabaka Stone by Breasted - in :

Zeitschrift f�r �gyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, Berlin, n�39 (102),
1902, plates 1 & 2.

A squarish hole is cut deep into the stone in the center, out of which
eleven rough channels radiate, as a result of ignorant disregard in
post-Pharaonic Egypt, when it was used as a nether millstone (note that
Breasted drew only ten channels). The scribal voids in the first columns
(left) may refer to the damaged original Pharaoh Shabaka found, namely the
outermost edge of a scroll rolled from left to right (Sethe, 1928).
Breasted situated the original in the XVIIIth Dynasty, although today
scholars tend to place it in the Late Ramesside Era, i.e. after Amarna).
It is probable that the original was a compendium of Memphite texts
(Junker, 1939).

portrait of Pharaoh Shabaka

from the naos he erected in the temple of Esna
XXVth Dynasty (712 - 698 BC)
The major assets of the Shabaka Stone are :
historical : The inscription refers to three different periods in the
history of Ancient Egypt. Indeed, extant text, original text and
original ideas of the inscription on the Shabaka Stone each have a
different age : the extant text was inscribed on stone by Pharaoh
Shabaka ca. 710 BCE (XXVth Dynasty - Third Intermediate Period), the
worm-eaten originals were probably written under the Ramesses (XIXth or
 XXth Dynasty, ca. 1295 - 1075 BCE - Junker, 1939), while the original
ideas may go back as far as the Vth Dynasty (Old Kingdom). Grimal (1988)
is the only leading contemporary egyptologists who continues to
attribute the inscription to the Old Kingdom. Even if this last layer is
not considered, we know the Ethiopians wanted to adorn themselves with
an Old Kingdom style. These archaisms are also present in the text and
have been put there because older original examples were taken into
considerations and reworked. Most scholars accept Pharaoh Shabaka indeed
"found" a series of old documents in the library of Ptah's temple in
Memphis, although some do not, understanding the stela to be part of the
propaganda-campaign of the "black" Ethiopian Dynasty (note Shabaka's
name -Line 1- was removed). The fact Shabaka said he made it better, is
for some proof he wanted to be worthy enough to rule Egypt from Memphis,
the "capital" of the Old Kingdom.
linguistical : Since Junge (1973) showed the language of the text
belonged to the XXVth Dynasty, nobody (except Grimal) is willing to
assign the worm-eaten original to the Old Kingdom. Indeed, the
archaizing language of the text misled generations of outstanding
egyptologists (like Frankfort) to accept an Old Kingdom date. This fact
alone shows how able Shabaka's scribe was and how well the "old" schemes
were preserved in various inscriptions on stone and papyrus. It is clear
the scribe used this knowledge to rework the text and he added elements
which enabled Junge to understand the text as a composition of the XXVth
Dynasty (like the name "tanen"). Neither the presence of these elements,
nor compositional intent, contradict the possibility an older copy was
present, or that Shabaka's scribe could have used older examples to
compose this exceptional literary work ca.710 BCE. Junker (1939) did put
into evidence the text was composed using more than one example,
suggesting the original was a body made up of various texts. So, the
Shabaka Stela is probably a compendium of Memphite thought.
literary : The text has exceptional synthetic qualities. Indeed, the
fundamental facts of Egyptian political, ritual, theological & (verbal)
philosophical thought are presented in a composed and well-organized
format. The inscription has 61 columns and 3 rows (two large header rows
and one smaller), or a total of 64 lines, of which one is empty (Line
5).
The table of contents has 6 sections :
LINES 1 - 2 : heading (titulary, colophon) : general information about
the stela & editorial remarks concerning its finding and composition ;

LINES 3 - 6 : prefaces : LINES 3 - 4 : general declaration of Ptah's

supremacy as proclaimer of the great name of "Tanen" and as Pharaoh
(LINE 5 is empty) ; LINE 6 : introduction of the mystery-drama of the
deities created by Atum begat by Ptah ;
LINES 7 - 35b : the mystery-drama : here the division (decided by Geb)
of the rule of Egypt between Horus and Seth is narrated and enacted.
This settlement is replaced by the union of the Two Lands under the
sole rule of Horus, who is a manifestation of Ptah.
LINES 48 - 52 : new heading & Ptah's epiphanies : reaffirmation that
all deities are manifestations in Ptah, to whom Ptah gave birth ;
LINES 53 - 61 : the theology of Memphis, containing a verbal
philosophy ;
LINES 61 - 64 : the royal residence : Memphis is the city of
Ptah-Tanen.

theological : Although the theological schemes developed in Ancient

Egypt (Heliopolitan, Hermopolitan, Memphite, Osirian & Theban)
complement each other, in the late New Kingdom (after the
 Amarna-crisis), theologians sought to arrive at a better articulation of
Divine unity. In this inscription, we are told Ptah is the Supreme Being
who used the "image of Atum" to create the world. Although the Memphite
theologians considered their verbal solution (creation through the
Divine Word) more accomplished than the mythical cosmogony of
Heliopolis, they did not oppose the earlier scheme but integrated it
into the Memphite concept. This tendency to shape a "novel" and
"superior" but "integrated" theology can also be seen at work in Thebes
in the late Ramesside period - cf. the Hymns to Amun, wherein the "one
and millions"-formula is prominent (Amun as "deus invisibilis et
ineffabilis") as well as a trinitarian solution to the problem of divine
multiplicity.
philosophical : My own contribution comes from the side of epistemology,
layering cognitive growth in modes of thought which develop in stages
(cf. after the genetical approach of Piaget). These investigations
reveal the absence of rational, abstract, discursive thought as part of
the cultural form of Ancient Egyptian civilization. To understand
Ancient Egyptian thinking, one is much helped by the analysis of the
earliest stages of cognition, characterized by mythical, pre-rational
and proto-rational modes of thought and their prelogical, pre-conceptual
and concrete operational standards (cf. Heka and Rules). These early
modes of thought are at work in our text : the mystery-play summarizes
the foundational Dynastic myth and the dialogues between the deities
operates according to pre-rationality's rules of cognition. The way
distinctions are bridged by the all-encompassing concept of Ptah is
typical for proto-rational activity (cf. the introduction of a
universal, like Anaximander's "to apeiron", the boundless). It would
therefore be unfair to deny Ancient Egyptian civilization its
metaphysical, theological or mystical intentions & cognitive activities,
albeit mythical, pre-rational & proto-rational. This points to the
importance of multiple, non-linear approaches in the Egyptian mind.
Section V, the theology of Memphis, has three subdivisions :

LINES 53 - 57 : logoism : the description of the logoic process with

which Ptah created everything, including all possible deities and the
reason why this Memphite theology supercedes the Heliopolitan one of
Atum. Rudiments of an epistemology are given ;
LINES 57 - 58 : natural philosophy : a holistic philosophy of nature ;

LINES 58 - 61 : pan-en-theism : poetical affirmation that Ptah is

everywhere & everything and that all is in Ptah. Ptah is above
(celestial) as well as below (terrestial).

political : Last but not least, the inscription finally affirms the
importance of Memphis, the city of the coronation of Pharaoh. The
mystery play also culminated in the notion of "the House of Ptah, the
'Balance of the Two Lands' in which Upper and Lower Egypt had been
weighed." (Line 16c). Ptah incarnates as Horus, who is crowned as
Pharaoh, and who abides in Memphis. The Royal Residence is the sacred
place of the presence of the divine on Earth. The text affirms Memphis,
"the Great Throne that gives joy to the heart of the gods in the House
of Ptah, is the granary of Tanen, the mistress of all life, through
which the sustenance of the Two Lands is provided ..." (Line 61).
a major text of Ancient Egyptian literature

Breasted, the eminent American egyptologist, was the first to recognize

the importance of this text as early as 1901 : the stela had been in the
British Museum for nearly a century without anybody taking serious notice
of it before Breasted -in difficult circumstances- made the first
historical transcription. After translating the work (and situating its
conjectured original in the XVIIIth Dynasty), he wrote :

"The above conception of the world forms quite a sufficient basis for
suggesting that the later notions of nous and logos, hitherto supposed to
have been introduced into Egypt from abroad at a much later date, were
present at this early period. Thus the Greek tradition of the origin of
their philosophy in Egypt undoubtedly contains more of the truth than has
in recent years been conceded. (...) The habit, later so prevalent among
the Greeks, of interpreting philosophically the functions and relations of
the Egyptian gods (...) has already begun in Egypt before the earliest
Greek philosophers were born ; and it is not impossible that the Greek
practice of the interpretations of their own gods received its first
impulse from Egypt."
Breasted, 1901, p.54.

For Frankfort (1948), wrongly situating the conjectured original in the

Early Dynastic Period, the text had clearly biblical connotations :

"We know from numerous other texts that 'heart' stands for 'intellect',
'mind', and even 'spirit'. The 'tongue' is realizing thought ; it
translates concepts into actuality by means of 'Hu' - authoritative
utterance. We must then, read these passages as the true Egyptian
equivalent of John's 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.' The Egyptian mode of expression strikes us as
clumsy because we assume involuntarily that a more abstract mode was
available ; but, of course, it was not."
Frankfort, 1978, p.29.

Morenz (1960) wrote :

"The Memphite Theology, that hymn to the creative word, does not contain
the least suggestion that the word of God needed any ready-made material."
Morenz, 1996, p.172, my italics.

And after nearly a century of praise, we still read :

"The Memphite Theology is, undeniably, a remarkable document, and it

clearly ascribes an intellectual and volitional motive to creation, with a
focus on the heart or mind of the creator and the manifestation of thought
in language and material reality. For this reason the theology has been
cited as an antecedent to the first verses of both the Book of Genesis and
the Gospel of John."
Hare, 1999, pp.178-179.

The Memphite Theology has recently also been part of a serious polemic
between classical scholars and historians. In his controversial and
refuted work, Stolen Legacy (1954), George G.M.James wrote that the
Memphis Theology :

"... contains the theological, cosmological and philosophical views of the

Egyptians. (...) Just as the Memphite Theology is the source of Greek
philosophy or primitive science, so it is also the basis of modern
scientific belief."
James, 1992, pp.139 & 145.

In his Black Athena (1987), Bernal remarks :

"... proof that Egyptians could think in terms of abstract religion, which
was published eighty years ago, has received so little attention. The
proof comes from a text generally called Memphite Theology, which dates
back to the 2nd and 3rd millenium."
Bernal, 1987, p.140.

In her Not Out of Africa (1996), Lefkowitz rightly argues against

Afrocentrism and its myth of the "stolen legacy". But in doing so, she
wrongly represents the tenets of the Memphis Theology. She writes : "The
Memphis inscription relates how Ptah's mind (or 'heart') and thought (or
'tongue') created the universe and all living creatures in it."
(pp.140-141). How can somebody claim the Memphis Theology is a work "of a
totally different character from any of Aristotle's treatises" (p.140),
and then misrepresent its contents ? Indeed, the "logoic" element of the
Memphite theology is not mentioned and its crucial passage is badly
translated. Clearly, the author of the Memphite Theology wanted to stress
the difference between the "heart" (mind) and "tongue" (speech), which are
nevertheless simultaneous when Ptah creates the universe (Hare, 1999,
p.184). The fact Lefkowitz translates "tongue" as "thought" proves she did
not understand the theology at hand. Why ? Because of her insistence
(which seems as dogmatical and blind as James' mythical Afrocentricism
-but for better reasons-) the Greeks did never use Egyptian sources, a
statement as wrong as its logical opposite ...

"Aristotle did not steal books from the library of Alexandria and try to
pass them off as his own. Nor did any of the other Greek philosophers
learn their ideas in Egypt, because even if they went there (and not all
of them did), they would not have been able to study with priests in the
Egyptian Mystery System. The existence of a few common themes does not
prove or even suggest that Greek writers plagiarized from the Book of the
Dead, the Memphite Theology, or any other Egyptian source."
Lefkowitz, 1996, p.150.

This line of argumentation is muddled (emotional ?). First of all, the

decisive influence of Egypt (Memphis) on the Greeks was during the Early
Archaic Age. Between 670 - 500 BCE, the Greeks developed their own
"Dorian" mode of thought and in turn influenced the Egyptians and other
cultures. So to refute the idea of Egyptian influence, Lefkowitz should
have studied the Archaic Period, and not the Classical Greeks (for it is
obvious -although not for James- that the abstract ideas of Plato and
Aristotle are indeed far removed from the proto-rationality of the
Egyptians).

Secondly, Egypt had developed a verbal philosophy long before the

Milesians founded Neukratis, and although it was not abstract but rooted
in myth and pre-rationality (making use of a pictoral language), it
nevertheless contained the essence of the later Greek "idea" of the
"logos", namely that the creator created creation with a thought and an
utterance. This notion can not be found in Minoan and Mycen�an cultures.

Thirdly, although indeed no "pure" Egyptian Mystery System ever existed

(being an invention of Alexandrian Egypt and later part of the mythology
proposed by the European Masonic tradition), it is probable that the Greek
mercenaries & travellers were well received in Egypt by Pharaoh
Psammetichus I and his son Pharaoh Necho II. Can it be excluded they
learned about Egyptian religion and sapiental discourses from the Memphite
priest ? No. Indeed, the contrary is more likely.
Finally, if we may believe Diogenius La�rtius, Pythagoras brought with him
to Egypt a letter of recommendation of Polycrates for Pharaoh Amasis and
also three silver cups "for each of the priests of Egypt" (referring to
the high-priests of Memphis, Heliopolis and Thebes). We are told he
learned Egyptian (cf. Lives, Book VIII, who refers to Antiphon's Men of
Extraordinary Merit) and studied there. The possibility Pythagoras was
able to read hieroglyphic inscriptions can therefore not be excluded,
neither can it be affirmed the Greeks learned nothing from the Egyptians.

As is often the case with polemic constructions, Lefkowitz was unable to

present the results of a balanced intellectual exercise (A and B, instead
of A or B), clearly prejudiced in favor of the Aryan thesis.
Unfortunately, this drains her work of its vitality, for by rightly
opposing James, she became dependent on likewise weak arguments and
doubtful readings.

obvious parallels with various components of Greek philosophy

Since ca. 800 BCE, the Greeks spoke again one language. Only ca. 40 years
separate the recording of the works of Homer (ca. 750 BCE) from the
memorable installation of the Shabaka Stone in the temple of Ptah in
Memphis. Around that time (i.e. ca. 710 BCE), no direct and major indirect
cultural ties existed between these "new" Greeks and Egypt. It is only
when the former started their journeys and marauded the Delta, that they
were noticed by the Egyptians (and ranked as pirates). Hence, it is
impossible that Egypt initiated the Greek Renaissance (ignited by one
spoken and written language, i.e. between ca. 800 - 750 BCE).

At the start of the Assyrian conquest (671 - 664 BCE), Milesian Greeks
were incorporated in the Egyptian army (as reported by Herodotus). They
were however not allowed to settle in Memphis or travel upstream.

When Pharaoh Psammetichus I (664 - 610 BCE) invited Greeks at his court,
some remained there as mediators between Greece and Egypt. That a minority
of Greeks were taught by priests of the temple of Ptah is likely. Direct
evidence is of course not available, but the time-window does not
contradict the hypothesis under investigation : intelligent Greeks may
have learned about Egyptian thought under Pharaoh Psammetichus I (664 -
610 BCE) or thereafter, but not before 664 BCE (Thebes sacked by the
Assyrians and ca. 40 years before the birth of Thales of Miletus ca. 624
BCE). Hence, a fruitful encounter with the vast traditional knowledge of
the Memphite priests cannot be excluded.

We should remind ourselves : the Egyptian temple libraries contained an

astonishingly large number of domains covered by priestly knowledge.

"... archaeological investigation has permitted the recovery of the very

works kept in one of these libraries, in the little town of Tebtunis in
the Faiyum. Among these documents, in addition to rituals and treatises on
astronomy and medicine, a certain number of literary texts written in
Demotic have been identified (the stories of Setne, which have already
been mentioned, and of Pedubaste), as well as three onomastica (i.e.
collections of words classified according to their meanings) and several
copies of an otherwise known book of wisdom."
Sauneron, 2000, p.136.

An attempt is made to answer the question of the influence of Egyptian

thought on Greek philosophy in the context of the inscription on the
Shabaka Stone. Which components of the Memphis Theology may have been
incorporated into Archaic Greek thought and to whom were they assigned ?

Following general correspondences spring to the fore :

water as the source of all things : we are told this doctrine was
proposed by Thales of Miletus (ca. 624 - 545 BCE), who -according to
Aristotle in Metaphysica A (983b6v) and De Caelo (294a28v)- saw water
(moist) as the "arche" of all what exists and the Earth as floating on
water as it were a piece of wood or a ship. For Homer, the "arche" was
the starting-point-in-time, a cause of action and potential of
initiative. For Thales, water was the first principle of natural
philosophy developed in the proto-rational mode of thought. After him,
Fire (Heraclitus, ca. 500 BCE) & Air (Anaximenes, ca. 585 - 525 BCE)
will also be proposed, until Empedocles (ca. 490 - 430 BCE) completes
the theory on the elements of creation.

"Nun", the primordial ocean, the "father of the gods", was the
starting-point of the Memphite, Heliopolitan, Hermopolitan and Theban
cosmogonies. It preexisted outside time and space, and is the true
beginning with no beginning. The preexistent ocean was conceived as
undifferentiated and absolutely inert, dark and unlimited, boundless &
chaotic. Because of the self-creative act of the creator of everything,
floating in Nun, or Atum, and the co-relative, simultaneous emergence of
the primordial hill or mount of creation ("tenen"), the primordial
waters are made to surrounds the place of creation. This happened in the
"first time" ("zep tepy"), a liminal existence between preexistence
proper and creation. Because of this material and creative causa sui,
creation unfolded in the midst of these primordial waters. Also : the
importance of water for the Egyptian economy justifies the metaphor of
the Nile as the "source of all things" Egyptian.

In the theology of the Memphites, Ptah is also Nun (or Ptah-Nun). The
Memphis Theology starts with a series of identifications. The primordial
waters are made part of Ptah's process of creation. Nun and his consort
are the first epiphanies of Ptah. All deities are. This theology
resembles late Ramesside Amun-Re theology, with the difference that Ptah
creates the world through throughts and speech.

the boundlessness of pre-creation : Anaximander of Miletus (ca. 611 -

547 BC), a friend and pupil of Thales, proposed the "apeiron" or
"boundless" to be the first inexhaustible principle. In it, two natural
forces produce an explosion creating the universe (the wet & cold
interior is in permanent conflict with its dry & hot exterior).

In Hermopolitan theology ("khemenu" or "City of the Eight"),

pre-creation was characterized by eight chaos-gods. Hou and Haouet, the
boundless & the undefined were part of this Ogdoad (or company of eight
deities headed by Thoth). The double polarity of the Ogdoad (four times
two) is obvious and typical for the polarized state of affairs before
and after creation. Indeed, for the Heliopolitans, Atum-Re self-created
and was simultaneously divided in Air (space) or the god "Shu" and Water
(moist) or the goddess "Tefnut".

In the Memphite theology, the boundless is expressed by the

all-encompassing nature of Ptah, who is Nun, Atum-Re, Shu, Tefnut and
all possible deities. It is also present in the sense of an "alpha
privativum" (cf. "a-peiron") in the explicit ontological distinction
between preexistence and existence, for example between Ptah-Nun and
Ptah-Horus.
natural moral law : for the pre-Socratics, moral law was natural law.
Like Maat, Dike would operate to make justice and truth stand firm.

the dual oppositions : in pre-Socratic philosophy, the doctrine of the

opposites played a major role in explaining the actual state of affairs
in creation. The dialectical opposition between the "cold" and the
"warm" being typical for the Milesians. The oppositions are living
forces which combat each other, causing periodical crisis, terror &
change (cf. Heraclitus on "war"). In later Greek philosophy, this
doctrine becomes ontological, as in the difference between "being" and
"non-being" in Parmenidian thought or the radical gulf separating the
Heraclitic world of becoming from the world of being in Plato's system.

In Egypt, both politics and theology were founded on the notion of

harmonizing dual oppositions : the unification of the "Two Lands" in one
Pharaoh, the settled peace after the battle between Horus and Seth, the
blending of this-world with the hereafter in elaborated funerary
preoccupations, the daily and nocturnal voyage of Re, the hidden and
revelational sides of Amun and in the Memphis Theology, the divine order
of Ptah encompassing pre-creation (Ogdoad) and creation (Atum-Re and the
Ennead) as well as the simultaneity between divine form (thought) and
divine matter (speech). This tendency to transcend duality in a "tertium
comparationis" goes back to the Early Dynastic Period and is a totality
embracing paired contrasts or a harmony of opposites realized by a
factor of transcendent significance (projected, in proto-rational
fashion, on Pharaoh).

the four elements : the "enantia" or opposites were structured in four

elements : Fire and Air were the active elements and both warm (Fire was
dry and Air was moist), whereas Water and Earth were passive and both
cold (Water was moist and Earth was dry). The elements figure as a
paradigm in Empedocles (cf. De Generatione et Corruptione, 330a30), but
in Ionic philosophy they were viewed as the "arche" of the universe.

In the cosmogony of Memphis, as well as in astronomy, architecture &

ritualism, these four elements were explicit. The origin of creation is
the primordial Water before creation. The initiation and foundation of
creation is the emergence of the primordial hill (Earth out of Water)
struck by a beam of the Sun (Fire) petrifying (cf. the "Benben") the
division between heaven and Earth (Air separating the two). Moreover,
the Sun (Fire) was considered as the subtlest of the elements for
responsible for light. The four elements were the cardinal points of the
horizon placed around the sacred objects (pyramids, temples, thrones,
coffins) and the pillars of creation. They played a central role in
ritualism and were called the four "Sons of Horus", each protecting one
of the funerary "Canopic" Jars.

the origin of the world : Democritus of Abdera (ca. 460 - 380/370 BCE)
said that nothing comes out of nothing ("ex nihillo nihil fit") and
hence the fundamental constituents of the universe must always have
existed. This doctrine of the eternal nature of matter has been ascribed
to Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) who argued that because matter, motion and
time are eternal, therefore the world is also eternal. He contradicts
himself in his Physics (Book VIII 1.25) when he speaks of the world as
caused (by the "unmoved mover").

In Ancient Egypt, the eternity of the fundamental constituents of the

universe is attested as pre-creation, which perpetually escapes the
continuous movement of rise, decay, death & rebirth, which is typical
for the gods, goddesses & the rest of the natural order. The eternal
repetition of the pantheon is contrasted with the everlastingness of
Nun, chaos. The chaos-gods are inert but omnipresent (in the
Netherworld) and in the deep of the Nile (cf. Amduat). Moreover, in the
beginning, "Atum" is an "atom", that immediately splits to create the
spatiotemporal world ... And this "first time" of the "splitting of
singularity" is also a perpetual state, for daily, Atum-Re reemerges out
of Nun.

the demiurge or intermediate god in creation : this doctrine is ascribed

to Plato (428/427 - 348/347 BCE), but was also taught by the Persians
(Zoroaster) and by Pythagoras of Samos (ca .574 - after 500 BCE). For
the latter, the universe consisted of two unities : an absolute (final)
unity, from which the series of numbers or beings as such is derived,
encompassing The All, and the One, i.e. the first ("1") in the series of
derived numbers or beings. The One is opposed to and thus limited by
plurality (the other numbers) and therefore a relative unity. In Plato's
system, this distinction reoccurs as the difference between the
demiurgical Idea of the Good (as the limit of limits) and the other
Ideas. It was Porphyrius (the pupil of Plotinus) who called this
Ultimate an Infinite Being beyond all finite being. Aristotle defined
the supreme being as an "unmoved mover", creating all beings but
remaining inexhaustible in the process ("actus purus") and always
identical with itself.

The distinction between :

(a) an absolute unity, as ultimate cause, which remains identical with
itself and unopposed to anything (but out of which "sui generis"
creation unfolds) and
(b) a Demiurge, the first number or first cause, is made explicit in the
Memphite theology by incorporating the Heliopolitan difference between
pre-creation (with its Ogdoadic inertness rooted in Nun) and the "first
time" of Atum-Re who creates himself and all the rest of existence out
of his own body. Atum splits as soon as he emerges, and so his
creativity is always tangential, for it is the Ennead of which he is the
head which rules the affairs of the world :
{0} < 1 < 2, 3 < 4, 5 < 6, 7 & 8, 9.

the Divine order of things : from Pythagoras' mathematical views

onwards, the Greeks were fascinated by the structure, organization &
architecture of the world. Their temples testify their need to find the
laws of life and completely fixate them in rigid, unchangable ideas (the
Egyptian temples were never completed). The pre-Socratics explained the
world through its elemental roots, whereas Plato organized the world of
Ideas in a pyramidal fashion, with the Idea of the Good as a pyramidon
at the top. This tendency to find an all-embracing "form" or "theoria"
can be seen as the greatest accomplishment of the Greeks.

In the theology of Memphis, Ptah is all-encompassing : he is

pre-creation as Ptah-Nun, he is the first time as Ptah creating "in the
form of Atum" and he is creation as the Ennead of Ptah manifesting the
deities, nature & humanity. In that sense, Ptah represents the "formula
 of totality". The same kind of all-comprehensiveness occurs in the
Ramesside theology of Amun-Re, who ruled both the hidden and the visible
as well as being implicitly present in all gods & goddesses and in the
hearts of every devout individual who took his god "in his heart"
(Amun-Re is One and Many).

thought, word & creative command : It was Socrates (469 - 399 BCE) who
introduced an intelligent cause in order to account for creation.
Earlier, and in more proto-rational terms, Heraclitus had speculated
that the hidden harmony of nature (reproducing concord from oppositions)
rules all things together with the divine law ("dik�") and universal
reason ("logos"). Plato speculated that the world was endowed with a
perfect soul, acting as a mediator between the Ideas and the natural
world, causing life, motion, order & knowledge (Timaeus, 30 - 35).

In the Memphis Theology the "logos"-section testified that the Egyptians

were aware of the creative command of thoughts ( in or Ptah's mind) and
words (on , the tongue) before the Greeks coined the word "nous" (first
used by Anaxagoras, ca. 500 - 428 BCE). The magical sources confirm this
(cf. "heka" or "word of power"). Ptah created everything with his
thoughts and creative commands. In Ramesside theology, Amun-Re was
called the "Ba" (soul) of the world.
These correspondences suggest the learned Archaic Greeks took over &
reworked (linearized) many components of the mythical, pre-rational &
proto-rational layers of the cognitive semantics of the Memphites. First
as their own proto-rational structures (the pre-Socratic materialists &
number symbolists) and later as part of a rational explanation of the
universe and man (the Classical Period of Plato and Aristotle).

3.3 Pythagoras of Samos : the mystery of the holy & sacred decad.

The Ionian naturalists (materialists) were individuals, and although

Anaximander had Thales as a teacher, no "school" emerged after their
death. With Pythagoras (ca. 580 BCE, island of Samos, Ionia - ca. 500,
Metapontum, Lucania), this son of an engraver of gems, we encounter the
first Greek "school" of thought, a teaching in which religion, mysticism,
mathematics and philosophy were allowed to interpenetrate each other and
orchestrate a totally new symphonic whole, which will have a decisive
influence on Greek thought as well as on Greek architecture. This was so
unique, that Pythagorism may well be called the second major orientation
in pre-Socratic philosophy next to Milesian materialism as a whole.

According to tradition, the very word "philosophy" was coined by

Pythagoras, who described himself as a "philo-sophos", a "lover" of
wisdom. With his school, the scope of the Milesian "sophoi" was
dramatically enlarged by the introduction of metaphysics, mystical
experience and the philosophy of mathematics (including Pythagorean
numerology). These speculative considerations took place "next to"
physical inquires into the nature of all possible beings. With his
emphasis on numbers and the theology of arithmetic (cf. Nicomachus of
Gesara's The Theology of Arithmetic, ca. 100 CE), Pythagoras completed
mathematics, for a complete study of geometry was taken for granted (for
part of the "know-how" of the Milesian "sophoi").

The combination of geometry and arithmetic, was called the "tetraktys"

(from "tetra", "four"), after the form of a four-tiered triangular patters
of ten dots, the sacred symbol upon which Pythagorean Oats were sworn, and
which probably had its origin in the arrangements of pebbles used to study
mathematics. It is "holy", because of its summarizing manifestation of
completion. It is "sacred", because it contains a secret which is kept out
of sight of the inepti ...

TETRAKTYS - ultimate sacred number

"delta" shaped form (cf. "deka", ten) in four ("tetra") rows
directly influenced Hebrew qabalah and its 10 "sephiroth"
as well as the structure of the 4 qabalistic worlds
Unfortunately, none of the writings of Pythagoras have survived, and
Pythagoreans invariably supported their doctrines by indiscriminately
citing their master's authority. It is difficult to distinguish his
teachings from those of his disciples, neither legends from historical
fact. However, he is credited with the theory of the functional
significance of sacred numbers in the objective world and in music
(obtained by stopping a lyre string at various points along its length -
the octave (2: 1), the fifth (3: 2) and the fourth (4: 3)). Other
discoveries often attributed to him, like the incommensurability of the
side and diagonal of a square, and the Pythagorean theorem stating the
square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle equals in area to the
sum of the squares of the other two sides (well-known in Egypt and
Mesopotamia), were probably developed only later by the Pythagorean
school.

Diogenius La�rtius also tells us Pythagoras entered the Egyptian temples

and learned the secrets of their gods. This is a remarkable testimony. The
Egyptian gods were hidden from sight. Nobody, except Pharaoh and his
appointed priests, could enter the "holy of holies" and face the deity.
There was no communication between the deities and humans, for gods
communicate only with gods. In the Late New Kingdom, common people took
Amun "in their heart" and the Hidden Supreme heard their prayers &
supplications ... Does the fact that Pythagoras entered parts of the inner
spaces of the temple (decorated with the grand story of the pantheon), not
make it likely he had learned how to read hieroglyphs and had satisfied
the discipline of an Egyptian priesthood in decline ? Not to say he had
become an Egyptian priest, but a wide variety of functions were in
existence in Egyptian temples and some of them allowed access to areas
which revealed much to those able to read the sacred writing, the "words
of the gods" (cf. "lector" priest of the "House of Life" - in the Late
Period Memphis, Sais and Bubastis had major libraries).

Iamblichus writes Pythagoras buried Thales and knew Anaximander before he

stayed 22 years in Egypt and was initiated in the teachings of the priests
of Thebes (plurality & unity of the Divine) and the doctrine of the
resurrection of Osiris (the immortality of the soul). He would have
received the sign of the winged disk in gold on his thigh, so that he was
called "chrysomeros", or "he of the golden thigh". When the Persian
Cambyses conquered Egypt in 525 BCE, he was made captive and brought to
Chaldea. There he studied with the "magoi" for 12 years and learned about
numbers and music. Other authors claimed he encountered Zarathoustra
(being baptized in the Euphrate) and travelled to India were he met
Gautama the Buddha (and was taught the doctrine of the "transmigration",
i.e. reincarnation ?). The teachings drew a large following in the Greek
colony of Croton in southern Italy, were he went to live. A kind of
Freemasony "avant la lettre" rose among the aristocracy. It was a
fraternity with Pythagoras as its "master". Its members had a lot of
political power (based on "aret�" and "pon�s", excellence and effort), but
were eventually massacred in a riot long after Pythagoras had died. The
followers spread the principles and caused Pythagorism (or
"Pythagoreanism") to become part of the Greek world. Iamblichus quotes his
master, who had said : "number is the rule of forms and ideas, and the
cause of gods and demons".

In all, the various accounts draw a cosmopolitan picture of Pythagoras. He

was the first Greek philosopher in the universal sense of the word, for
all beings were part of his reflection. His interests go further than the
physical doctrines of the Milesians and for the first time in Greek
history, philosophy, mathematics & religion were put in one system of
thought.

The problem of describing Pythagorism is complicated by the fact the

surviving picture is far from complete, being based chiefly on a small
number of fragments from the time before Plato and on various discussions
in authors who wrote much later - most of whom were either Aristotelians
or Neoplatonists. In spite of these historical uncertainties, the
contribution of Pythagorism to Western culture has been significant and
therefore justifies the effort, however inadequate, to depict what its
teachings may have been.

Three levels may be discerned :

original teachings of Pythagoras ;
Pythagoras in Plato and Aristotle ;
teachings & influence of the Pythagorean school.
The character of original Pythagorism is controversial, and the
conglomeration of disparate features it displayed is intrinsically
confusing. Its fame rests, however, on some very influential ideas, and
likely most of these prevailed in the school of Croton :
the metaphysics of number and the conception that reality, including
music and astronomy, is, at its deepest level, mathematical in nature :
Pythagoras' sufficient ground is not a cosmic substance but an inner
organization or structure coupled with a liberating, salvic intentions,
albeit ascetical & philosophical ;
the use of philosophy as a means of spiritual purification : a lover of
wisdom is more than an intelligent person aware of problems and their
solutions, for his persuit of wisdom must be a window to the immortal
soul, the light of which draws him near to the original and fundamental
level of reality : the mathematical order of being which whispers a
hidden, mysterious language of silence, with a code available to the
initiate only ;
the heavenly destiny of the soul and the possibility of its rising to
union with the divine : Pythagoras is not satisfied with the mundane,
immanent perspective, for the Pythagorean philosopher is before all the
rest a lover of unity and its experience, which implies transcendence,
trance, osmosis etc. ;
the appeal to certain symbols, sometimes mystical, such as the
"tetraktys", the golden section, and the harmony of the spheres :
symbols are the residu of spiritual experiences and contain a code to
trigger co-relative experiences later ;
the Pythagorean theorem : mathematics and the solution of particular
problems are the "purest" way to encounter the immortal soul, for its
language is that of sacred number ;
the demand members of the order shall observe a strict loyalty and
secrecy : the order is a private affair and has no "outer order".
What could Pythagoras have learned from the priest of Memphis and Thebes ?
the unity of the divine : the absolute is One and Millions, invisible by
nature and manifest in nature's forms ;
the rule of truth and justice : all actions have to be weighed on the
balance of truth to measure their order ;
the order of creation : the cosmos unfolded as a series of numbers : 0 >
 1 > 2 & 3 > 4 & 5 > 6, 7, 8, 9 ;
the sacrality of "10" : Pharaoh, "son of Re", completes the Ennead + 1 =
"10" order ;
the creativity of thought and speech : the cosmos as conceived in the
"mind" of the absolute ;
geometrical solutions to practical problems : mathematical papyri
testify Egypt's elementary abilities ;
the magic of symbols : sacred script and ritual speech have powers
beyond their physical form ;
the rule of silence : the Egyptian gods and their priests were out of
sight and hidden - silence was gold ;
the harmony of opposites : all fundamental oppositions are bridged by a
harmonic "third" ;
the symbolism of numbers : each natural number (0 - 10) has "inner"
meanings, purposes and relations.
There probably never existed a strictly uniform system of Pythagorean
philosophy and religious beliefs, even if the school did have a certain
internal organization. Pythagoras appears to have taught by pregnant,
cryptic "akousmata" ("something heard") or "symbola". His pupils handed
these on, formed them partly into Hieroi Logoi ("Sacred Discourses"), of
which different versions were current from the 4th century BCE on, and
they interpreted them according to their convictions.

Although variations occur, a striking similarity prevails between the

Egyptian, Greek and Hebrew numerologies. The qabalah was influenced by
Pythagorism (Barry, 1999) and Pythagoras probably studied Theban
numerology (cf. the headings of the Hymns to Amun) :

Egyptian
numerology*Pythagorean
numerologyQabalistic
numerology
0
absolute, single, alone, with no second : Nun
absolute unity, ultimate cause
Ain : the absolute as unlimited nothingness0
1unity, the All, Atumrelative unity, creator, malecreator, first
cause1
2Shu and Tefnut,
The Two Landsdivision, weakness, femalevariety-in-unity, supernal
"logos" or "wisdom"2
3one as three :
god, goddess, childone in three :
beginning, middle and endunity-in-variety, supernal matrix or
"understanding"
4compass, foundation, the sons of Horusrighteousness and
stabilityongoing creative power and act of compassion3
5Horus-Pharaoh living in Maat unifies dual Egyptmarriage of odd and
even, of male and femaleseverity of the laws of creation and act of
justice
6Re, life, Osiris, Djet, resurrection, soulpeace, wholeness and
sacrificeinner balance, immortality and self-sacrifice
7Seven Hathors, 42 Assessorsjoy, love and opportunitylove, peace,
plenty and victory4
8Ogdoad, Thoth, magic of the restored eye, heartsteadfastness and
balancethought, science, medicine and glory
9Ennead, Isis as "una qu� es omnia"ultimate completionfoundation of
spiritual life, free will and ego
10Ptah, creator, manifestation, doublesacred, summarizing
 numberphysical manifestation, world of four elements

* this a tentative list of correspondences, based on a wide range of

Egyptian texts
Plato mentions Pythagoras only once (Republic, X.600). No details are
given about the "Pythagorean way of life", which he compares with Homer.
The Pythagorean teachings were obviously popular enough for Plato not to
bother to discuss them. Not so for his pupil Aristotle, who wrote :

"Pythagoreans applied themselves to mathematics, and were the first to

develop this science ; and through studying it they came to believe that
its principles are the principles of everything. And since numbers are by
first nature among these principles, and they fancied that they could
detect in number, to a greater extent than in fire and earth and water,
many analogues dof what is and comes into being-such and such a property
of number being justice,. and such and such soul or mind, another
opportunity, and similarly, more or less, with all the rest - and since
they saw further that the properties and ratios of the musical scales are
based on numbers, and since it seemed clear that all other things have
their whole nature modelled upon numbers, and that numbers are the
ultimate things in the whole physical universe, they assumed the elements
of numbers to be the elements of everything, and the whole universe to be
a proportion or number."
Aristotle, Metaphysics, I, v. 1-3, 985b.

In the 4th century BCE, Plato's inclination toward Pythagorism created a

tendency -manifest already in the middle of the century in the works of
his pupils- to interpret Platonic concepts as originally Pythagorean. Most
of the literary sources ultimately hark back to the environment of Plato
and Aristotle. Later, Neoplatonism, which developed in the third century
CE, reworked Pythagorism. Although they claimed to reassert a true
understanding of Plato, they took a syncretic approach and drew from other
sources, such as Pythagorean number mysticism and the Hermetica.

By laying stress on certain inner experiences and intuitive truths

revealed only to the initiated, Pythagorism seems to have represented a
soul-directed, salvic idealism alien to the mainstream of pre-Socratic
Greek thought, preoccupied with determining what the basic cosmic
substance ("phusis") was. In contrast with Ionian naturalism, Pythagorism
was akin to trends seen in mystery religions and mystical movements, such
as Orphism, which often claimed to achieve a spiritual insight into the
Divine origin and nature of the soul through intoxication. Yet, there are
also aspects of it appearing to have owed much to the more sober,
"Homeric" philosophy of the Ionians, especially regarding ascesis and the
importance of mathematics.

Indeed, the Pythagoreans displayed an interest in metaphysics (the nature

of being), as did their naturalistic predecessors, though they claimed to
find its key in mathematical form rather than in any cosmic substance.
They accepted the essentially Ionian doctrines saying the world is
composed of opposites and generated from something unlimited, but they
added the idea of the imposition of limit (number) upon the unlimited and
the sense of a musical harmony in the universe (a "music of the spheres",
sounding to human ears as silence - cf. Aristotle, De Caelo, II.9). Again,
like the Ionians, they devoted themselves to astronomical and geometrical
speculations. Combining, as it does, a theory of number with a numerology
and a speculative cosmology with a theory of the deeper, more spiritual
reaches of the soul, Pythagorism interweaves religion and philosophy more
inseparably than does any other movement in pre-Socratic thought.
The "mixture" of theories on proportions and numbers with numerology, as
well as the blending of a speculative philosophical interest with the
persuit of religious salvation, point to a proto-rational mode of thought.
Pythagorism clearly differs from Egyptian proto-rationality because,
emerging out of a Dark Age, it was less rooted in historical myth and had
an intrinsic "Homeric" tendency towards linearization.

Another interesting fact is this. Pythagoras and his school are the first
to develop a system of thought influenced by many disparate sources
(Ionian, Egyptian, Persian, Indian). These elements were brought together,
equilibrated and made to function as part of a larger "abstract" whole.
Just like the Ionian "sophoi" before him, his system of thought
incorporates foreign sources and transcends them using a Greek mode of
thought. However, Pythagoras' thought is scholarly, i.e. focused on the
development of a school of thought. The same process is at work in the
Corpus Hermeticum, written from the first to the third century CE but
going back to Alexandrian sources (ca. 100 BCE ?). Here, Ancient Egyptian,
Jewish and Greek philosophies are combined and made to function is a
larger, decontextualized form (Hermes as the "nous" of Atum, prefigurating
Aristotle's "first intellect"). Apparently Greek thought is very able to
recuperate bits and pieces of interesting material and then recombine it
to form a rational whole. Ionian thought, Pythagorism and Hermetism are
clear examples of this (even Plato is said to have written down the
thoughts of Socrates).

3.4 The Greek pyramidion or the completion of Ancient thought.

the Greek Renaissance was not exclusively endogenic

There is no evidence on mainland Greece to support the thesis that the

fundamental cognitive leap forward (from Dorian to Archaic, from
illiterate to literate) put into evidence by the history of Ancient Greek
culture, namely the "reequilibration" which happened between 900 - 800
(unity in language) and 750 BCE (the reemergence of writing) -the
so-called Greek Renaissance- was exclusively caused by factors in the
autochtonous environments of these various Helladic peoples, on the
contrary. The Greek Renaissance (in the Age of Revolution) as a whole, and
the Greek Miracle (the birth of Greek philosophy) in particular, were not
the sole product of cultural processes from within the "body" of Dorian
and Early Archaic Greeks.

Their new, shared system of writing was non-Greek but Phoenician. The
"techn�" of their Dorian architecture was Egyptian. Crude leather was
replaced by fine Egyptian papyrus. And because of the exceptional cultural
ties between Miletus and Naukratis, let us conjecturet the Archaic Ionian
philosophers, with Pythagoras in front, approbated most of their
subject-matter in the incredible inductive storehouses of images kept in
the libraries & temples of Egypt (as the Greek themselves proudly
affirmed) as well as from oral teachings given by the Memphite & Theban
priests themselves. Other influences also played, but Egypt won the prize
of the most venerable culture.

the Greek Renaissance was not exclusively exogenic

Nevertheless, by the end of the Dark Age, the Greek cultural form had
persistent "Aryan", Indo-European characteristics of its own :
linearization : "Mycen�an megaron", "geometrical designs", mathematical
form, peripteros ;
 anthropocentrism : warrior leaders, individual aristocrats, poets,
"sophoi" and teachers ;
fixed vowels : the categories of the "real" sound are written down &
transmitted ;
dialogal mentality : the Archaic Greeks enjoyed talking, writing &
discussing (with strong arguments) ;
undogmatic religion : the Archaic Greeks had no sacred books and hence
no dogmatic orthodoxy ;
cultural affirmation : the Archaic Greeks were a "young" people who
needed to affirm their identity ;
cultural approbation & improvement : the Archaic Greeks accepted to be
taught and were eager to learn.
The inventive, Greek adaptation of these strong direct influences, the
linearization of the underlying ante-rational thoughts and eventually the
rational universalization of ante-rationality itself, constituted the
formalizing streak which characterized Hellas. Indeed, in the eighth and
seventh centuries BCE, a fair number of technical processes and decorative
motive of Mycen�an Art reappeared in Greece. They are probably
reintroductions from the East, where they had been adopted in the days of
the Mycen�an empire and kept alive throughout the Dark Age. Linear B was
however never used again, but parts of the "old" Greek cultural form had
survived and was presently seeking its renewal by good, strong & enduring
examples : Phoenicia, Egypt, Mesopotamia.

"Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Bronze Age to Classical Greece

was something less tangible, but quite prossibly inherited : an attitude
of mind which could borrow the formal and hieratic arts of the East and
transform them into something spontaneous and cheerful ; a divine
discontent which led the Greek ever to develop and improve their
inheritance."
Higgings, 1997, p.190 (my italics).

the Greek Miracle : product of the formal attitude of the Greeks and
Egyptian "wisdom"

The Archaic, pre-Socratic stratum of the "Greek Miracle" was itself

layered :
Milesian "arche" and "phusis" : the elemental laws of the cosmos are
rooted in substance, which is all ;
Pythagorian "tetraktys" : the elemental cosmos is rooted in numbers
which form man, gods & demons ;
Heraclitian "psuche" & "logos" : a quasi-reflective self-consciousness,
symbolical & psychological ;
Parmenidian "aletheia" : the moment of truth is a decision away from
opinion ("doxa") entering "being" ;
Protagorian "anthropos" : man is the measure of all things and the
relative reigns.
Let us remind ourselves of a few dates :
ca.670 BCE : Psammetichus I initiated linguistic exchanges (translators)
;
ca.624 BCE : birth of Thales of Milete, who visited Egypt ;
570 BCE : under Amasis (dies in 526 BCE), Neukratis became an exclusive
Greek trading centre ;
ca. 580 BCE : birth of Pythagoras, who studied in Egypt to be well
received in its temples ;
ca. 540 - 530 BCE : Dorian "old" Temple of Hera, Poseidonia, erected ;
ca. 500 : death of Pythagoras ;
478 BCE : end of the Archaic Age (creation of the Delian League).
The Egyptian heritage could have influenced individual Greeks from 670 BCE
onwards. Thales of Milete being the first Greek "sophoi" who visited Egypt
and who was allowed to study the pyramids, geometry and probably parts of
Egyptian religion, like the mythical notion of the primordial ocean
("Nun") as the fundamental, unchanging root or reality out of which all of
creation emerged (a story as old as Egypt itself). Probably also in Egypt
did Thales lean about the "Saros" period between eclipses, for Chaldean
astronomy & astrology had been recently introduced into Egypt after the
Assyrian invasion. It is clear, as Iamblichus explains, that this
practical knowledge was approved by the Milesians, who knew Thales had not
received his education in Greece. In his homeland, he became famous for
feats Egyptians and Bablylonians had done. The opportunistic, intelligent
and inquiring mentality of Thales, as well as his ability to approbate,
adapt and change the set of inductive parameters, were of course truly
Greek.

With Amasis and the exclusive position of Neukratis, a new period was
initiated. And a few decades later, Pythagoras (already famous in Greece)
was brought before Pharaoh, who decided the lad could study with the
priests of Thebes. Likely the priests of Memphis were the first to take
him in charge. Did he learn Egyptian from them ? The length of his stay,
as well as the religious orientation of the first Greek "philo-sopher",
points to a training under Egyptian priests. The secrecy, the heavenly
goal of the immortal soul as well as the holy and sacred nature of the
"decad" are truly Egyptian. Pythagoras also assimilated Chaldean (music)
teachings, Vedic & Buddhist notions (like the transmigration from
elemental being to god - cf. Buddhism's "wheel of dharma"), evidencing the
adaptability of the Greek mind.

How many classical historians of philosophy mention that Egypt had

developed its own sapiental literature, Memphite ethics and verbal
philosophy, albeit in proto-rational terms ? That when Thales and
Pythagoras visited Egypt, their Memphite counter-parties were highly
educated and intellectually skilled men ? That cognitively, they had the
same proto-rational inclinations as these Early Archaic Greeks ? The
notions of "truth" ("maat") and "wisdom" ("saa") were essential to the
Memphites, who were only willing to share their information, if Pharaoh
commanded so AND the pupil was intelligent enough to learn Egyptian, both
hieratic and hieroglyphic. Tradition claimed Pythagoras was the first to
satisfy both conditions, for in the eyes of Polycrates he was already an
exceptionally gifted individual.

Thales and Pythagoras represent the two sides of the Ionian experience :
independent physical inquiry (Thales) and metaphysics of number
(Pythagoras). This experience, which is truly Greek, had as catalyst the
approbation of Egyptian and Bablyonian age-old inductive insights, forming
a traditional proto-rational system of operational and efficient
relationships, variables and constants. Indeed, the Greek words "nous"
("mind, thinking, perceiving") and "no�s" ("perceive, observe, recognize,
understand"), could be derived from the Egyptian "nu" ("nw"), "to see,
look, perceive, observe" :

"NU", "nw", determinative for action with eyes - XXXth Dynasty

similar, earlier and complexer forms (with different determinatives) for :
to keep guard over, to watch, to tend, intention, care for something,
shepherd, guide
supposed origin of the Greek "no�s" and "nous"
Greek philosophy and the modes of thought

Shabaka Stone : line 53, retrograde writing

 (hieroglyphs in red are reconstructed) There comes into being
in the mind :

It is as the image of Atum.

There comes into being

by the tongue :

It is as the image of Atum.

Ptah is the very great,

who gives life to all the gods
and their Kas.

All of this
in this mind and
by this tongue.

The modes of thought described elsewhere can also be applied to the

becoming of the Classical Greek mental form, which, contrary to the
Egyptian, was able to realize the "formal" mode as a collective and become
the cornerstone of Classical Greek civilization, which stabilized thought
in the rational mode of cognition :
modes
of thoughtexamples
in Greek thoughtPiagetian genesis
of cognition
mythical
Minoan myth & religion
(ca. 2600 - 1150 BCE)Minoan hieroglyphs
non-Greek Linear A libidinal
sensori-motoric
the Greeks settle in Greece, are taught by the Minoans and return
home enriched ...
later they conquer Crete
pre-rational
Mycen�an culture
(ca. 1600 - 1100 BCE)Greek Linear B
administrative documentstribal
pre-operatoric
pre-rational
Dark Age of Dorians
(ca. 1100 - 750 BCE)lost Linear B ? - oral tradition
Homer & Hesiod
the Greeks travel, are taught by the Egyptians and others and return
home enriched ...
later they conquer Egypt and others
proto-rational
Archaic Greece
(ca. 750 - 478 BCE)Milesian "sophoi",
"philo-sophos" Pythagoras
Heraclitus imitative
concrete operatoric
rational
Classical Greece
(478 - 323 BCE)Parmenides, Protagoras
Socrates, Plato & Aristotle formal
formal operatoric
To think the difference between Greek proto-rationality and the traditions
of "Antiquity", is to allow the Greek "mind" and its perceptions its own
characteristics beyond the ante-rational civilizations which had
celebrated their apogees before the Archaic Greeks (from Neolithicum to
the truncated pyramids of proto-rationality). The stern architecture of
the Mycen�ans and the "megaron" of their warrior-like, pre-rational mental
attitudes, restricting their protective interest to their own hill-top,
are the earliest traces of the "geometrizing" and "linearizing" tendencies
of the Greeks. In the epics, the military heroism of these leaders was
idealized.

The influence of the non-Greek, Minoan culture on the Mycen�an empire was
unmistaken. The stern Greek was inspired by African high-culture.
Likewise, the Archaic Greeks, recovering their cultural unity after
centuries of decay, opened the doors to the East to educate and emancipate
themselves. They were received in Egypt ca. 670 BCE. Ca.150 years later,
the Greeks manifested the "Dorian" standard, as well as realized the
luxury to entertain a series of Milesian "sophoi" and a Pythagorean school
of spiritual philosophy. The expression : "the Greek Miracle" does perhaps
refer less to origin as to speed.

The presence of an alphabet explains the fundamental schism between the

"old" proto-rationality of the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, on the one
hand, and that of the Archaic Greeks, on the other. The Greeks were able
to fixate referential meaning by introducting a completely new written
feature : fixed vowels. In the old systems, the vowels were not recorded,
and so essential categorial information was lost. Moreover, their
"geometrizing" mental attitude stood in sharp contrast with the
"harmonizing" mentality of the Egyptians, who never decontextualized their
meanings and had eternalized a difficult pictoral script and various
grammars (cf. Assmann's "visuelle Begriffsbildung"). Although not
theoretical, the Egyptians had accumulated a gigantic number of inductive
statements (in terms of practical proto-conceptual procedures). Most
likely by "trial and error", they had arrived at operational solutions,
from which the Greeks abstracted the "universal rule", enabling them to
eventually "adjust" the procedures.

the capstone of proto-rationality

The most difficult operation, after an Egyptian pyramid was finished, was
the raising and placing of a capstone or pyramidion. This was made of
granite or basalt, and was placed on the apex. An inscription at the
pyramid of Queen Udjebten (VIth Dynasty, consort of Pepi II), refers to a
gilded capstone, which suggests these stones were at times overlaid with
gold or electrum (an alloy of gold and silver). The finest pyramidion is
the one of Pharaoh Amenemhet III (XIIth Dynasty). All four sides bear
inscriptions in which the invoked deities are associated with the cardinal
points of the compass. The pyramidion was the first to catch the rays of
the Sun and represented, in a practical, pictoral way, the concept of
resurrection and personified the creator Atum.
the logos-section : translation & commentary
53 There comes into being in the heart.
There comes into being by the tongue.

(It is) as the image of Atum.

Ptah is the very great, who gives life to all the gods and their
Kas. It all in this heart and by this tongue.
LINE 53 initiates the text of the Memphis Theology. It starts with
two parallel phrases : "there comes into being in the heart" (mind),
"there comes into being by the tongue" (mouth). Both events occur at
the same time. Then, in retrograde writing, "as the image of Atum"
is added. At the end of the line, a short parallel text, again
stressing "heart" and "tongue" closes this line.

Atum is the "image" or "form" used by Ptah to create, a blueprint of

how the laws of actual existence are in Ptah. These "laws" involve :

(a) the self-creation ("kepher"), spliting (Shu & Tefnut - cf. line
57) and manifestations of Atum (his Ennead) hand in hand with ;
(b) the sacred eternal cycle of dawning, culmination, dusk,
rejuvination (resurrection, ascension) and rebirth. Atum is hence
the "form" used by Ptah to create everything by speaking divine
words.

These laws of existence, given form through the imagery of the cult
of the Sun, became the Heliopolitan model of creation, rooted in
mythical & pre-rational thought. But in Memphis, Atum & his Ennead
are "demiurgic" deities in the mind of Ptah, who is the ultimate
creator as exalted overseer of all, including himself, namely "on
the Great Throne", encompassing the "Two Lands" and striking the
absolute balance between all polarities (between creation &
pre-creation, between sky and earth, between Upper and Lower Egypt)
by means of creative speech. The whole Heliopolitan scheme is seen
as an "image", a "form" or "metaphor", for Ptah is the very great,
not Atum.

Those essential pre-rational factors, rooted in the specifics of the

myth of creation associated with Atum, are taken as an "image"
rising in the mind and by the tongue of the creator (see also line
55). Atum is not eliminated. On the contrary, his mythology is
necessary to define the superiority of the Memphite scheme, which
conceived the deities as epiphanies (Amun-Re), and combined this
with the notion that creation exclusively comes into being as the
result of divine thought in the image of Atum & the utterance of
divine words. Atum is invoked, not as the real cause of creation
(the mind), but only as the "image" preferred by the logoic creator,
Ptah. Atum is the archetype of creation Ptah has in mind and which,
when uttered, manifests.
54 Horus came into being in him ;
Thoth came into being in him as Ptah.
Power came into being in the heart and by the tongue and in all
limbs, in accordance with the teaching that it (the heart) is in all
bodies and it (the tongue) is in every mouth of all gods, all men,
all flocks, all creeping things and whatever lives ; thinking
whatever the heart wishes and commanding whatever the tongue wishes
!
Again parallel writing is used. Horus and Thoth are introduced as
the deifications of the logoic process itself, and namely of two of
its main components : (a) thinking (Horus, the overseer) & (b)
speech (Thoth, the scribe).

This line is very complicated, and eluded many translators. The

essential equation is given in the two parallel texts of the two
introductory lines of this theology, namely "heart" = "Horus" and
"tongue" = "Thoth". In line 54, this play with the words "heart" and
"tongue" continues. Contrary to Sethe, Junker translated the pivotal
"wnt.f" ("that") as referring to heart and tongue, rather than to
Ptah (as Sethe suggested). This solution is followed here. The
Memphite author plays with the meaning of "heart", for the physical
heart (as organ) and the wishing heart (as mind) are juxtaposed.

After the general statement in line 53, that Ptah, by means of the
logoic process (i.e. the creation of everything using thought &
spoken words), gave life to all deities, Ptah specifically manifests
in two divine forms. Horus is an epiphany of Ptah's mind and Thoth
of Ptah's tongue.

The divine order of words thought in Ptah's mind & spoken by his
tongue (both "in the form of Atum") have as their concrete objects :

(a) the unity of the Two Lands, of which Horus was the ultimate
deity (cf. the Old Kingdom "Followers of Horus" ; the confusion
between Horus and Re ; Horus of Lower Egypt, avenger of Osiris, who
is the justified Pharaoh of Egypt ; the four sons of Horus in
ritual, etc.) and
(b) the art of divine speech, connected with Egyptian magic,
epiphanized as "Thoth", the god of writing, learning, wisdom, magic,
healing arts etc. He was the secretary of Re and the brother of
Maat, goddess of truth & justice.

Horus as "heart" is Pharaoh's capacity as overseer, associated with

his mind. The mind is therefore weighed at the Judgment of the Dead,
for it is by means of the heart that Maat is offered to Re. Both
Horus & Thoth (as all the rest) are created by Ptah in Ptah while in
the material process of speaking his immaterial mind. No mythical
event is invoked, but only the fact that Ptah thinks and creates
when he speaks.

The simultaneity of the mental (subjective) and material (objective)

sides of the cognitive process, is indicated by the use of
symmetrical writing. Horus and Thoth are the two sides of the divine
logoic process. Horus determines the contents of what is said, Thoth
conveys magical power to what is said. Both happen at the same time.

The "heart" of Ptah is not a "nous" devoid of context, i.e. an

abstract, rational Divine (Platonic) Mind. Rather, the contents of
mind (the divine words) simultaneously move Ptah's tongue. Formal
and material poles come together in Ptah's continuous actions, the
overseeing "Great Throne" of Ptah. The mental process suggested here
is proto-rational, and aims at establishing a solid case for ongoing
creative speech and the ontic supremacy of Ptah as "very great"
(while allowing, consistent with henotheism, other deities to exist
as such "in" Ptah). Furthermore, the fact that Ptah is unable to
create without the "image of Atum", proves the point. In an abstract
"nous", creation would be the outcome of thought & speech only.

Hence, this proto-rational logos philosophy identifies Ptah with the

source of the content of mind (Horus also comes into being as the
image of Atum) and not with the abstract, formal, simple mind of
rational logos philosophy (as found in Plato or Aristotle).
55 His (Ptah's) Ennead is before him as heart, authoritative
utterance, teeth, semen, lips and hands of Atum.

This Ennead of Atum came into being through his semen and through
his fingers.
Surely, this Ennead (of Ptah) is the teeth and the lips in the
mouth, proclaiming the names of all things, from which Shu and
Tefnut came forth as him, and
In this section, the Ennead of Ptah is the main object of the
theology. It is contrasted with the Ennead of Atum. The hieroglyphs
define this latter company of deities by adding "Atum" (this happens
once), whereas the Ennead of Ptah is mentioned without such an
addition, and referred to as "his" or "this".

The components of the two theologies (Memphis & Heliopolis) are

summarized. On the one hand, heart, authoritative command & teeth
point to Ptah and, on the other hand, semen, lips & hand are
suggestive of Atum. Indeed, the creative form of Atum was associated
with "Khepera", arising self-engendered out of Nun.

In a papyrus from the Late Period (ca. 312 BCE), preserved in the
British Museum, we read :

"I am he who came into being in the form of Khepera. I became the
creator of what came into being (...) Not existed heaven, not
existed earth (...) I raised them up from out of Nun from a state of
inactivity. (...) I, even I, had union with my clenched hand, I
joined myself in an embrace with my shadow, I poured seed into my
own mouth ..."

So Atum created the world for his own pleasure. His progeny are
accidental and the whole issue revolved around his auto-erotic
intent. The lengthening and becoming stiff of his penis refers to
the emergence of the primordial hill (the risen land) and the
solidifying of the waters of chaos. The reason why something came
out of Nun is explained as Atum pleasing himself. By masturbating he
ejected semen and by pouring his seed into his own mouth, everything
came forth ...

In the Memphite scheme, this unnatural mythical procedure is

superceded. It is only an "image". Contrary to Atum, Ptah creates
everything by using his mind and authoritative command. As soon as
the latter is expressed (lips & teeth), creation unfolds. The only
part of the body which both have in common are the lips. Indeed,
Atum brings his seed to his mouth. Likewise, only when the divine
words are articulated will creation unfold.

Indeed, they may indeed say in Heliopolis, that the Ennead is

supposed to have come into being through the semen, lips & hands of
Atum, but in reality, however, the divine Ennead came into being
through the word, the teeth & lips in Ptah's mouth, which named all
things. The most interesting advance lies in the attempt to explain
creation in terms of the processes of thought and speech rather than
in sheer physical activity.

The latter is typical for the mythical & pre-rational mode of

thought, whereas the former is the realization of proto-rational
thought, able to work with stable concepts. These are not abstract
or formal, for this proto-rationality remains rooted in the
pre-rational "image" of Atum, who remains the mythical and
pre-rational proto-type of (or context for) the physical aspect of
creation.

However, this aspect was not the cause of creation as such. Creation
was not the result of the auto-erotical intent of Atum, but of the
word in the mind of Ptah. This divine word was not "before" its
physical manifestation, but simultaneous with it. Atum was not
negated, but introduced as the "model" of creation risen in Ptah's
mind.

Had Ptah relinquished this "form", a concept of mind untained by its

content would have arisen. This was not the case. The word of Ptah
pronounced by his mouth created everything. To do this, Ptah needed
the "image of Atum" to mediate in the act of creation. Likewise, Shu
and Tefnut came forth from the logoic process. But not as
themselves, but as Ptah. Nevertheless, the fact that the cause of
creation is not some mythological physical activity but a logoic
process (albeit simultaneous with physical events) is extraordinary.
It indicates that Ancient Egyptian philosophy existed and that in
it, the importance of thought and speech were omnipotent. Hence, the
claim that the Greeks were first to invent the logos is refuted.
56 which gave birth to the Ennead (of Ptah).

The sight of the eyes, the hearing of the ears, and the breathing by
the nose, they transmit to the heart, which brings forth every
decision.

Indeed, the tongue thence repeats what is in front of the heart.

Thus was given birth to all the gods. His (Ptah's) Ennead was
completed.

Lo, every word of the god, came into being through the thoughts of
57 the heart & the command of the tongue.
In this line, the Memphite proto-rational theory of knowledge
appears.

It is made clear that the events recorded by the sense of hearing

and the sense of sight in the living, breathing body are brought up
to the mind. The notion of moving upwards is suggested by the
determinative of the double stairway, leading to a high place. This
elevated place is nothing less than the realm of the divine mind,
the Memphite "nous", to which the impressions ascend.

Although the Aristotelian distinction between the passive and the

active intellect is absent as such (for no formal, abstract concept
has yet been established), it is clear that our author is aware of
the registering faculty of the mind and knows that after
registering, the mind produces "every decision".

Hence, the two phases of the empirico-noetic process (registering

and deciding) are put forward, albeit in a proto-rational scheme,
i.e. without the power of abstraction the Greeks attributed to the
First Intellect, a Divine mind or logos which is independent from
that which it creates (hence, no empirico-formal knowledge is
attained). For here, Ptah creates "in the image of Atum", and hence
does not escape the contextual features of proto-rationality.

The faculty of speech is under the control of the mind and all
deities were created through it, completing the logoic Ennead of
Ptah. Our author reaffirms his main theme : every law of nature (the
deities) and everything these laws operate were conceived in the
divine mind and spoken by the divine tongue. Nothing can come into
existence without the divine "nous" and its speech.
 The presence of Atum does not imply that our author wished to
belittle the more physical story expressed in the mythical &
pre-rational thought. The "image of Atum" is a genuine part of this
theology. If it were absent, the theology of Memphis would have been
the expression of a rational, metaphysical theory on the logos. Such
an essentialist interpretation is not warranted. Although the
theology of Memphis contains a "higher" philosophy than can be found
in the Heliopolitan myth, it is given in pictoral terms consistent
with the Ancient Egyptian experience.

Nevertheless, in this theology, the figural and analogical way of

conceiving creation in the mythical and pre-rational mode of
thought, is freed from its omnipresent physicality to the advantage
of a logoic scheme. Although Ptah thinks and speaks simultaneously,
one can not but conclude that our author reflected upon the
cognitive faculties themselves. It is true that this reflection is
not formal but mediated by the form of Atum. Nevertheless, the idea
that everything (deities, nature & human beings) came into being as
a result of divine creative speech, is unique and to some extent
valid till the present day.

Although the accomplishment of this mentalizing proto-rational

theology is impressive, the "form of Atum" proves also to be its
ultimate limitation. For Ptah is unable to create the world without
Atum. Although the "form of Atum" also exists outside creation "in
the mind of Ptah", paradoxically, the "mind of Ptah" always creates
"in the form of Atum". The concept here is concrete, not formal or
decontextualized ... Atum is the "form" used by Ptah to create
everything by speaking divine words.

Not unlike what we know of Anaximander or Parmenides, the author of

the Memphis Theology moves beyond mythical & pre-rational thought.
Here we see proto-rationality at work, for both object & subject are
distinguished, integrated and transcended by Ptah-Nun, a "Deus
otiosus" (the divine inactive of pre-creation).

But it can not be said of this author that he (like Plato)

contemplated a realm of "pure" thought, outside of the operations,
conditionings or determinations of physical reality (a world of
ideas, a "nous") or contextual limitations (like "the form of
Atum"). We have to wait for Greek rational thought for that. But
that this extraordinary Memphis Theology influenced the Greeks who
visited Memphis, should not surprise us.

Visualize the trunctated pyramid as the ultimate realization of the

proto-rational mode of cognition, and the Greek "delta" of the Pythagorean
"tetraktys" as its rational capstone. In Egypt, because of context, the
final piece had to be put in place separately. Rationality is the
"pyramidion" of proto-rationality. It implies a symphony of intelligent
intersubjective experiences, sophisticated languages and a storehouse of
objective facts, procedures & methods. The incompleteness of the pyramid,
the void apex, "tops" the extreme "gravity" (solidity and mass) of
ante-rationality. By placing the "tetraktys" on the apex,
proto-rationality was completed with the inner features of 10 numbers.
This happened in the last period of Egyptian culture, namely in
Alexandria, capital of the Ptolemaic Empire.

If we take the syllogism as a metaphor for Greek rationality, then "the

Orient" (East, Middle East, Egypt) provided the Greeks with the essential
part, namely the inductive "minor".

(1) Every A is a B : major : universal rule ;

(2) C is an A : minor : inductive statement of fact, (so) :
(3) C is B : necessary conclusion.

With a considerable amount of inductive statements on record, the Greeks

might have reasoned :

(1) A' is a B ;
(2) A'' is a B ;
(3) A"' is B etc ...
so = an unlogical, inductive jump from the particular to the universal :
(2) Every A is B : inductive conclusion.

At the end of the Archaic Age, the Greeks brought three fundamental new
co-relative elements into play, namely :
undogmatic individualism : the Greek philosophers are known by their
names, had no long standing traditions and were teachers who initiated
speculative schools which existed next to each other without central
authority or royal approval. In Egypt, the Temple Schools were part of
the Pharaonic State and the individual teachers were less important than
the tradition for which they stand (in fact, the priest always acted on
behalf of Pharaoh).
an abstract, formal, theoretical, rational approach : from Socrates &
Plato onwards, the Greeks were able to decontextualize the mythological,
pre-rational & proto-rational components of their thought, allowing a
theoretical approach of any subject. Subject and object were clearly
distinguished. This power of abstraction allowed them to develop a lot
of themes beyond the limits kept in place in Egyptian thought, unable to
fully decontextualized the old pantheon (except for a short, rejected &
forgotten period under Akhenaten).
a dialogal mentality : again from the Sophists & Socrates onwards, the
search for truth by dialogal, communicative actions became essential and
the Socratic technique was elevated to a literary genre by Plato, the
father of Western philosophy. The theoretical climate which emerged, was
the breeding-ground for the formidable theoretical work of his pupil
Aristotle ;
Of course, Greek rationality was not the end of the story of the
unfoldment of thought. We have to wait for Descartes for rational
self-reflection to break through and for Kant to witness the birth of
critical thought (the culmination of the conceptual rationality
initiated by the Greeks - cf. Rules and Knowledge).
CONCLUSION

The influence of Egyptian thought on Archaic Greek philosophy was foremost

"semantical" (meaning, themes) & "pragmatical" (methods, procedures), but
not "syntactical" (formal order, abstract organization). The vast
proto-rational system of Egypt had no abstractions, but was the "inductive
pool" in which the early Archaic Greeks navigated, fished and discovered
amazing new laws and relationships (unforseen by the Egyptians
themselves). However, the Greek Renaissance and the Greek Miracle were not
the outcome, product or effect of an "extravagant mixture" as Bernal
claims. Neither are these incredible developments devoid of exogenic
influence (as Hellenocentrists think).

In this way, between ca. 670 and ca. 500 BCE, the Greeks approbated
Egyptian theology, Egypt's sapiental discourses, its verbal philosophy,
geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, medicine, magic, ritual, political
system, etc. Adaptations, novel derivations as well as new inventions
characterized these Greeks, who had a characteristic, Indo-European,
geometrizing streak, enabling them to assimilate and reorganize practical
(proto-rational) knowledge in terms of its general, formal principles.

They reinterpreted the Egyptian pantheon as personifications of collective

concepts on creation and humans (as Theban specialists had done before
them - cf. Hymns to Amun). At the end of the Archaic Age, Egypt's
influence had already diminished, for as soon as the Greeks realized a
"universal", they returned it to its ante-rational source and subsequently
altered it. In this way, Hellenism would conquer the known world and
establish Greek identity far beyond the borders of Greece.

The linearization brought by them, culminated in the Ptolemaic Empire,

which guaranteed the survival of the Egyptian heritage at the turn of the
millenium. Egyptian thought had been assimilated by the Hebrews as well as
the Greeks, whereas the Greeks had a crucial influence on the Hebrews.

The encounter between Egyptians and Greeks had been fruitful. The Greeks
had gained speed and thematic consistency. The Egyptians had saved the
Pharaonic system and its temples. Egyptian thought survived in
Pythagorism, Hermetism, Neoplatonism and Christian Gnosticism. Its
theology and rituals were readapted and reemerged in Coptic Christianity
(Isis as Mary), Roman, Byzantine & Orthodox Rituals (Christ, the "New
Adam" as Osiris and the "son" of God).

In 529 CE, the Christian emperor Justinian suppressed all Pagan

philosophical schools. But Egyptian wisdom and Greek philosophy continued
to exist in Harran. By the mid-ninth century CE, and perhaps even in the
time of Ma'mun, Muslim authors identified Hermes with Idris, or Enoch,
both mentioned in the Koran. The Harranians became Sabaeans and through
them, Hermetism influenced Islam ...
Editorial :
hypertext in 2002
initiated : 20 XII 2002
last update : 16 VII 2006
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