The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Revealing Antiquity)

The rich and splendid culture of the ancient Greeks has often been described as emerging like a miracle from a genius of its own, owing practically nothing to its neighbors. Walter Burkert offers a decisive argument against that distorted view, replacing it with a balanced picture of the archaic period "in which, under the influence of the Semitic East, Greek culture began its unique flowering, soon to assume cultural hegemony in the Mediterranean." Burkert focuses on the "orientalizing" century 750-650 B.C., the period of Assyrian conquest, Phoenician commerce, and Greek exploration of both East and West, when not only eastern skills and images but also the Semitic art of writing were transmitted to Greece. He tracks the migrant craftsmen who brought the Greeks new techniques and designs, the wandering seers and healers teaching magic and medicine, and the important Greek borrowings from Near Eastern poetry and myth. Drawing widely on archaeological, textual, and historical evidence, he demonstrates that eastern models significantly affected Greek literature and religion in the Homeric age. Frontmatter Preface (page ix) Introduction (page 1) 1. "Who Are Public Workers": The Migrant Craftsmen (page 9) Historical Background (page 9) Oriental Products in Greece (page 14) Writing and Literature in the Eighth Century (page 25) The Problem of Loan-Words (page 33) 2. "A Seer or a Healer": Magic and Medicine (page 41) "Craftsmen of the Sacred": Mobility and Family Structure (page 41) Hepatoscopy (page 46) Foundation Deposits (page 53) Purification (page 55) Spirits of the Dead and Black Magic (page 65) Substitute Sacrifice (page 73) Asclepius and Asgelatas (page 75) Ecstatic Divination (page 79) Lamashtu, Lamia, and Gorgo (page 82) 3. "Or Also a Godly Singer": Akkadian and Early Greek Literature (page 88) From Atrahasis to the "Deception of Zeus" (page 88) Complaint in Heaven: Ishtar and Aphrodite (page 96) The Overpopulated Earth (page 100) Seven against Thebes (page 106) Common Style and Stance in Oriental and Greek Epic (page 114) Fables (page 120) Magic and Cosmogony (page 124) Conclusion (page 128) Abbreviations (page 131) Bibliography (page 135) Notes (page 153) Index of Greek Words (page 219) General Index (page 221) The splendid culture of the ancient Greeks has often been described as emerging like a miracle from a genius of its own, owing practically nothing to its neighbors. Walter Burkert offers a decisive argument against that distorted view, pointing toward a balanced picture of the archaic period in which, under the influence of the Semitic Eastfrom writers, craftsmen, merchants, healersGreek culture began its unique flowering, soon to assume cultural hegemony in the Mediterranean.