Black Athena

Black Athena

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization is a controversial three-volume scholarly work by Martin Bernal. He discusses Ancient Greece in a new light. Bernal's thesis discusses the perception of ancient Greece in relation to Greece's African and Asiatic neighbors, especially Ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians, which he believes had an influence on ancient Greece. Bernal proposes that a change in this Western perception took place from the 18th century onward and that this change fostered a subsequent denial by Western academia of any significant African and (western) Asiatic influences on ancient Greek culture.

Although the influence of Egyptian and Near Eastern civilizations on Ancient Greece is not controversial in either Ancient Greek or modern historiography, the "Afro-centrist" claims inspired by Black Athena have been described as Pseudohistory by one Professor of History.