Synopses & Reviews
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 againstthat distorted view, pointing toward a balanced picture of the archaic period "in which, under the influence of the Semitic East--from writers, craftsmen, merchants, healers--Greek culture began its unique flowering, soon to assumecultural hegemony in the Mediterranean.
Review
Brilliant...[Burkert] is consistently thorough and challenging...Without denying the role of innate talent, he shows that much of the Greek miracle grew from an openness to influences from other cultures...[His]careful scholarship...has constructed the bridge that he set out to build.
Review
Brilliant...[Burkert] is consistently thorough and challenging...Without denying the role of innate talent, he shows that much of the Greek miracle grew from an openness to influences from other cultures...[His] careful scholarship...has constructed the bridge that he set out to build.
Review
'An elegant and academically influential work...The Orientalizing Revolutioncan be enthusiastically recommended.'
About the Author
Walter Burkertis Professor Emeritus of Classics, <>University of Zurich.
Table of Contents
'Preface
Introduction
1. \"Who Are Public Workers\": The MigrantCraftsmen
Historical Background
Oriental Products in Greece
Writing and Literature in the EighthCentury
The Problem of Loan-Words
2. \"A Seer or a Healer\": Magic and Medicine
\"Craftsmen of the Sacred\": Mobility and Family Structure
Hepatoscopy
FoundationDeposits
Purification
Spirits of the Dead and Black Magic
Substitute Sacrifice
Asclepius and Asgelatas
Ecstatic Divination
Lamashtu, Lamia, and Gorgo
3.\"Or Also a Godly Singer\": Akkadian and Early Greek Literature
From Atrahasis to the \"Deception ofZeus\"
Complaint in Heaven: Ishtar and Aphrodite
The Overpopulated Earth
Seven againstThebes
Common Style and Stance in Oriental and Greek Epic
Fables
Magic and Cosmogony
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Notes
Index of Greek Words
General Index \n
'