Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Series Editors
Eckart Frahm (Yale University) W. Randall Garr (University of California, Santa Barbara) B. Halpern (Pennsylvania State University) Theo P.J. van den Hout (Oriental Institute) Thomas Schneider (University of British Columbia) Irene J. Winter (Harvard University)
VOLUME 38
Jack A. Josephson and a Middle Kingdom Nobleman—the Josephson Head
Offerings to the Discerning Eye An Egyptological Medley in Honor of Jack A. Josephson
Edited by
Sue H. D’Auria
LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010
This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Offerings to the discerning eye : an Egyptological medley in honor of Jack A. Josephson / edited by Sue H. D’Auria. p. cm. — (Culture and history of the ancient Near East, ISSN 1566-2055 ; v. 38) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17874-8 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Egypt—Antiquities. 2. Historic sites—Egypt. 3. Excavations (Archaeology—Egypt. 4. Egyptology. 5. Egypt—Civilization— To 332 B.C. 6. Josephson, Jack A. I. D’Auria, Sue. II. Title. III. Series. DT60.O58 2009 932—dc22 2009022055
ISSN: 1566-2055 ISBN: 978 90 04 17874 8 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands
contents
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Magda Saleh
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vii
Magda Saleh
Jack A. Josephson: A Biographical Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ix
Diane Bergman
Bibliography of Jack A. Josephson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
xv
List of Abbreviations
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
List of Illustrations
........................................................
xxi
The Shunet el-Zebib at Abydos: Architectural Conservation at One of Egypt’s Oldest Preserved Royal Monuments . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Earthquakes in Egypt in the Pharaonic Period: The Evidence at Dahshur in the Late Middle Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
Dorothea Arnold
Foreign and Female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
Kathryn A. Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich
Recent Excavations at the Ancient Harbor of Saww (Mersa/Wadi Gawasis) on the Red Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
33
Edward Bleiberg
Reused or Restored? The Wooden Shabti of Amenemhat in the Brooklyn Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
Andrey Bolshakov
Persians and Egyptians: Cooperation in Vandalism? . . . . . . . . . . .
45
Bob Brier
The Great Pyramid: The Internal Ramp Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
55
Betsy M. Bryan
Amenhotep III’s Legacy in the Temple of Mut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
63
Günter Dreyer
Eine Statue des Königs Dewen aus Abydos? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
73
Mamdouh Eldamaty
Die leeren Kartuschen von Akhenaten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
79
Richard Fazzini
Aspects of the Mut Temple’s Contra-Temple at South Karnak, Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
83
Matthew Douglas Adams and David O’Connor Dieter Arnold
Erica Feucht
A God’s Head in Heidelberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Rita E. Freed
Reconstructing a Statue from a Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
G.A. Gaballa
The Stela of Djehutynefer, Called Seshu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Ogden Goelet, Jr.
Observations on Copying and the Hieroglyphic Tradition in the Production of the Book of the Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Tom Hardwick
A Group of Art Works in the Amarna Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
W. Benson Harer, Jr.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Ancient Egypt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Melinda Hartwig
The Tomb of a HAty-a, Theban Tomb 116 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Zahi Hawass
A Head of Rameses II from Tell Basta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Salima Ikram
A Pasha’s Pleasures: R.G. Gayer-Anderson and his Pharaonic Collection in Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Sameh Iskander
Merenptah’s Confrontations in the Western Desert and the Delta 187
T.G.H. James
A Contemplation of the Late Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
contents
vi Peter Jánosi
“He is the son of a woman of Ta-Sety . . .”—The Offering Table of the King’s Mother Nefret (MMA 22.1.21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Nozomu Kawai
Theban Tomb 46 and Its Owner, Ramose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Peter Lacovara
A Unique Sphinx of Amenhotep II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Sarwat Okasha
Rameses Recrowned: The International Campaign to Preserve the Monuments of Nubia, 1959-68 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Paul F. O’Rourke
Some Thoughts on τὸ ὕδωρ of Thales and τὸ ἄπειρον of Anaximander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
William H. Peck
Mapping the Temple of the Goddess Mut, Karnak: A Basis for Further Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Elena Pischikova
The Dog of Karakhamun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Donald B. Redford
The Second Pylon of the Temple of Ba-neb-djed at Mendes . . . . 271
Gerry D. Scott, III
Four Late Period Sculptures in the San Antonio Museum of Art
Hourig Sourouzian
News from Kom el-Hettan in the Season of Spring 2007 . . . . . . . 285
Rainer Stadelmann
The Prince Kawab, Oldest Son of Khufu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Paul Edmund Stanwick
New Perspectives on the Brooklyn Black Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Emily Teeter
A “Realistic” Head in the Oriental Institute Museum (OIM 13952). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Transformation of a Royal Head: Notes on a Portrait of Nectanebo I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Nancy Thomas
277
Jacobus van Dijk
A Cat, a Nurse, and a Standard-Bearer: Notes on Three Late Eighteenth Dynasty Statues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Kent R. Weeks
The Theban Mapping Project’s Online Image Database of the Valley of the Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Christiane Ziegler
The Tomb of Iahmes, Son of Psamtikseneb, at Saqqara . . . . . . . . . 339
Alain Zivie
The “Saga” of ‘Aper-El’s Funerary Treasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Index
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Dynasties
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Theban Tombs
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Egyptian Words and Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
preface
vii
PREFACE
With sincere pleasure, this volume is dedicated to Jack A. Josephson by his friends and colleagues in token of their esteem and affection, on the occasion of his approaching 80th birthday on January 31, 2010. May he, as the ancient Egyptians wished, live 110 years in robust health, joyfully pursuing his passion for Egypt and its great civilization as energetically and purposefully as he does today. Jack is a singular scholar in a rarified field. A latecomer to Egyptology, he has molded himself into a writer and researcher in the tradition of the “gentleman scholar.” In the process, he has attained specialized expertise in three-dimensional sculpture and achieved broad recognition as an authority in Egyptian art history. Museums and collectors seek his advice on matters of authenticity and identification, and young scholars look to him for guidance. Over the years, Jack’s lucid investigative analyses have probed and redefined the limits of inquiry, expanded research parameters, and broadened perspectives. His scholarship helps validate the discipline, emphasizing its undeniable contributions in an intra-disciplinary framework and highlighting its promise of further potential. In clear, concise language and a crisp, unadorned style, his output displays the rigorous application of conventional methodological tools and techniques, informed by an increasingly original, innovative approach, instilling new vitality into a field too often dismissed or ignored. At their most complex, his writings and lectures weave cultural and political history into fascinating vignettes and narratives reflected in the formulaic art of the Egyptian civilization. Arthistorical interpretation thus applied can reveal tantalizing insights—clues offering a figurative reading between the lines—which might elude the philologist solely focused on often propagandizing, and often misleading, hieroglyphic texts. To cite one example, Jack’s comparative study of two contrasting statues of the 26th Dynasty vizier Mentuemhat posits an elaborate power struggle pitting
the ambitious Theban against the wily Psamtik I—a protracted long-distance intrigue culminating in a stalemate, but foiling the southerner’s apparent aspirations to royal status. Innumerable extant sculptures—deprived of archaeological context, intact but shorn of inscription, archaizing, usurped, re-carved, or broken and battered fragments, the detritus of time—can, under the practiced scrutiny of the art historian, still have a name to regain, a period, a reign, a workshop, or even a master sculptor to be assigned to, and still provide answers to queries and elucidate historical conundrums. Yet others, embellished in modern times, or altogether fake, can be exposed under the stylistic assessment of a keen and knowledgeable eye. In one such instance, a collaborative research effort by Jack and Rita Freed concluded that the stunning Middle Kingdom sphinx head of a queen, a masterpiece of the Brooklyn Museum collection, while indeed ancient, had undergone substantial repair and re-working in eighteenthcentury Italy. The inquiry setting the investigation in motion was an initial observation, made during an earlier joint endeavor on the identification of another MK sphinx queen’s head now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (the Centennial Queen).The Brooklyn Queen, viewed in the context of the known corpus of MK female sphinx heads, appeared anomalous. With the two scholars pursuing all leads, from scouring every available source reference to seeking out comparable sculptures in Roman museums, the resulting article is a classic example of art-historical analysis in application at its best. Intensely examining an enigmatic image may give Jack the eerie sensation of communing with the artifact, of seeking to inhabit the world of its maker. In reality, he is mustering an array of the invaluable personal resources of connoisseurship —a discerning eye; an innate aesthetic sensibility; insight and intuition; strong visual recall and mental acuity bolstered by avid reading; constant interaction with fellow scholars; and the continu-
viii
preface
ous scrutiny of countless images. The course of art-historical analysis is painstakingly methodical and protracted. Sometimes, in an exciting procedural reversal, the trigger is an exhilarating “Eureka!” In one startling occurrence, the mass of information stored in a supple mind fused in instant revelation. Examining a photograph of the Cairo Museum statue of King Snefru set bells ringing and led to the identification of a rare surviving head of a statue of the first ruler of the Fourth Dynasty, once namelessly assigned to the Fifth. Intuitive recognition, honed by eye and memory, had still to be substantiated by strict science—but it was a moment to be savored. As a critical area of study, Egyptian art history is currently imperiled, to the serious detriment of the field of Egyptology. To Jack’s dismay, the subject has all but disappeared from the curricula of the few institutions both in the United States and Europe offering graduate degrees in the field. Deploring this untoward attrition, Jack is a determined proponent of its reinstatement as an essential component in the formation of new cadres. He voices unbounded reverence for the giants of Egyptian art history, among them his mentor Bernard V. Bothmer (a.k.a. BVB), and his personal ideal, William Stevenson Smith, for their inestimable contributions to the discipline. Profound thanks are due to many participants who have in various ways made this Festschrift possible. Foremost among these are Jack’s friends and colleagues, the authors who have, despite the heavy demands of their notoriously overburdened schedules, so generously joined together to offer Jack an exceptional gift. I note with satisfaction that the articles included here reflect a diversity of topics and themes of particular interest and importance to the writers, and I am infinitely
touched by their gracious response. I am truly grateful to my two fellow coordinators of this project, our peerless editor Sue D’Auria, who has undertaken this lengthy, arduous task—a labor of love—with infinite patience, unfailing good humor, and a scrupulous efficiency; and Rita Freed, Jack’s good friend and frequent collaborator, who found time despite her weighty duties as John F. Cogan, Jr. and Mary L. Cornille Chair, Art of the Ancient World at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to function as logistics manager, wise advisor, and ever-optimistic encourager—and to contribute an article! The team at our publisher Brill, including Publishing Manager Michiel Klein Swormink, Production Editor Michael Mozina, and Acquisitions Editor Jennifer Pavelko, whose dedicated professionalism has made all our dealings a pleasure, has produced a quality publication of which we are all justly proud. My friends Mary McKercher and Malcolm McCormick have provided heartily appreciated assistance and support. Mikhail Ghali kindly supplied e-mail linkage services from Cairo. Amal Safwat el Alfy, Director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Press, and Janice Kamrin, Director of the Egyptian Museum Database and Registrar Training Projects at the American Research Center in Egypt obligingly forwarded urgently needed archival photographs. Ben Harer proposed an inspired amendment to the working title, and Ogden Goelet contributed the perfectly apt cover illustration. In the interests of discretion, local e-maildrop was orchestrated by Helen Atlas and Michaela Gold. Without all these, and many other aiders, abettors, and wellwishers, this volume would not have seen the light of day. Thank you, one and all. Shukran! To JJ, with love and admiration, Magda Saleh
some thoughts on
ΤO Υ∆ΩΡ
of thales and
ΤO AΠΕΙΡΟΝ
of anaximander
245
SOME THOUGHTS ON ΤO Υ∆ΩΡ OF THALES AND ΤO AΠΕΙΡΟΝ OF ANAXIMANDER Paul F. O’Rourke Brooklyn Museum
It is a privilege for me to offer this short article to the gentleman honored by this volume. Over a number of years, Jack and I have happily shared thoughts on points of common interest and even had the good fortune to collaborate with another scholar and friend on an article on a fragment of Late Egyptian sculpture.1 I take particular pleasure in contributing an essay that discusses a possible point of conjunction of Egyptian and Greek thought, a matter of great interest to Jack. Standing as they do at the beginning of the Greek philosophical tradition, Thales and Anaximander present myriad problems for the historian of philosophy. Their writings, long lost, if ever extant,2 have come down to us in ancient commentaries that are often concerned with the writings and ideas of other philosophers who lived generations after these two early thinkers. It is difficult—in many places impossible—to determine if the words attributed to them are direct quotes or vague paraphrases. In addition, the doxographical tradition3 routinely presents the ideas of these two philosophers in a terminology that was not of their making, quite possibly—even probably— distorting their original line of reasoning and ren1
J. Josephson, P. O’Rourke, and R. Fazzini, “The Doha Head: A Late Period Egyptian Portrait,” MDAIK 61 (2005), 219-241. 2 See G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge, 1993), 86-88, on the likelihood or not that Thales produced written work. 3 For the ancient commentators included under this rubric, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 4-6. 4 In the study of Homeric poetry, a similar situation obtains. See G.S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume I: Books 1-4 (Cambridge 1995, rep.), xvii: “The Homeric epics are in any event a special case, since they stand at the beginning of known Greek literature and the influences on them are hard, if not impossible, to gauge; while literature and culture after them were so manifestly affected by the epic background that tracing influence at every point becomes self-defeating.” 5 Aristotle, Met. 983b 20f.: “Most of the first philosophers thought that principles in the form of matter were the only principles of all things; for the original source of all existing things, that from which a thing first comes-into-being and
dering undue emphasis on certain given points. Attempting to establish precisely what these two men were trying to say may often seem an exercise in “looking through a glass darkly.” Looking backwards from Aristotle through Plato and the later Presocratics to their forebears in Thales and Anaximander is not an exercise in abject futility, however, and one can appreciate some sense of where each of these two men stands in that tradition. A more intriguing question arises when we ask not what they were precursors to, but what traditions they themselves were adopting or adapting.4 Let us begin by outlining the basic cosmological theories of each of these thinkers and the routine problems one encounters in such an exercise. For the cosmology of Thales, two passages in Aristotle form our only sources. They inform us that in Thales’ vision: (1) water is the principle of all things5 and (2) the earth floats on water.6 In his attribution to Thales that τὸ ὕδωρ (water) is the ἀρχή of all things, Aristotle used the word ἡ ἀρχή in his sense of “original constituent material” that persists as a substratum into which all will eventually return.7 We are further informed into which it is finally destroyed, the substance persisting but changing in its qualities, this they declare is the element and first principle of existing things—Over the number, however, and the form of this kind of principle they do not all agree; but Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says that it is water.” See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 88-89. 6 Aristotle, de Caelo 294a 28f.: “Others say that the earth rests on water. For this is the most ancient account we have received, which they say was given by Thales the Milesian, that it stays in place through floating like a log or some other such thing…” See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 88-89. 7 For the discussion of Aristotle’s assessment of Thales’ theory, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 88-98, esp. 93-94. See also J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers 1 (London, 1979), 9, where he translates ἡ ἀρχή as “material principle.” In both of these works, the authors are citing Aristotle, Metaphysics 983b 20f. On the appropriateness of Aristotle’s use of the term ἡ ἀρχή in describing Thales’ work and the problems that have arisen from that use, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 90f.
246
paul f. o’rourke
that Thales posited this theory to explain how the earth remains suspended in space. According to Thales, the earth rests on water. There seem to be no disputes or questions about the nature of τὸ ὕδωρ in the ancient commentators. The word employed by Thales, τὸ ὕδωρ, appears to be a rather generic, non-technical term.8 In search of an answer to the question of what supports the earth, Thales thought of the waters of the sea.9 Water was also moisture, a manifestation of the principle of moist things.10 As a material element, water was, along with air, earth, and fire, a principle in Aristotle’s sense of the term.11 These four elements lie at much of the heart of the discussion of the nature of things by the Presocratics,12 and were ultimately to be posited by Empedocles as a quartet of roots that underlies all things.13 Be that as it may, one can still argue that the word τὸ ὕδωρ seems to have been something of a catchall term for water, at least for Thales.14 Anaximander, Thales’ successor and possibly his student,15 posited that the principle of all things was τὸ ἄπειρoν.16 This word is a substantive formed from the adjective ἄπειρoς, one that has a range of meanings from “boundless; infinite” to “endless; circular.”17 On what Anaximander
meant by this word, both ancient and modern commentators have generally disagreed.18 Furthermore, the statement in Simplicius that “He [Anaximander] says that it is neither water nor any of the other so-called elements but some other ‘apeiron nature’ from which come into being all the heavens and the worlds in them…” is noteworthy.19 This alleged denial that the principle is water20 sounds like a rejection by Anaximander of Thales’ basic premise. In addition to this ostensible refutation of his predecessor’s view, it has been argued that Anaximander made an apparent shift from a material principle like water to what seems to be an immaterial one21 when he introduced the term τὸ ἄπειρoν, usually translated “the infinite” or “the indefinite.”22 It is this point that has received much of the attention in subsequent discussions of his philosophy, both those of the ancient commentators and of modern scholars. The fact that Anaximander’s successors seem to have returned to the material realm in which to locate the principle of all things23 has led some modern commentators to conclude that these thinkers were explicitly rejecting his views and that Anaximander was either too forward thinking for his time24 or even simply confused.25
8 The word τὸ ὕδωρ occurs as early as Homer and Hesiod. It generally seems to mean “water, of any kind, but in Hom. rarely of seawater without an epith.,” according to the entry in H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon with a Revised Supplement (Oxford, 1996), 1845–1846. 9 See n. 6 above. 10 Aristotle, Met. 983b 20f.: “…taking the supposition both from this and from the seeds of all things having a moist nature, water being the natural principle of moist things.” See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 89. 11 “The original constituent material of things, which persists as a substratum and into which they will perish.” This statement of Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 90, is based on Aristotle, Met. A3, 983b 6f. 12 An important study is U. Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” in Studies in Presocratic Philosophy 1, ed. D. Furley and R.E. Allen (New York, 1970), 281-322. For an interesting discussion of the basic elements that are predominant in early Greek speculative thought, see G.E.R. Lloyd, “Hot and Cold, Dry and Wet in Early Greek Thought,” in Furley and Allen, Studies in Presocratic Philosophy 1, 255-280. 13 Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 286f.; M.R. Wright, Empedocles, The Extant Fragments (London, 1995), 22ff. 14 The point here is not that the Greeks did not have a range of words for water, which they certainly did, but rather that Thales chose a seemingly generic, non-technical term by which to name his principle. For a somewhat more complex view, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 91f. See also Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 306f.
15 Suda s.v. “Anaximander.” See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 100-101. 16 According to the doxographical tradition, for which see n. 18 below. See as well Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 317-322. 17 Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 184. 18 See, for example, Simplicius Physics 24, 13: “….the principle and the element of existing things was the apeiron… He says that it is neither water nor any of the other so-called elements but some other ‘apeiron nature’ from which come into being all the heavens and the worlds in them…” See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 106-108. Note the editors’ avoidance of a translation of the term ἄπειρoν. So also Diogenes Laertius II, 1: “Anaximander said that the unlimited is principle and element, not distinguishing it as air or water or anything else,” for which see Barnes, Presocratics 1, 32. 19 See n. 18 above. 20 It is worth noting that the only physical element specifically named by Simplicius is “water.” 21 See, for example, Barnes, Presocratics 1, 36: “What can its [the apeiron] character have been?”—“Vague and obscure, but certainly distinct from the stuffs familiar to us.” 22 On the meaning of this term, see the ensuing discussion. 23 See, for example, the claim of Anaximenes, a successor and possibly a student of Anaximander, that the material principle was “air” and “the infinite” (Diogenes Laertius II, 3), for which see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 143. See also the discussion below. 24 See Barnes, Presocratics 1, 26-27: “Anaximander’s successors are often alleged to have betrayed his memory,
some thoughts on
ΤO Υ∆ΩΡ
of thales and
ΤO AΠΕΙΡΟΝ
of anaximander
247
The question remains: what precisely did Anaximander mean by the term τὸ ἄπειρoν? Both ancient and modern commentators have offered suggestions, most contradictory and none seemingly satisfactory. Aristotle understood τὸ ἄπειρoν to mean “spatially infinite.”26 Questions have been raised, however, about whether this was what Anaximander himself meant by this term.27 Modern commentators like Francis Macdonald Cornford have modified the translation of “infinite” for the term τὸ ἄπειρoν, suggesting a more generalized idea like “indistinct.”28 Jonathan Barnes also rejected the notion that the word means “spatially infinite.”29 Some scholars have reworked the etymology of the adjective apeiros to render it “intraversable.”30 As one reads through these discussions of the nature of τὸ ἄπειρoν, both ancient and modern, one experiences something of a sense of vertigo. τὸ ἄπειρoν is said to be both infinite but finite at the same time; or it is infinite but in a limited sort of way. Substantive answers about its nature seem to prove elusive. But perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps the answer to the questions about the nature of τὸ
ἄπειρoν lies in the return to another question: precisely what did Thales mean by the term τὸ ὕδωρ?31 As we said above, Thales stated that the principle of all things was water,32 and the commentators, both ancient and modern, have said or quarreled little about the specific meaning of the term as used by Thales. Thus, raising the question once again of what Thales meant by the term τὸ ὕδωρ does not seem to offer much help, at least at first glance. Perhaps a better question may be: “Where did Thales get his idea about water as the principle of all things?”33 There is a well-known and documented ancient tradition that Thales visited Egypt.34 Even Herodotus reports a story about the source of the flooding of the Nile that may be traceable to Thales.35 The ancients claim that Thales was a Milesian or at least had connections with the city of Miletus.36 Tradition, as well, has it that the merchant city of Naukratis in the Delta was settled by Greeks, at least some of whom were Milesians.37 The date of the founding of Naukratis is generally agreed to have occurred in the Saite Period, possibly early and within the time frame given for Thales’ floruit.38
retreating to primitive, Thaletan, thoughts and quitting the speculative heights to which he had ascended,” but see also 27, where Barnes rejects this claim. Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 321-322, focuses much of his discussion of Anaximander’s τὸ ἄπειρoν on the latter’s speculative powers. 25 See the negative conclusions of Barnes, Presocratics 1, 37, on the contributions of Anaximander to early Greek cosmology: “We find ourselves in a desert of ignorance and obscurity; so, I suspect, did the Peripatetic historian. It is possible that Anaximander set his views down with luminous clarity…but I doubt it, and I suspect that our uncertainty about Anaximander’s meaning reflects an uncertainty and lack of clarity in Anaximander’s own mind”; as well as the statement “Indeed, I guess that Anaximander’s interest in cosmogony has been vastly overestimated, and his achievements consistently mispraised. The partial and fortuitous survival of an obscure utterance has given him an undeserved reputation for metaphysics. That sentence, hinting darkly at a huge primordial tohu-bohu, was perhaps supported by a sketchy paragraph of argument.” 26 Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 109, citing Aristotle, Phys. Γ4, 203a 16. 27 Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 109110: “It is, however, uncertain that Anaximander himself intended ‘the apeiron’ to mean precisely ‘the spatially infinite.’” So also Barnes, Presocratics 1, 31: “Was the argument of Aristotle built by Anaximander? Or are the materials used in its construction late and synthetic?” See finally Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 304-305. 28 Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 110: “Thus Cornford and others argued that τὸ ἄπειρoν meant
‘that which is internally unbounded, without internal distinctions’, i.e. that which is indistinct, indefinite in kind.” 29 Barnes, Presocratics 1, 36: “Thus the word apeiros does not, in itself, show that Anaximander’s Urstoff was literally infinite.” 30 Barnes, Presocratics 1, 36 and 315, nn. 29-30. 31 This question has already been raised by Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 306. 32 See the discussion above and nn. 5-11. 33 Again Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 307. See also 308-309, where he discusses both Babylonian and Egyptian myths as potential sources. 34 Aetius I, 3, 1: “Thales…having practiced philosophy in Egypt…;” Proclus in Euclidem 65: “Thales, having first come to Egypt…” For these sources, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 79. 35 The passage in question appears at Herodotus II, 20. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 79. 36 Diogenes Laertius I, 22 and Herodotus I, 170. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 76-77. 37 The ancient sources are Strabo 17. 1. 18, who dates the founding of the city to the reign of Psamtik I (664-610 BC) and Herodotus II, 178-179, who attributes the founding to Amasis (570-526 BC). For a discussion of the various dates given for the city based on the archeological excavations carried out at Naukratis from the late nineteenth century to the present, see A. Leonard, Jr., Ancient Naukratis: Excavations at a Greek Emporium in Egypt, Part 1. The Excavations at Kom Ge’if, AASOR 54 (1997), 1-35. 38 On the time frame for Thales’ life, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 76, citing Herodotus I, 74.
248
paul f. o’rourke
Thus, a real connection between Thales and Egypt remains a distinct possibility.39 If we take the tradition of Thales’ connection with Egypt seriously,40 we may find a firmer place to ground our discussion. Furthermore, an examination of the Egyptian cosmological and cosmogonical traditions, earlier—non-Greek—traditions from which Thales is said possibly to have developed his own theories, may lead us to experience the dissipation of some of the mist and fog that enshrouds the ideas of the early Greek thinkers. Reading through the Egyptian sources, we encounter a number of different words for water,41 some of which have very specific, delimited meanings. One of these is the noun variously written , , , and here transliterated nwn,42 although the exact reading has remained in question.43 It appears to be a derivative or a nwy, one of the more cognate of
39
The connection between Thales and Egypt via Miletus was already noted by Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 310-311, though he specifically followed the founding tradition given by Strabo. 40 As Hölscher did. See his “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 310-313. 41 For example, R. Hannig, Grosses Handwörterbuch Deutsch-Ägyptisch (Mainz am Rhein, 2000), 1490–1491 lists nine entries under the heading “Wasser,” including words like mw, nwy, nwn, mH, mtr, etc. 42 Wb. II, 214, 18-215, 12: “das Urwasser.” 43 The Wörterbuch entry gives a range of readings from nww to nwn to nnw. See also P. Wilson, A Ptolemaic Lexikon, OLA 78 (Leuven, 1997), 497, who gives the readings nwn and nnw. See further C. Leitz et al., Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen 3, OLA 112 (Leuven, 2002), where the entry at 534-535 gives nw: “Das Chaos (?)” but a further entry at 543-547 offers nwn: “Nun.” See as well B. Altenmüller, Synkretismus in den Sargtexten (Wiesbaden, 1975) 89-91; W. Barta, “Die Bedeutung der Personifikation Huh im Unterscheid zu den Personifikation Hah und Nun,” GM 127 (1992), 7-12. See finally J.P. Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Writings from the Ancient World 23 (Atlanta, 2005), 438, who translates the term nw as “watery” and defines it as “The universal ocean, existing before the world was created and source of all water.” 44 Wb. II, 221, 3-13: “Wasser im gegs. zum Land.” See also the remarks of Wilson, Lexikon, 497, and S. Bickel, La cosmogonie égyptienne avant le Nouvel Empire (Freiburg, 1994), 23. 45 On the reading, see n. 43 above. Useful accounts include H. Grapow, “Die Welt vor der Schöpfung,” ZÄS 67 (1931), 34-38; E. Hornung, “Chaotische Bereiche in der geordneten Welt,” ZÄS 81 (1956), 28-32; S. Sauneron & J. Yoyotte, La naissance du monde selon l’Égypte ancienne, SO 1 (Paris, 1959), passim; J. P. Allen, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts, YES 2 (New Haven, 1988), passim. 46 See Wilson, Lexikon, 497, on such an association in Ptolemaic texts. See also D. van der Plas, L’hymne à la crue du Nil (Leiden, 1986), 61, 64-65, for connections between
generic Egyptian terms for water.44 The word Nun (nwn), however, was a technical term associated, among other things, with the origins of the cosmos. According to Egyptian cosmogonical texts, the world came into being from a “primordial ocean” that was called nw or nwn by them.45 In addition to its association with the waters of creation, Nun was seen as “a general term for flood waters.”46 Furthermore, this word has a very long history in Egyptian thinking.47 Like many of their Near Eastern and Mediterranean neighbors, the Egyptians did not believe in creatio ex nihilo.48 They believed that there was some pre-existent space49 and that it was in this already-extant realm that the act of creation took place.50 This primordial space was Nun,51 an entity believed to be an essentially watery mass, an interpretation that etymologies of the word nwn and its cognates support.52 Two further characteristics of
the god Hapy (the personification of the inundation) and the Nun. See finally D. Meeks and C. Favard-Meeks, Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods (Ithaca, 1996), 92: “He [Nun] resurfaced in this world in several different forms—the Nile floods, the ground water, and the seas that surround dry land.” 47 F. Dunand and C. Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 CE (Ithaca, 2004) 45: “If there was one element that all the cosmogonies agreed in defining as the first, original element, it was Nun, the primordial entity, the uniformed expanse that had no beginning or end.” References to the Nun are found as early as the Pyramid Texts. See S. Bickel, Cosmogonie, 23-31, and Allen, Genesis, 4 and 65, n. 9, and passim for references to the Nun in early texts. For an extensive but damaged late demotic text whose subject matter is the Nun, see M. Smith, On the Primaeval Ocean, Carlsberg Papyri, 5, CNI Publications, 26 (Copenhagen, 2002). Smith dates this manuscript to the second century AD. See finally J-F. Pépin, “Quelques aspects de Nouou dans les Texts des Pyramides et les texts des Sarcophages,” BSAK 3 (1988), 339-345, esp. 344-345, for a discussion of Nun/ Okeanos in the Orphic hymn tradition, citing sources as late as the sixth century AD. 48 Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 13: “The idea of non-being, total emptiness, absolute ‘nothingness’ was foreign to Egypt.” 49 Ibid.: “…everyone knew that a boundless watery region had existed before the creation, its inert, unmoving waters swaddled in absolute darkness.” 50 Ibid., 92: “Nun, though he was the Primeval Ocean as such, nevertheless had a place within the divine company because he represented the cradle of the world and was ‘father of the gods.’” E. Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. J. Baines (Ithaca, 1982), 147-148: “From the Middle Kingdom on it [the epithet ‘father of the gods’] is associated especially with the god Nun, who is the primeval waters from which all the gods indeed originated, in divine form.” 51 Allen, Genesis, 1-7, and n. 49 above. 52 Bickel, Cosmogonie, 23: “Le Noun est un monde aqueux. Son nom nww pourrait être derive d’une racine significant ‘l’eaux’ qui aurait donné la valeur n à l’hiéroglyphe.
some thoughts on
ΤO Υ∆ΩΡ
of thales and
ΤO AΠΕΙΡΟΝ
of anaximander
249
Nun were darkness53 and inertia.54 Furthermore, the Egyptians believed that Nun was not only the place of creation but the matrix from which the activity of creation unfolded.55 It is clear that, for the Egyptians, water, especially the water associated with origin of all things, was a very complex entity.56 If Thales’ notion that water was the principle of things had its origins in ideas that he derived from the Egyptians,57 we may have better insight into understanding the term τὸ ὕδωρ as he intended it. The idea of water as a “source” or even “matrix” of the created world has a well-documented history in Egyptian cosmological traditions, as we have noted above.58 If we follow this assumed connection between τὸ ὕδωρ of Thales and the nwn of the Egyptians, certain statements encountered in the Greek commentators appear to us in different light. In the Egyptian way of thinking, Aristotle’s remark that “…for there must be some natural substance, either one or more than one, from which the other things come-into-being, while it
is preserved”59 is almost a given. The Nun of the Egyptians was the source of creation, the matrix of creation, and the principle of creation all in one.60 Accepting an Egyptian basis for Thales’ idea of τὸ ὕδωρ, we no longer need to see his choice of water as the primordial element as having a vague, indistinct Near-Eastern origin.61 But it is important to note that Thales seems to have focused primarily, if not solely, on the aqueous nature of the Nun. Turning to Anaximander, we recall that he is also said to have been a Milesian.62 He is also called a pupil, possibly a kinsman, of Thales.63 Even modern commentators who question the nature of their relationship at least agree that there was a strong connection between the two men.64 In order to clarify Anaximander’s thesis that τὸ ἄπειρoν is the principle of all things, we find help once again if we refer to the Egyptian cosmogonical traditions. Specific characteristics of the Nun noted above were water, darkness, and inertia.65 Another very important characteristic of
La pronunciation usuelle Noun reflète une forme secondaire d’époque tardive, probablement basée sur l’association de l’eau primordiale et de l’état d’inertie nnwt, form qui a été reprise par le grec et le copte.” See the statement at 23 as well: “Plusiers passages mentionent “les eaux du Noun,” citing CT IV 189c; CT VI 280t-u. 53 Hornung, The One and the Many, 176-177: “There are also a few very distinctive positive definitions of the situation before creation. The most important elements that constitute the state of non-existence are two: limitless waters or the primeval flood (Nun in Egyptian) and completely opaque, total darkness (kkw zmAw in Egyptian).” 54 Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 13: “…everyone knew that a boundless watery region had existed before the creation, its inert, unmoving waters swaddled in absolute darkness.” Hornung, The One and the Many, 66: “…Nun, the “weary” or “inert” primeval flood…” 55 Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 51: “Matter was already in Nun, waiting to be coagulated to a point where the dry contrasted with the unformed matter.” Bickel, Cosmogonie, 23: “Ce monde de la préexistence, appelé le Noun est une entité très complexe, à la fois un element, un lieu et une divinité qui personnifie ces deux aspects.” 56 So also Bickel, for which see n. 55 above. 57 This possibility has been raised elsewhere, albeit not with any informed discussion. See, for example, Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 93: “Thales may have rationalized the idea from a Greek mythological form like the Homeric one; he may also have been directly influenced (as he seems to have been for the special detail that the earth floats on water) by foreign, perhaps Egyptian versions.” See also D.R. McBride, “Nun,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt 2, ed. D.B. Redford (New York, 2001) 558. 58 On the Nun as matrix, see n. 55 above. 59 Aristotle, Met. 983b 20-2f. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 88-89. 60 On the continued existence of the Nun, see Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 88: “The wall that surrounded it [the temple]…was perhaps at the same time the
image of Nun, who did not cease to be present in the world that emerged from him.” See also Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 16: “But the creation, the separation of the creatorgod, and the death of the precursor snakes did not, contrary to what one might assume, leave the Primeval Ocean empty and inert.” On the Nun as the principle of creation, see Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 92: “Nun, though he was the Primeval Ocean as such, nevertheless had a place within the divine company because he represented the cradle of the world and was ‘father of the gods.’” Nun as the father of the gods is a theme at least as old as the Coffin Texts. See, for example, CT IV, 188-189. On the Nun as the matrix of creation, see n. 55 above. As “father of the gods,” Nun should not be understood as the or a creator god, for which see Pépin, “Quelques aspects de Nouou,” 340. Cf., however, Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 308, where he states that “…according to the cosmogony of Heliopolis, the oldest god, Nun;…” See 308 n. 67 for the sources on which he based his remarks. See further 311-312, where he states that “The Egyptian idea of the First God had an essentially elementary character matched by no Greek god, only by the Sea.” He attributes to Anaximander a “rationalistic” and “demythologizing turn” in naming the principle τὸ ἄπειρoν. See finally M.R. Wright, Cosmology in Antiquity (London and New York, 1995), 95f. for the claims that Anaximander “called it [τὸ ἄπειρoν] ‘divine,’ but immediately glossed this as meaning ‘immortal’ and ‘indestructible.’ ” 61 See, for example, the discussion at Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 90 and 92f. Hölscher is more open to, and supportive of, the idea of specific Egyptian-Greek exchanges in matters of cosmological speculation. See his “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 310-311, and 312-313. 62 Diogenes Laertius II, 1-2. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 100-101. 63 See n. 15 above. 64 Barnes, Presocratics, 1 19: “…we need not accept the conventional statement that they were teacher and pupil.” 65 See nn. 53-54 above.
250
paul f. o’rourke
the Nun about which there is general agreement is its lack of finiteness. It has been described as boundless,66 as having no beginning or end,67 as limitless,68 and as an unbroken infinity.69 Seen in this light, understanding what Anaximander meant by τὸ ἄπειρoν may prove an easier task. He, too, may have based his thinking about the principle of things on ideas that he derived from the Egyptians, specifically ideas associated with the Nun.70 In reviewing the theses of Thales, Anaximander may have objected to his predecessor’s use of the term τὸ ὕδωρ to characterize the Nun, seeing “water” as a limited and potentially misleading term.71 His use of τὸ ἄπειρoν may represent a word choice that he thought better captured the essence of what the Egyptians meant by the term Nun.72 It may also be true that in his alleged claim that τὸ ἄπειρoν was the principle of all things, there was no explicit or implicit refutation of Thales’ idea that τὸ ὕδωρ was the material principle.73 Rather, he may have been endeavoring to establish a clearer understanding of what he thought the Egyptians meant by Nun. Thus, in Anaximander’s choice of the term τὸ ἄπειρoν, we may be looking at a corrective, one that focuses on “boundlessness” as a primary characteristic of the principle of all things.74 Seeing Egyptian antecedents in the thought of the philosophers Thales and Anaximander and, more specifically, seeing the word Nun as the inspiration for their ideas about the nature of the principle of all things, expressed in their translation of the term nwn as τὸ ὕδωρ and τὸ ἄπειρoν respectively, apparently solves several problems.
We can establish a clearer relationship between the ideas of these two early thinkers, even underscore a link that appears to be linear.75 Additionally, Anaximander ceases to appear as an anomaly in a line of Greek thinkers wedded firmly to the idea of materialism.76 If he understood that the Nun was both material and infinite in the eyes of the Egyptian cosmologists, and based his thoughts about the material principle on such Egyptian views, Anaximander can no longer be accused of having departed from a tradition that assumed a material basis for the origin of all things.77 The introduction of the term τὸ ἄπειρoν was not an attempt to move the discussion into the realm of speculative thought but was rather an intentional effort to set the discussion straight as Anaximander saw it.78 Furthermore, if we accept this connection between the early Greek thinkers and Egyptian cosmologists, a central idea of Anaximander’s successor Anaximenes can be seen in a better light as well. Anaximenes, we are told, was a pupil of Anaximander who claimed that “the material principle was air and the infinite.”79 In light of the theory laid out above, it can now be argued that Anaximenes, following Anaximander, clearly understood that the principle of all things had a complex nature and that one of its primary characteristics was the infinite. In Anaximenes’ own view, this principle was both air and the infinite. In essence, he retained Anaximander’s fundamental understanding of the complex nature of the material principle. He accepted one of its primary characteristics, the infinite, but rejected water as its basic material property, substituting
66 Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 13: “…everyone knew that a boundless watery region had existed before the creation...” 67 Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 45: “…Nun, the primordial entity, the uniformed expanse that had no beginning or end.” 68 Allen, Genesis, 3-4, citing a text from the Sety I cenotaph, and Hornung, The One and the Many, 176-177. 69 Allen, Genesis, 7. 70 Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 320, is skeptical about finding a source for Anaximander. But see n. 57 above. 71 See the discussion and n. 8 above. 72 Note that neither of these philosophers attempted to import this foreign term into his discussion through a Hellenized writing of the word but chose instead to offer a Greek translation of the borrowed concept. 73 See n. 18 above for the statement of Simplicius that Anaximander rejected Thales’ notion of water as the material principle. But see n. 74 following. 74 The possibility that Anaximander may not have rejected Thales’ idea of water as the constituent element but added the term apeiron to the mix seems to have been raised already by
Barnes, Presocratics 1, 31: “Did Anaximander positively deny that ‘the unlimited’ was water or the like? Or did he rather refrain from asserting that it was water or the like? The question is not merely trifling; for the view loses in plausibility if he did not positively distinguish it from the elements.” 75 On the possibility that Thales would have accepted the notion that his τὸ ὕδωρ could be described as ἄπειρoν, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 94, n. 1. 76 See discussion above and nn. 21-22. 77 See the discussion above and nn. 21-22. Simplicius understood the apeiron as a material element. Simplicius, Physics 24, 13: “…Anaximander, son of Praxiades, a Milesian who became successor and pupil to Thales, said that the unlimited (apeiron) is both principle (arche) and element (stoicheion) of things that exist.” See Barnes, Presocratics 1, 29. 78 On Anaximander and speculative thinking, see Barnes, Presocratics 1, 26 and also 23, citing W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, 1972), 308310. 79 Diogenes Laertius II, 3. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 143.
some thoughts on
ΤO Υ∆ΩΡ
of thales and
ΤO AΠΕΙΡΟΝ
of anaximander
251
air in its place. He was not “returning” the discussion to a material basis but simply continuing the discussion that had begun with his predecessors. Additionally, accepting this line of reasoning allows us to see these first Milesian philosophers lying in closer conjunction than has been previously thought, more like three peas in the same pod.80 To conclude, investigating such Greek and Egyptian interconnections as these raises other interesting points of comparison. Simplicius’ remark that “…and the source of coming-to-be for existing things is that into which destruction, too, happens, according to necessity…’’81 resonates tellingly with an Egyptian statement found
in Spell 175 of the Book of the Dead: “What is a lifetime of a life?” says Osiris. “Thou art (destined) for millions of millions (of years), a lifetime of millions (of years)…And I will destroy all that I have made. This land shall return into the Deep, into the flood, as it was aforetime.”82 Aristotle’s statement that ἡ ἀρχή was “the original constituent material of things, which persists as a substratum and into which they will perish”83 certainly catches the eye as well. Further exploration of Egyptian-Greek interconnections may well open other avenues for productive study and hopefully expand the discussion of connections between the ancient West and Near East to include Egypt as well.84
80 Cf, however, Hölscher, “Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,” 316, where he states that “Anaximenes, coming later, in certain respects shows greater dependence on the East.” 81 Simplicius, Physics 24, 13, for which see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 106. 82 See T.G. Allen, The Book of the Dead: or, Going Forth by Day, SAOC 37 (Chicago, 1974), Spell 175, p. 184. 83 See n. 11 above. 84 See n. 61 above, and, for example, W. Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis (Cambridge, 2004), 21-70, where the idea of interconnections between Europe and the ancient Near East is still presented as somewhat generalized, but with a decided emphasis on Mesopotamia. Burkert’s statement at 72 about specific Greek and Egyptian interconnections beyond the areas of architecture and sculpture is telling: “It is more difficult to document interrelations in ways of thinking or religious belief.” On the possible influence of Egyptian and Greek architecture and technology on the thought of Anaximander, see R. Hahn, Anaximander and the Architects: The
Contribution of Egyptian and Greek Architectural Technologies to the Origins of Greek Philosophy (Albany, 2001); and Hahn, “Proportions and Numbers in Anaximander and Early Greek Thought,” in Anaximander in Context: New Studies in the Origins of Greek Philosophy, ed. D. Couprie, R. Hahn, and G. Naddaf (Albany, 2003), 71-163; cf., however, others who have argued for more specific Near Eastern-Greek interconnections, focusing particularly on Assyria beginning in the seventh century BC. Some of these theses have made claims for both direct Assyrian-Greek interconnections and indirect ones through the kingdom of Lydia, for example. For works discussing Near Eastern and Greek interconnections, see, for example, S. Parpola, “The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy,” JNES 52 (1993), 161-208; P. Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic: Empedocles and the Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford, 1995); M.L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 1997); and W. Burkert, Da Omero ai Magi: La Tradizione orientale nella cultura greca (Padua, 1999).
