Brief History Of Memphis

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 "phoinikeïa" 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 Mycenæan 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.

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 Uræus 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, 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 Mycenæan influence - the rise of the use of a syllabic, ruling-class language, Mycenæan Greek, now called "Linear B" (imported by the Mycenæans to Crete) ;

postpalatial (ca. 1380 - 1100) : after the final destruction of Knossos in 1380, none of the Minoan palaces were re-inhabited - Mycenæan 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.

Mycenæan Age (ca. 1600 - 1100) : The mythical Danaus (ca. 1600  - 1570), a Hyksos refugee, took over Mycenæ and established the "Shaft Grave dynasty" which lasted for several generations. Mycenæan Greece was split up into a number of small districts (and hence to regard Mycenæ 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 Mycenæan 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 Mycenæan 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 Mycenæan 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 Mycenæan 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 Mycenæan 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.