
Ancient Greek and Egyptian Interactions - diodorus
http://blog.oup.com/2016/04/greek-egyptian-interactions-literature/
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nonbel
>“You Greeks are children.” That’s what an Egyptian priest is supposed to have
said to a visiting Greek in the 6th century BC.

I don't know what the need is to be vague. According to Plato, this was said
to Solon immediately preceding the story of Atlantis.

"Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon,
Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old
man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he
replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down
among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I
will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of
mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by
the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other
causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time
Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot,
because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all
that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this
has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies
moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things
upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who
live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to
destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore."
[http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html)

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jboydyhacker
There is pretty good evidence that the two cultures influenced each other in
waves. Egyptian culture was a lot more stable earlier and records some Greek
history even before the greeks do in terms of greek settlement under the
Acropolis going back way further than documented evidence.

The Atlantis myth actually comes from Egypt to Greece- and much of Greek early
knowledge of themselves comes from Egyptian historians.

Later after the conquest by Alexander (surrender) the influence on Egypt is
fairly massive. If you ever get a chance visit the temple of Hathor north of
Thebes.

One of the most "intact" temples still standing and huge Greek influences. Was
just there in January and had to ninja in with Military escort as Egypt is a
bit unstable now.

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gumby
A fun blog post that leaves out many other fun connections to today. Even the
word we use, "Egypt" is the Greek name (Aígyptos) for the place known as al
Misr. And the demotic language was just that: demotic is a Greek adjective
that just means the colloquial language of the people (demos) as opposed to
the hieratic (priestly) speech or Received English. Saying it is called
demotic as if he'd written "those smalltalk programs were written in a
language known as object-oriented"

It's really fascinating how much opression/occupation literature there
apparently was, given that in western literature they are often the
_conquerors_ (before the 1940s, Godwin's law would have referenced Napoleon;
before him it would have been -- Pharaoh). I hadn't realized how much turnover
there was, but I suppose in 3000 years there's time for a lot to happen.

Another fascinating connection is between Egypt/Ur/Babylon et al and the pre-
Aryan Indus culture. It appears likely that writing spread from the fertile
crescent to India via trade, as it did to the Phoenicians and thence to Greece
and to us.

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anateus
Note that Hermes Trismegistus is a local syncretism rather than a full
equivalent as the article implies.

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whistlerbrk
Interesting article. The Ancient Greeks, were from what I understand, very
open about how (most of) their culture was essentially handed to them by the
Egyptians via the trading colonies the Greeks, who were a seafaring people,
kept at the Egyptian shores.

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elliptic
Do you have a reference for this? While Greece was strongly influenced by the
cultures of the Near East and Egypt, it entirely misstates the situation to
say that "most of their culture was handed to them." Edit - Walter Burkert has
an excellent, short book on this - The Orientalizing Revolution

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Herodotus38
At least in the specific case of Herodotus, in his Histories, he has several
theories about Greek customs borrowed from other cultures. He also has a
relatively open mind about different cultures having customs that are better.
For example, he talks at one point how he thinks the Persians (who were often
enemies with different city states) have a good custom of raising young
children (males) separate from the parents until a certain age so if they
should die it is less of a hardship.

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civilian
Herodotus was fantastic because he was the first historian, but he is
seriously lacking as a historian if you judge him by modern standards. That
doesn't detract from him as a great man and an intellectual pioneer, but it
does mean we should be skeptical of his theories.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus#Egypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus#Egypt)

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Herodotus38
For sure, everything he says should be taken with a grain of salt. I was just
giving an example of a specific Greek who had some of the ideas the OP was
requesting.

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return0
The article has a glaring omission. The Minoans were trading regularly with
Egypt millenia ago.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization)

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samirm
Good read!

