BMCR 2009.04.25: Lazaridis on Griffith, Mummy Wheat: Egyptian Influence on the Homeric View of the Afterlife and the Eleusinian Mysteries

R. Drew Griffith, Mummy Wheat: Egyptian Influence on the Homeric View
of the Afterlife and the Eleusinian Mysteries.  Lanham:  University
Press of America, 2008.  Pp. xxxvi, 233.  ISBN 9780761842989.  $37.00
(pb).

Reviewed by Nikolaos Lazaridis, Radboud University Nijmegen
([email protected])
Word count:  2007 words
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Drew Griffith's Mummy Wheat is an important but controversial book that
argues for Egyptian influence not only on Homer's viewpoint of the
afterlife, but also on the Eleusinian mysteries and other aspects of
the ancient Greek religious system. The author begins his discussion
with a specific passage from Homer's Odyssey in which for the first
time in Greek literature a reference to an Elysian plain
(<greek>*)Hlu/sion</greek> <greek>pedi/on</greek>) is made. This new
idea of the afterlife, according to the author, was imported from the
Egyptian system of funerary ideas, expressed mainly in the collections
of the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead. The
author supports this argument, which has also been advanced and debated
in earlier scholarly works, by collecting evidence for parallels and
borrowings between the Homeric epics and the culture of ancient Egypt.
In this way, the author argues against taking this reference to Elysium
as an isolated parallel. Instead, according to him, one should consider
this instance as part of a larger network of borrowed terms and ideas
that penetrated Greek culture through Homer. Hence, this study is
addressed mainly to classical philologists who are interested in topics
of cultural interaction between ancient Greece and the Near East and
thus conversant with a long scholarly debate to which well-acclaimed
scholars, such as Walter Burkert and Martin West, as well as
controversial ones, such as Martin Bernal, have so far contributed. The
author cites these scholars very frequently and, in fact, often employs
the questionable methods of Martin Bernal, using his type of
etymological and other linguistic explanations as evidence for
intercultural influence.

In contrast to Bernal's work, however, the author is paradoxically
aware of the limitations of this type of evidence, although he uses it
extensively throughout his study. Some of the explanations of elements
of Greek culture as borrowings from Egypt seem to be sound, while other
explanations seem far-fetched. Thus, for instance, the explanation of
the Herodotean <greek>li/tron</greek> (or better
<greek>ni/tron</greek>) "sodium carbonate" as deriving from the
Egyptian word netjeri, literally meaning "divine", but also denoting
the sodium carbonate employed in the process of mummification, and its
associations with a Greek borrowing of Egyptian funerary ideas appear
to be very possible. The derivation, however, of the word
<greek>ne/ktar</greek> from the same Egyptian root seems far-fetched
(for both, see pp. 37 and 67). Such examples of linguistic explanations
abound in this work, but their disputable nature does not make the
already hard task of identifying and defining cultural interaction any
easier. Apart from making a sound case for each of these linguistic
explanations, there is also the difficulty in connecting contemporary
parallels to argue for the existence of wider contexts (such as the
historical constructs of the Greek Dark Ages or the Mycenaean world)
that can be seen as rich in parallels between cultures and favorable
for interactions between them. In response to this, the author proceeds
in the only way he can follow, given the available evidence: he
produces a cumulative effect by bringing together as much evidence for
Graeco-Egyptian interaction as possible.[[1]] This method, however, has
its weaknesses, since in most cases the connecting elements are very
uncertain (as in the case of the argued Egyptian origins of the Greek
Memnon, which are linked to Homer's knowledge of Egypt -- see pp.
45-53). An exceptionally convincing element, on the other hand,
connecting a number of parallels and linguistic influences, is the
Homeric tradition. This tradition consisted of bards producing and
reproducing the Homeric epics and can be taken as a uniform cultural
entity that most probably knew much about earlier and contemporary
Oriental cultures (see p. 72). Thus, in general, the reader must be
cautious when the author employs the accumulative method.  Each
instance should be considered first independently, and then it can be
considered in connection to other instances, but only in the context of
a specific cultural group or entity, such as the Homeric bards, rather
than a loosely-formed, historical construct, such as a historical
period or a wide geographical region.

The book is divided into eight chapters that are preceded by a short
introduction. In the introduction (pp. xxix-xxxvi) the author clearly
presents his central argument, quoting in translation the unique
Homeric passage (Od. 4.561-569) in which Proteus predicts for Menelaus
an afterlife in the Elysian plain. He also states his intention of
interpreting this passage as a cultural borrowing from Egypt that fills
a gap in the Greek religious system. Furthermore, the introduction
includes a thorough overview of the contents of each chapter, stressing
the logical links between the great diversity of topics discussed. The
author ends his introduction by justifying his task and defending its
results. He rightly points out the different attitudes towards exotic
material maintained in each of the disciplines he sets foot in. He also
does not fail to observe that his study too dangerously mixes objective
reporting of facts with partisan defence of hypotheses.

In Chapter One (pp. 1-12) the author begins with a short survey of
earlier scholarly works that have discussed the borrowing of the idea
of Elysium from Egypt. In this important section of the chapter, he
also lists six important criteria for proving a linguistic borrowing.
To this brief theoretical discussion one could add the possibilities of
variation in semantic usage, namely when a word may be borrowed from
one culture to another and be used with different meanings and
connotations. [[2]] Such a case is still a linguistic borrowing, but it
proves a different type of interaction from that relating to, for
instance, a loanword that is used with the same meaning and/or is
consciously treated as a foreign word. The author then tests his
proposed criteria by examining the case of the word
<greek>*ai)/gyptos</greek> and its uses in Greek. In the end of the
chapter the author presents the Egyptian funerary ideas and compares
them to Greek ones, thus paving the way for the next discussion of the
Greek borrowing of the idea of Elysian plains from Egypt.

Chapter Two (pp. 13-30) begins with an evaluation of earlier remarks on
the use of the Oriental  idea of Elysium in Greece made by Alford,
Burkert and Puhvel. The author agrees with Alford's theory that
<greek>*)Hlu/sion</greek> <greek>pedi/on</greek> comes from the
translation of the Egyptian term for "fields of reeds". The author
argues next that "Elysium" did not travel to Greece as a linguistic
borrowing only, but marks, at the time of Homeric traditions, a wider
wave of Greek cultural borrowings of Egyptian ideas of the afterlife
(such as the rowing/sailing to Elysium or the perilous backward
glances). This chapter ends with a discussion of Menelaus' right to go
to Elysium, which is unconvincingly linked to Egyptian traditions of
matrilineality.

Following his attempts to prove that the borrowing of Elysium was not
an isolated case of Egyptian influence on Homer, in Chapter Three (pp.
31-43) the author digresses from the central topic of "Elysium" in
Greece by discussing a great variety of parallels between the Egyptian
culture and the Homeric epics. These include, for example, the cases of
feeding the dead to make them speak, [[3]] the Egyptian maa-kheru and
the Greek <greek>ma/kar</greek>, parallel metaphors involving teeth,
tongues and doors, and the Oriental etymology of
<greek>qa/lassa</greek>. Some of these examples are convincing (as with
<greek>ma/kar</greek>) and some are very weak (as is the case of the
parallel metaphors). All these parallels, however, are equally employed
here as evidence for multiple influence over Homeric language and
ideology from Egypt.

This digressive method employed by the author reaches its peak in
Chapter Four (pp. 45-53), in which the author discusses the Egyptian
origins of the Greek Memnon, argued previously by Martin Bernal. This
discussion is only faintly related to the central argument of the book,
since it is simply part of the author's attempt to prove an overall
knowledge of Egyptian culture by the Greeks living before and during
the era of Homeric traditions. [[4]

The journey through parallels between Homer and the ancient Egyptian
culture continues in Chapter Five (pp. 55-66), which includes arguments
for Egyptian influence on Homer in relation to the epics' description
of gods (e.g. their blue hair), as well as their usage of specific
phrases, such "black earth" from the Egyptian kemet and "rosy-fingered
dawn" from the Amarna representations of Akhenaten's sun disc. Once
again, some of these arguments appear more convincing than others, as
is the case of the likely Egyptian influence for the unique blue hair
of Homer's gods compared to the far-fetched connections between Homeric
metaphor and Akhenaten's iconography.

In Chapter Six (pp. 67-75) the author raises a number of interesting
questions about the possible ways such borrowings would have travelled
from Egypt to Greece. Among other things, he suggests as possible paths
the obvious commercial contacts, especially between Egypt and Crete,
Argos or Rhodes,[[5]] and the extensive knowledge of the bards of the
Homeric tradition. Finally, in this chapter the author also asks the
important question "why would there be Egyptian echoes in Homer?" As a
reason he proposes pure chance, but also suggests that this influence
was a result of a very early interaction between Greece and Egypt and
that it filled a gap in the ideas about the afterlife existing in
Greece at that time.

This cultural gap that was filled by Egyptian funerary ideas was,
according to the author, directly associated with the development of
the Eleusinian mysteries, and this hypothesis is the main topic
discussed in Chapter Seven (pp. 77-81) and Chapter Eight (pp. 83-93).
In the former chapter the author argues for an Egyptian background of
Demeter's myths and of the Eleusinian mysteries connected to them.
Accordingly, the author presents Demeter's nature and cult as being of
an Egyptian origin, and he connects the popular myths of Demeter,
Persephone and Iambe to the Egyptian stories about Isis and Osiris. The
similarities proposed at this point, however, seem very weak, and thus
the author is forced to admit that there was probably "an original,
genetic link" rather than direct borrowing (p. 78).

In the last chapter of the book the author surprises the reader by
abandoning all previous linguistic and historical methods and turning
instead to psychoanalysis and the near-death experience for
interpreting the Eleusinian mysteries. This sudden turn makes the
reader wonder whether this chapter acts as an appendix rather than as
an integral part of the book's analysis. What seems to be implied in
this chapter is that both the Egyptian and the Greek cultures were
aware of the psychological values of the idea for a positive afterlife
and that it could be this shared experience of the afterlife that
functioned as the connecting element between the ideologies of the two
cultures in contact.

Chapter Eight is followed by a short afterword, a long series of
figures, and indices of modern scholars (pp. 221-223), words (pp.
224-228), poetic and rhetorical terms (pp. 229-231), and general terms
(pp. 232-233). One must also note here the poor quality of figures that
in some cases cannot properly illustrate the book's arguments (e.g.
fig. 26 in which the color of Hapy's hair is not visible).

The book would have benefited greatly from the presence of a conclusion
or a summary to weave together the various points made in the course of
the analysis. This structural looseness is a major drawback of this
book, as it does not help the reader define its interacting parts or to
understand the nature of the cultural interactions and their impact on
the formation of Greek literature and religion. Nevertheless, this
difficulty in connecting the identified parallels does reflect the
nature and state of the available material itself: the existence of
parallels is not systematic and cannot offer a complete picture of
cultural interaction on its own. Thus, overall, this book is an
important endeavor, since it best illustrates the limitations of works
studying cultural interaction on the basis of philological parallels
the identification and interpretation of which cannot follow a single
theoretical model and therefore tend to be highly subjective.


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Notes:


1.   Resembling in this way Martin West's study of literary parallels
between ancient Greek and Oriental literary works (The East Face of
Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1997).

2.   Such is the case, for instance, of English words used wrongly in
modern Japan, as they are occasionally being confused with native
Japanese vocabulary (cf. J. Stanlaw, Japanese English: Language and
Culture, Asian Englishes Today. Hong Kong: Hong Kong U.P., 2003, pp.
11ff.).

3.   Note that the remark that "...in ancient Egypt everyone of any
means could read" (p. 33) is erroneous and the current Egyptological
consensus does not speak of high rates of literacy in most phases of
Pharaonic History (cf. John Baines and Christopher Eyre: "Four Notes on
Literacy", Goettinger Miszellen 61, 1983, pp. 65-96; Leonard L. Lesko:
"Literature, Literacy, and Literati", in L. H. Lesko (ed.), Pharaoh's
Workers. The Village of Deir el Medina. Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1994, pp.
131-144).

4.   Note that endnotes 123-127 of this chapter have been omitted.

5.   Although Crete and Rhodes sound very likely as centres of contact
with Egypt, the argument for Argos is based upon a debatable
interpretation of Danaus' story in Homer, which is elaborated earlier
on p. 60.