Greeks In Ancient Eastern Textual Sources, 2021

This book is a facsimile reproduction of an independent study report prepared while I pursued an M.A. degree (1985) in classical archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. I decided to publish this report in order to preserve what I believe to be my relatively unique method of recording mentions of Greeks in ancient non-Greek texts. Each text is named, dated, and presented in tabular format, with a photocopy of the original word for “Greek,” its transliteration, and its context translated into English.

The ancient Greeks interacted with other great civilizations of the ancient world – in the Mediterranean, in the Near East and as far away as India. These other civilizations have their own literary traditions, in many ways much more sophisticated than those of the ancient Greeks. Were Greeks referred to in these sources? If so, what names were used to refer to them? What events involving Greeks did they record? Can our existing ancient Greek history be augmented by non-Greek sources? It was my goal to scrutinize these non-Greek sources in hopes of possibly rounding out our existing ancient Greek history from non-Greek points of view.

Review

“This book is not just for scholars and linguists. It is for anyone with an interest in early language and classical civilization in general. There are many illustrations of inscriptions with translations of interest, and the explanatory text is not only clear but very readable.”—Amazon.

Cover photo