Out of the blue I received the following e-mail on 9/18/00, titled "Lies, Lies, Lies .....":

Rob's reply
>> Your e-mail concerning the Greeks is not objective and I can characterize it anti-Hellenic biased. <<

Which e-mail was that? Actually, everything I write is objective. You can characterize it however you want, but you can't prove any bias.

>> the Hellenes have already a better Democracy than the present west democracies. <<

When only free, native-born males could vote? How is that better?

>> This slavery is yet in effect in the Middle East and elsewhere, but you hide it. <<

I don't hide anything. Whatever e-mail you're talking about, it undoubtedly wasn't about "the Middle East and elsewhere." If it had been about "the Middle East and elsewhere," I would've characterized those places accurately.

>> They had the right to posses home, agricultural land, or have stores, or being technicians etc. <<

Which of those rights don't present-day Western workers have? They have them all and hundreds more, as far as I know.

>> The only right that they did not have was the vote. <<

How about the right of freedom?

>> You must be grateful, as well as every human being on earth, to the Hellenes that invented Democracy, Justice <<

Hammurabi's code, Moses' Ten Commandments, etc. Many indigenous cultures around the world were democratic societies where everyone had an equal say.

Here's a good example of the Greeks' commitment to human rights. From a page explaining the methods of genocide:

Now we know where Europeans got their genocidal attitudes from, eh? For more on the subject, see Greeks Rationalized Conquest.

>> Athletism (Olympic Games) <<

Every culture around the world had people skilled in athletic feats. Inventing the Olympics isn't the same as inventing athletics. Horse-riding began on the Indo-European steppes, the martial arts in Asia. Canoeing, kayaking, tobogganing, rubber-ball games, and lacrosse were Native American inventions. Etc.

>> Philosophy <<

Every culture around the world has developed its own philosophy. Confucianism and Taoism are just two of hundreds of examples I could give. Every religion is a body of philosophical beliefs. You're talking about particular schools of philosophy, not "philosophy" per se.

>> Science and Technology <<

Writing, irrigation, metallurgy, Egypt's pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Great Wall of China, algebra, gunpowder, the printing press, Mexico's stone calendars, Chaco Canyon, the Hohokam's canals, etc., etc., etc. All examples of science or technology, none of which involved the Greeks.

>> Theater <<

I don't know much about Asian theater, but I believe China and Japan developed their own forms without Western influence. More important, every culture around the world has developed some kind of "performance art," whether it involves storytelling, music, dance, or ritual. As one example, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest put on religious productions that outsiders called "mystery plays."

I'll grant that the Greeks developed the specific conventions of stagebound theater as we know it today. So? It's not as if they invented myths, stories, or literature, which are arguably more important.

Literature predates Greeks
The fact that you listed theater rather than the broader category of literature is noteworthy. Let's survey the history of literary forms and see where they originated. Some excerpts from The Face of the Ancient Orient by Professor Sabatino Moscati:

>> Medicine <<

Every culture around the world has developed its own form of medicine. The Egyptians knew how to embalm bodies. Peruvian cultures practiced successful brain surgery. You're talking about particular medical beliefs, not "medicine."

>> Astronomy <<

Every culture around the world has developed its own astronomical knowledge. Stonehenge is merely the most well-known example of an ancient "observatory." The Maya had the most accurate calendar of any people until after the Renaissance. Etc.

Again, you're talking about particular astronomical names and concepts, not "astronomy."

>> I would advise you to study better the Ancient Hellenic Civilization in order to stop the anti-Hellenic lies and disinformation. <<

I've studied it. I'd advise you to study your world history before you attempt to argue this subject again. I've tackled it many times and I've yet to lose a debate on it.

For more on the origins of Western Civilization, visit Multicultural Origins of Civilization. You also may enjoy my Columbus Day essay, This Ain't No Party, This Ain't No Disco.

The debate continues....
>> Dear Mr. Smith, <<

That's "Schmidt"!

>> I would like to continue this dialogue, since I understood that you are an intellectual person of good faith and credibility, but a am very busy at this time. Another reason to stop this unproductive diologue is that the international power has imposed everywhere "the political correct" ideas and now it is difficult to change the mind in a person that believes the lies that has been written in history, and in the other sciences, in order to serve the Establishment. <<

Don't worry. I believe you can overcome any lies you may have learned. I have faith in you.

>> For example, they say that the man in Europe came from Africa 35.000-40.000 years ago. If you visit the cave in Petralona, near Thessaloniki, you can see the European Archanthropus (the predecessor of Europeans) He is 750.000 years old, according to the universities of Virginia and Tokyo....Do you know about heart breaking discovery ?. Surely no. <<

The European Archanthropus? No, I can't say I've heard of that one. Has it appeared in a reputable scientific journal?

>> But I am sure that you know about the creation of the world in seven days. <<

Yes. Another creative story, like the Greek myths.

>> I studied the ancient sources i.e. (Hellenic, Indian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Mayans, Atzecs, Runar etc. and other histories of the East Mediterranean) <<

So have I. I've posted a sampling of what I know in Multicultural Origins of Civilization.

>> my conclusion is that the first world civilization started from the East Mediterranean with epicenter the Aegean Sea and particularly the Crete island. <<

Your conclusion is false. It's contradicted by a few billion tons of evidence—the Egyptian pyramids, for starters. Come up with a new conclusion, because this conclusion makes you look silly.

>> 2. The ancient Athenian democracy was better than the recent West Democracies because it was DIRECT and the citizens voted for their affairs in every session. <<

It was better in your opinion, you mean. It may have been more direct, which was possible because Athens was small. It wasn't any more direct than your typical New England town hall meeting.

More important, it was much more limited, with only certain classes of people allowed to vote. To say whether it was better than today's democracies is a value judgment. I say it wasn't.

>> On the contrary, today we have INDIRECT (representative) and the citizens vote through their representatives every four years. <<

Yes, I know. The US is a republic, not a democracy.

Admirable, but...
>> Do not you admire these people that invented Democracy in a time that the next world was all in slavery? <<

I admire them for what they were, but I don't worship them as you seem to. Many primitive tribes also were egalitarian in nature, so Greece wasn't unique in that respect. Both the Americans and the French rebelled against tyrannical European governments, so someone in Europe wasn't following the Greek model. Who was it: the rebels or the tyrants? Or both?

An article in the LA Times, 8/20/02, described just how much—or how little—the Greeks were like us:

>> "The Yugoslav elections were not "free and fair." and an inquire must be overtaken by an independent commission. <<

Comparing ancient Greece to struggling Third World countries today isn't fair. Since Greece was the leading country of its time, let's compare it to the leading countries of our time: the US, Germany, Japan, and so forth. By that measure, ancient Greece suffers in comparison.

>> This would include the overthrow of other popular governments in Guatemala, Panama, Chile, Iran, Greece and Indonesia and also intervention in elections in Italy, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guyana and others. <<

One, you're confusing exceptions to the rule with the rule itself. Our problems in Florida in 2000, for instance, don't disprove the democratic nature of the United States. Two, you're ignoring the dozens of democratic countries that hold hundreds of thousands of well-run elections every year.

What was Athens's population: a few thousand? Any American city of the same size has as much democracy, if not much more. How many democratic cities of that size exist around the world? Again, perhaps hundreds of thousands.

>> "The observers believe that there has been undue interference in the Yugoslavian election by the Western powers, in particular by the United States, which has seen fit to interfere to the tune of $77 million to various opposition movements and organizations, including the 'independent' media. This is a shameful—and no doubt illegal—intrusion into the affairs of a sovereign nation." <<

The only shame is in not intervening when a so-called sovereign nation practices genocide, ethnic cleansing, or other moral abominations. Human rights trump sovereign rights.

>> 3. The mass media and the experts say that the foreign labors entering the West are the new SLAVERY. <<

This is another opinion, and a wild one at that. When you cite evidence that Western workers are enslaved literally, not metaphorically, we can discuss it.

Are the homeless free?
>> 4. The foreign workers live in very bad condition. I visit frequently the USA and I met people sleeping in the pavement and in the parks, like dogs. Are they free men ? <<

They're arguably free to be homeless. They certainly aren't enslaved, unlike many people in ancient Greece.

Were there no poor people in ancient Greece? I doubt it. Go ahead and prove it: that there weren't any beggarly, drunken, or mentally ill types.

>> 5. Of course I recognize that the Athenian democracy was not complete. They had the slaves, but you must take into account that the slaves then were what are today the machines. <<

No, I don't need to take that into account. Every slaveholding culture has used similar rationalizations. Slavery is slavery. Morally speaking, any Western country today is far superior to the ancient Greeks.

>> On the other hand they thought to provide freedom for the slaves, that was realized in the West during the previous century. <<

Here's what Aristotle, perhaps Greece's greatest thinker, had to say about freedom and slavery:

Oops. So much for the Greek ideal of freedom. The Greeks sometimes freed individual slaves. Freedom for all slaves is a recent historical development.

>> 6. According to the previous conclusion the first Civilization was created in the Aegean Sea, and particularly in Crete island many thousand years ago. <<

According to your previous conclusion, you mean. In reality, the first civilizations were Sumer and Egypt. That's an established historical fact regardless of what you've concluded.

>> All these information are not arbitrary but are written by PLATO in "TIMAIOS" book. Plato writes in his book, that then the Greeks lost the civilization and started from the beginning from the fragments that were left only in the mountainous area, as well as in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, that then was populated by the same legendary people, the PELASGI. <<

Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations predated Plato by two or three thousand years. What Plato wrote was irrelevant to the millennia of their history. And you apparently misunderstood his point. The "fragments" he referred to were the remnants of the great civilizations that preceded Greece. He was trying to explain the origin of Greece, not the origins of civilization.

>> To point out that Pelasgi traveled in Atlantic, Indian, Pacific ocean, North Sea and spread their civilization in America (Atzek, Mayas, etc.) in Asia, Pacific Islands, that have Greek names (Indonesia, Micronesia, Philippines etc.) <<

Wake up, mister. You're having a bad dream, and giving me nightmares. These places got their names because Europeans using Latin-based languages named them in the 16th through 19th centuries, some 2,000 years after Greek civilization crumbled.

>> During the primitive times that did not existed law and written in codes and did not existed courts, every body was taking the law into its hands to revenge for the victim. <<

Nice try, but as I said, Hammurabi was the first leader to develop a written code of laws. Moses was another famous law-giver who predates ancient Greece. Almost every ancient civilization developed laws over time.

Pre-Greek justice
As Moscati notes in The Face of the Ancient Orient, the Egyptians left documents relating to legal practices, accounts of trials, and lists of officials and judges. The only thing missing was an official code of laws. Official codes did exist in the Near East. So did courts and the other trappings of legal systems.

For instance, consider the Sumerian legal system that preceded Hammurabi's Code. About it Moscati writes:

>> Concerning the Athletism. Of course other peoples may be rode horses, cayak etc. but the did not invented terms and constitution for the contests. <<

Or they invented them but didn't record them.

In "When the Games Began: Olympic Archaeology," John Noble Wilford describes the origin of athletics. From the NY Times, 3/9/04:

Needless to say, regularizing and institutionalizing something isn't the same as inventing it. My argument stands.

Besides, athletic games are an extremely minor accomplishment. In fact, if you think competing for self-centered glory isn't desirable, they're arguably no accomplishment at all.

From the Associated Press, 7/26/04:

>> Concerning the philosophy. In China they have a district "YUNAN" that means "JONIA". In Japan exists a very old race called AINOU, that means JONIANS. The same happen in India. If you visit New Delhi I advise you to visit the town AGRA, the traditional place of India, where is the famous Taz Mahal. <<

The etymology of a few words, even if true, has little or nothing to do with the roots of philosophy. The architecture of the Taj Mahal, a distinctly Islamic (not Greek) structure, has even less to do with philosophy. Try again.

>> In conclusion these civilizations were flourished after the visit there of the race I mentioned before (Pelasgi) The old book of MHABARATA and VEDA provide enough evidence about it. When Alexander the Great visited India (Hellenic name that means IN-DIA=Zeus) the upper class spoke Greek and educated their children in Hellenic letters. <<

Alexander (barely) reached India, and didn't reach China or Japan. Regardless, the Indus Valley and Chinese civilizations existed centuries before ancient Greece. If you're suggesting these civilizations didn't begin until Alexander visited them, you don't know what you're talking about.

>> Metempsychosis, the Olympian Religion and the Hellenic philosophy were taught to Indians by the Hercules, Hermes and other Heroes of the Hellenic world that traveled in India thousand years before Alexander the Great. That's why the Indian people have similar philosophy and they are peaceful and have inner culture. <<

What is this, a fairy tale? I'm not interested in Greek myths any more than I am Biblical creation tales. These "heroes" are fictional characters. Stick to the facts.

Talk about bias. You think the entire Indian subcontinent, where peoples and cultures outnumbered the Greeks perhaps a thousand to one, couldn't have thought of "peace" without Greek help? I've rarely heard such a ridiculous assertion.

The idea of Alexander, a brutal warmonger and would-be conqueror, being a prophet of peace like Jesus or Buddha is truly mind-boggling. Besides, Alexander was Macedonian, not Greek. Either way, he's irrelevant to this debate.

Computers used in Athens?
>> Only I will tell you that the Hellenes had computer, yes computers, that had been found in a sank ship off the Antikythira island. Do you know that? Surely no, because this is not allowed by the international authority. This computer can be seen in the museum of Athens. <<

I don't know it, but if you're talking about some simple yes-no logical device, it wouldn't surprise me. Calling something like that a computer is a big stretch. If you want to go that route, you could call the Chinese abacus the first handheld calculator. Again, that invention predates ancient Greece.

Here's an article on the so-called computer from the NY Times:

So what do we have here? A computer, no. A mechanical calculator, maybe. Is it more impressive than, say, the Chinese ability to do square roots on an abacus? Not really. It's evidence that the Greeks were pretty smart, as we already knew, but not 2,000-plus years ahead of their time.

In particular, note the date established by the incontrovertible motions of the Sun and moon: 150-100 B.C. So much for your belief that the device is hundreds of thousands of years old.

>> Also the first sentence of scientific truth is the Pythagorian theorem, that have been taught in high school. <<

"The first sentence of truth"? Says who? Every ancient race managed to figure out the movements of celestial bodies, the length of the solar cycle. These scientific truths predated Pythagoras's theorem by several millennia, again.

You also claimed the Greeks invented technology, a different field from science. Where's your evidence of that, hmm?

>> The God of Medicine is still Asclipios (Esculapius in Latin) and all doctors give the oath to the ancient doctor Hippocrates <<

Yes, because Hippocrates invented an oath and doctors swore to follow the oath. Inventing an oath isn't the same as inventing medicine.

>> He was a scientist doctor and not a magician or priest like the Egyptians and Babylonians practicers. <<

So what if it was "magicians" or priests who practiced medicine? Ever hear of medicine men in indigenous tribes? The point is that everyone had some kind of medicine. Medicine is the practice of treating sickness, regardless of how it's done.

A quote from the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia effectively bursts your bubble:

For more on the Egyptians' knowledge of medicine, see Egypt's Extensive Influence.

Get the picture? If you were talking about developing the science of medicine, you should've said so. The Greeks did not invent medicine. They advanced medical knowledge, as the encyclopedia says.

>> And you must know that Medicine is the first Science, because the human being always feared the death and tried to cure the diseases. <<

Yes, and people around the world have practiced medicine to cure diseases and forestall death. Your claim that the Greeks invented it is false.

For more on the subject, see Ten Lies About Indigenous Science.

Ancient astronomy
>> The more significant aid for the sailing in open seas was the astronomic data, that was the cause to create the Astronomy. <<

Every culture that practiced agriculture gathered and used astronmical data, since they had to know when the seasons changed. Hundreds or thousands of them recorded astronomical phenomenon in their monuments, art, and stories. As I said, scientists consider places like Stonehenge astronomical "observatories."

>> The Hellenic names of stars is the greatest evidence. <<

You must be joking. Many stars (e.g., Rigel, Deneb, Fomalhaut) have Arabic names, which kind of blows a hole in your argument. Oops.

>> One of the most famous astronomer, Aristarchos, was the first astronomer that formulated the Heliocentric system, that said that "everything is moving around the Sun" <<

And it was Ptolemy, also Greek (Greek-Egyptian), who said everything revolves around the Earth. Oops.

>> the Hellenes created scientific Astronomy, based on mathematics and observation, while the Chaldeans made Asrtology (mixed with magic and religious data). <<

That may be, but "scientific astronomy," like "scientific medicine," is distinct from astronomy or medicine. Again, every culture charted the movements of the heavens and developed calendars based on them. Every culture developed ways and means of curing diseases.

Again, let's go to the books. From Astronomy by H.C. King, starting on page 1:

Astronomy doesn't mention Greece until page 14. So again, consider the evidence. This 1960 children's book has more than enough information to set you straight. The Greeks did not invent astronomy. They advanced astronomical knowledge, for which I'm happy to give them credit.

Let's go to Wilford's article to summarize the Greeks' accomplishments:

In other words, the impact of other Greek accomplishments—in philosophy, medicine, and astronomy—is much less obvious. That's because the accomplishments in these areas were much less revolutionary.

In conclusion...
>> In conclusion, it was not in my intention to insult you or to lower you. <<

You haven't insulted or lowered me. Nor have you done much to contradict my thesis. The Greeks built upon the knowledge of previous civilizations to develop such things as democracy, Aristotlean philosophy, and the sciences of medicine and astronomy. Their contributions were important, but they didn't appear out of thin air. They came from earlier sources.

In short, our civilization is a mix of Greek and non-Greek influences. As I said.

Rob

The debate continues (12/23/05)....
>> If your statement is not sarcastic it is acceptable. However nobody posseses the truth. <<

Judging by our exchanges, I have more truth than you do.

>> Yes, I can confirm that Mr. Aris Poulianos had brought this discovery before the anthropological community, but the predominant convictions were so strong that his discoveries were either ignored or purposely downgraded. <<

You mean they ignored him because he was a crackpot. Again, when you have any evidence other than the ravings of one lone contrarian, let me know.

>> The Hellenic Mythology is not myths as many think, but the Hellenic Archeology, that is an allegorical history, that needs to be decoded properly. One example. Orfeus first tamed the human beings that were then in a wild condition. ("OGYGIA" volume 4 th, page 49, Athan. Stagyritis, Vien, 1815) <<

Very little published in 1815 is archaeologically valid. Find me a source from books or journals written in the last quarter century or give it up.

>> Plato also wrote that the first civilization was created all around the Aegean Sea, but the cataklysmes that hppened (became two cataklysme, one of OGYGOS and the other of DEFCALION) destroyed everything and remained some elements in the all around areas in East Meditarranean (Egypt, Babylon, Asia Minor etc) <<

So you believe in Plato's Atlantis? Even if Atlantis existed, it still wasn't Greek. It would have fit my model of the multicultural (non-Greek) origins of civilization.

>> So -as Plato wrote- the Egyptians and others, either by ingnorance or intentionaly appropriated as their own the Aegian civilization, that was spread out before the cataklysme. <<

What Plato wrote is a fairy tale unless there's archaeological evidence to support it. There's no evidence of a lost continent of Atlantis. Many people think Plato was writing about the volcanic eruption on Santorini, which happened well after the dawn of Egyptian civilization.

In addition, Plato got his story from Solon, who got it from Egyptian priests, who supposedly told Solon of the disappearance of a great island empire. Even if the priests saw Atlantis themselves, which is doubtful, Plato's version would've been a thirdhand account.

In other words, Plato had no firsthand knowledge of what he was writing about. He was repeating other people's stories, not reporting facts.

>> At the present time we have the technology in the west to make practice the direct democracy, by voting our opinion by telephone or via Internet upon the serious matter, using our ID card number. <<

The technology may exist in theory, but it's not secure enough to use yet. The experts aren't even sure they can keep electronic ballot machines at polling places secure. We're not close to having a secure phone- or Internet-based voting system.

Modern countries dislike direct votes?
>> On the contrary the authoritarian "democratic" governments of the west they dislike even the plebisite on the very serious problems, like the Anti Ballistic Missiles <<

The United States has never been eager to have direct votes on anything. We didn't elect our senators directly until we passed the 17th Amendment in 1913. We still don't elect our president directly. If we "dislike the plebiscite on very serious problems," it's because the Founding Fathers set up our government that way.

But through the initiative process, we do have direct votes on important issues at the state level. That means every adult can vote on these issues—which is more democratic than any vote in ancient Athens.

>> I do not know where are you living, but as I know there are countries in Europe, that consider crimes even if the citizens express some ideas, as happened in the former Soviet Union. <<

I live in Los Angeles, California.

>> Unfortunately all countries follow the example of American Republic voluntarily or not. My gloomy opinion is that the west is proceeding to a Dictatorship. <<

You mean like the dictatorship of the Four Hundred that overthrew Athenian democracy in 411 BC? The US experiment in democracy has lasted a lot longer than the Age of Pericles did.

>> I have a book with the sayings of all great philosopher and intellectual all over the world, and by coincident all they admire the achievment of this progressive nation that first put the bases to all sciences and big ideas and constitutions (democracy, athletism, analysis, dialogue, theater, medicine, astronomy, architecture, navigation etc) and above all the Value and significance of the Human being, that resulted to the Classical Humanism. <<

I doubt your book of great philosophers and intellectuals includes many non-Westerners. Naturally, a book of Western philosophers and intellectuals will highlight the contributions of their Greek antecedents. Just as naturally, a book of Eastern philosophers and intellectuals would highlight the contributions of their Chinese and Indian antecedents.

As for the long list of achievements you attributed to the Greeks, I've already disputed them. See my previous postings for details.

>> Do you think that the citizen in the West enjoy the real democracy ? <<

We enjoy real republics based on democratic principles. They may not be perfect, but they're better than anything that preceded them.

>> And how to enjoy the real democracy if he does not have the real information? <<

We have more information at our fingertips than anybody in history—certainly more than the ancient Greeks had.

>> At least in the ancient Athens they had first hand information and direct access to the truth and the propaganda was not existing, even as a word. <<

Rubbish. Without any form of mass media, they couldn't have been as well-informed as a city of the same size today. They didn't even have newspapers, much less radio, TV, or the Internet.

Who cares when the word "propaganda" originated? The concept is as old as politics and predates Greek civilization.

>> I am afraid the the new arrangements in the West, concerning the securities- labor and income matters, leads the workers in a very gloom position. <<

American workers are no worse off than they've ever been. They're better off than the Greeks who were serfs or slaves.

Income gap is wider today?
>> Of course there were many poors, but the differences amongst the classes were not so great as to day. <<

You're comparing apples to oranges: a city-state of 300,000 in 430 BC with a nation of 300 million today. We have a thousand times as many people, so the income differential is probably a thousand times greater. Proportionally speaking, I doubt we're any worse off.

More to the point, a wealthy man in Athens was infinitely richer than a Greek slave who owned nothing. That makes the Greek income gap wider.

>> Even the slaves had the essential food, or even a hut to sleep, and of course permanent work. <<

The poor and homeless can get "essential food" at a shelter or soup kitchen. Few people in America are starving to death. And the poor and homeless have one big advantage over slaves: They're free.

>> You have forgotten the gap of time of 2.500 years, that seperates the ancient Hellenic Civilization from the present one. <<

No, I didn't forget it. I took it into account when I wrote, "Morally speaking, any Western country today is far superior to the ancient Greeks."

>> Then the other societies were in wild conditions, in Northern Europe they still made mansucrifies, in Asia there is still the slavery as a political practice, in Pacific they still kill the worshipers of other religions, and in the USA they bomb the planet with Depleted Uranioum bombs. <<

If "mansucrifies" means "human sacrifices," I don't believe they were widespread in Northern Europe. If places in Asia practiced slavery, they were no worse off than slave-owning Greece. I don't know what countries "Pacific" refers to, but many ancient peoples were not intolerant of other religions. I believe religious tolerance was common in ancient Egypt and the Middle East.

As for "bombing the planet with depleted uranium," you could point to all sorts of problems in the US. And you could compare our wars to the lengthy Athenian wars against the Persians and Spartans. But we still grant equal rights to all citizens, not just men with property, and we don't own slaves. In terms of human rights, we win.

>> If you study the marvelous and legentary Hellenic Civilization you will realize that it was the first steps of the human being to procceed to the civilization, and as first steps they have weakness and the imperfectence. <<

I've studied the Hellenic civilization as well as the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations that preceded it. That's why I wrote that "our civilization is a mix of Greek and non-Greek influences."

>> The most importance is that during this period the human society founded the first constitutions (democracy, science-technology, theater, athletism, human values etc) that are still valid in West <<

Again, I've already addressed these points. If you can't address my arguments with counterarguments, you lose the debate.

>> I Have before me the interview of the famous anthropologist Mr. Aris Poulianos that has concluded after his excavations:

1/ The first stone civilization existed in northern and Aegean Greece 12 million years ago.

2/ The Homo Erectus Trillliensis had language, created his stone or bones tools and had law.

3/The error of his findings is 1 million plus or minus.

4/ His findings in Trillia and in the cave of Ptrallona Chlkidiki were presented in scientific meetings and confirmed unanimosly.

5/ The new findings not only overturned the Afrocentric theories, that the human speies in Europe comes from Africa, but on the contrary concluded that the human adventure started from the Aegean Sea (the cradle of human birth), and of course the cradle of first civilization.

6/ This organized society was gradually spread in Mediterranean—Europe, Asia Minor, Caucasus, Middle East, Central Asia (India, China, Siberia) Pacific (Indonesia, Polinesia, Mikronesia etc) America. That is why there is a similarity between the ancient civilizations all over the world with the ancient Hellenic Civilization. All these civilizations have a common point of reference, that is the Olympus Mountain and Aegean Sea, where the Aegean and then the Mecenean and Minoic Civilizations were flourished many thousands years ago. ("THE ORIGIN OF GREEKS", new edition, author Aris Poulianos, Athens)

7/ Darwin that wrote the "Evolution Theory" hid that had read the Aristoteles theories of evolution. Aristoteles had writen 10 books and only in 1872 was forced to accept that he had been influenced by Aristoteles. <<

I don't see any evidence here that doesn't come from Poulianos. An interview with or a book by someone who's delusional is also delusional.

Real history is documented
The histories of most civilizations have been well-documented. We can trace the origins of these civilizations—in Asia, Africa, and the Americas—to before the time of Greece. The civilizations in the Americas, for example, have nothing in common with Greek civilization except the basic features of every civilization: a government, an economy, etc.

As for the findings that were "confirmed unanimously" in "scientific meetings," show me the evidence. If Poulianos has gained that much acceptance in the archaeological community, you should be able to provide hundreds of Web citations to his work. I'll settle for a dozen.

>> I do not like to nominate you dogmatic. If you want to believe all these lies after the above evidence it is your own right. Search, Search and at the end you will find the truth. <<

I searched. I didn't find anything except one or two individuals (i.e., individual crackpots) who repeated Poulianos's ludicrous claims. I didn't find any authoritative sources who backed up his ludicrous claims.

>> The famous ancient law makers Zeus, Hermes the Trismegistos, Lycoyrgos of Spata, Solon and Klisthenis of Athens close the eye teasingly to you. <<

More undocumented fairy tales. Let me know when you have any proof that these fictional characters existed. As for Solon the lawmaker, Hammurabi predated him by almost 1,200 years. Based on that reference, at least, you're demonstrably wrong.

>> Next month will be published my new book entitled "The Hellenic Ancien Mysteries" where I include all these matters. I would like to send it to you, but it is in Greek language. <<

Well, it's been more than four years. How's the book doing? Has it received positive reviews from the archaeological community? What do the experts think of it?

As for sending it to me, unless it includes more substance than your undocumented arguments here, don't bother. Sorry, I'm not interested in Von Daniken-style fantasies.

Rob

Related links
Multicultural origins of civilization
Democracy rocks—with Indian help
Native vs. non-Native Americans:  a summary

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