Culture and History

of the
Ancient Near East
Series Editors

Eckart Frahm (Yale University)

W. Randall Garr (University of California, Santa Barbara)
B. Halpern (Pennsylvania State University)
Theo P.J. van den Hout (Oriental Institute)
Thomas Schneider (University of British Columbia)
Irene J. Winter (Harvard University)

VOLUME 38

Jack A. Josephson and a Middle Kingdom Noblemanthe Josephson Head

Offerings to the Discerning Eye

An Egyptological Medley in Honor of Jack A. Josephson

Edited by

Sue H. DAuria

LEIDEN BOSTON
2010

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Offerings to the discerning eye : an Egyptological medley in honor of Jack A. Josephson / edited by Sue H. DAuria.
p. cm. (Culture and history of the ancient Near East, ISSN 1566-2055 ; v. 38)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17874-8 (hard cover : alk. paper)
1. EgyptAntiquities. 2. Historic sitesEgypt. 3. Excavations (ArchaeologyEgypt. 4. Egyptology. 5. EgyptCivilization
To 332 B.C. 6. Josephson, Jack A. I. DAuria, Sue. II. Title. III. Series.
DT60.O58 2009
932dc22
2009022055

ISSN: 1566-2055
ISBN: 978 90 04 17874 8
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Magda Saleh

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vii

Magda Saleh

Jack A. Josephson: A Biographical Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ix

Diane Bergman

Bibliography of Jack A. Josephson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xv

List of Abbreviations

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

List of Illustrations

........................................................

xxi

The Shunet el-Zebib at Abydos: Architectural Conservation at

One of Egypts Oldest Preserved Royal Monuments . . . . . . . . . . .

Earthquakes in Egypt in the Pharaonic Period: The Evidence at

Dahshur in the Late Middle Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dorothea Arnold

Foreign and Female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17

Kathryn A. Bard and

Rodolfo Fattovich

Recent Excavations at the Ancient Harbor of Saww (Mersa/Wadi

Gawasis) on the Red Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

Edward Bleiberg

Reused or Restored? The Wooden Shabti of Amenemhat in the

Brooklyn Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

Andrey Bolshakov

Persians and Egyptians: Cooperation in Vandalism? . . . . . . . . . . .

45

Bob Brier

The Great Pyramid: The Internal Ramp Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

Betsy M. Bryan

Amenhotep IIIs Legacy in the Temple of Mut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63

Gnter Dreyer

Eine Statue des Knigs Dewen aus Abydos? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73

Mamdouh Eldamaty

Die leeren Kartuschen von Akhenaten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

Richard Fazzini

Aspects of the Mut Temples Contra-Temple at South Karnak,

Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83

Matthew Douglas Adams

and David OConnor
Dieter Arnold

Erica Feucht

A Gods Head in Heidelberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Rita E. Freed

Reconstructing a Statue from a Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

G.A. Gaballa

The Stela of Djehutynefer, Called Seshu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Ogden Goelet, Jr.

Observations on Copying and the Hieroglyphic Tradition in the

Production of the Book of the Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Tom Hardwick

A Group of Art Works in the Amarna Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

W. Benson Harer, Jr.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Ancient Egypt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Melinda Hartwig

The Tomb of a HAty-a, Theban Tomb 116 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Zahi Hawass

A Head of Rameses II from Tell Basta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Salima Ikram

A Pashas Pleasures: R.G. Gayer-Anderson and his Pharaonic

Collection in Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Sameh Iskander

Merenptahs Confrontations in the Western Desert and the Delta 187

T.G.H. James

A Contemplation of the Late Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

contents

vi
Peter Jnosi

He is the son of a woman of Ta-Sety . . .The Offering Table

of the Kings Mother Nefret (MMA 22.1.21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Nozomu Kawai

Theban Tomb 46 and Its Owner, Ramose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Peter Lacovara

A Unique Sphinx of Amenhotep II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Sarwat Okasha

Rameses Recrowned: The International Campaign to Preserve

the Monuments of Nubia, 1959-68 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Paul F. ORourke

Some Thoughts on of Thales and of

Anaximander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

William H. Peck

Mapping the Temple of the Goddess Mut, Karnak: A Basis for

Further Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Elena Pischikova

The Dog of Karakhamun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Donald B. Redford

The Second Pylon of the Temple of Ba-neb-djed at Mendes . . . . 271

Gerry D. Scott, III

Four Late Period Sculptures in the San Antonio Museum of Art

Hourig Sourouzian

News from Kom el-Hettan in the Season of Spring 2007 . . . . . . . 285

Rainer Stadelmann

The Prince Kawab, Oldest Son of Khufu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Paul Edmund Stanwick

New Perspectives on the Brooklyn Black Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Emily Teeter

A Realistic Head in the Oriental Institute Museum

(OIM 13952). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Transformation of a Royal Head: Notes on a Portrait of
Nectanebo I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Nancy Thomas

277

Jacobus van Dijk

A Cat, a Nurse, and a Standard-Bearer: Notes on Three Late

Eighteenth Dynasty Statues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Kent R. Weeks

The Theban Mapping Projects Online Image Database of the

Valley of the Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Christiane Ziegler

The Tomb of Iahmes, Son of Psamtikseneb, at Saqqara . . . . . . . . . 339

Alain Zivie

The Saga of Aper-Els Funerary Treasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Index

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Dynasties

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Theban Tombs

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Egyptian Words and Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

preface

vii

PREFACE

With sincere pleasure, this volume is dedicated to

Jack A. Josephson by his friends and colleagues in
token of their esteem and affection, on the occasion of his approaching 80th birthday on January
31, 2010. May he, as the ancient Egyptians wished,
live 110 years in robust health, joyfully pursuing
his passion for Egypt and its great civilization
as energetically and purposefully as he does
today.
Jack is a singular scholar in a rarified field. A
latecomer to Egyptology, he has molded himself
into a writer and researcher in the tradition of
the gentleman scholar. In the process, he has
attained specialized expertise in three-dimensional sculpture and achieved broad recognition
as an authority in Egyptian art history. Museums and collectors seek his advice on matters of
authenticity and identification, and young scholars look to him for guidance. Over the years,
Jacks lucid investigative analyses have probed
and redefined the limits of inquiry, expanded
research parameters, and broadened perspectives. His scholarship helps validate the discipline,
emphasizing its undeniable contributions in an
intra-disciplinary framework and highlighting its
promise of further potential.
In clear, concise language and a crisp,
unadorned style, his output displays the rigorous application of conventional methodological
tools and techniques, informed by an increasingly original, innovative approach, instilling
new vitality into a field too often dismissed or
ignored. At their most complex, his writings and
lectures weave cultural and political history into
fascinating vignettes and narratives reflected in
the formulaic art of the Egyptian civilization. Arthistorical interpretation thus applied can reveal
tantalizing insightsclues offering a figurative
reading between the lineswhich might elude the
philologist solely focused on often propagandizing, and often misleading, hieroglyphic texts. To
cite one example, Jacks comparative study of two
contrasting statues of the 26th Dynasty vizier Mentuemhat posits an elaborate power struggle pitting

the ambitious Theban against the wily Psamtik

Ia protracted long-distance intrigue culminating in a stalemate, but foiling the southerners
apparent aspirations to royal status.
Innumerable extant sculpturesdeprived
of archaeological context, intact but shorn of
inscription, archaizing, usurped, re-carved, or
broken and battered fragments, the detritus of
timecan, under the practiced scrutiny of the art
historian, still have a name to regain, a period, a
reign, a workshop, or even a master sculptor to be
assigned to, and still provide answers to queries
and elucidate historical conundrums. Yet others,
embellished in modern times, or altogether fake,
can be exposed under the stylistic assessment of
a keen and knowledgeable eye.
In one such instance, a collaborative research
effort by Jack and Rita Freed concluded that
the stunning Middle Kingdom sphinx head of a
queen, a masterpiece of the Brooklyn Museum
collection, while indeed ancient, had undergone
substantial repair and re-working in eighteenthcentury Italy. The inquiry setting the investigation in motion was an initial observation, made
during an earlier joint endeavor on the identification of another MK sphinx queens head now
at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (the Centennial Queen).The Brooklyn Queen, viewed in
the context of the known corpus of MK female
sphinx heads, appeared anomalous. With the two
scholars pursuing all leads, from scouring every
available source reference to seeking out comparable sculptures in Roman museums, the resulting
article is a classic example of art-historical analysis
in application at its best.
Intensely examining an enigmatic image may
give Jack the eerie sensation of communing with
the artifact, of seeking to inhabit the world of its
maker. In reality, he is mustering an array of the
invaluable personal resources of connoisseurship
a discerning eye; an innate aesthetic sensibility; insight and intuition; strong visual recall and
mental acuity bolstered by avid reading; constant
interaction with fellow scholars; and the continu-

viii

preface

ous scrutiny of countless images. The course of

art-historical analysis is painstakingly methodical
and protracted. Sometimes, in an exciting procedural reversal, the trigger is an exhilarating
Eureka! In one startling occurrence, the mass
of information stored in a supple mind fused in
instant revelation. Examining a photograph of the
Cairo Museum statue of King Snefru set bells ringing and led to the identification of a rare surviving head of a statue of the first ruler of the Fourth
Dynasty, once namelessly assigned to the Fifth.
Intuitive recognition, honed by eye and memory,
had still to be substantiated by strict sciencebut
it was a moment to be savored.
As a critical area of study, Egyptian art history
is currently imperiled, to the serious detriment
of the field of Egyptology. To Jacks dismay, the
subject has all but disappeared from the curricula
of the few institutions both in the United States
and Europe offering graduate degrees in the field.
Deploring this untoward attrition, Jack is a determined proponent of its reinstatement as an essential component in the formation of new cadres.
He voices unbounded reverence for the giants of
Egyptian art history, among them his mentor Bernard V. Bothmer (a.k.a. BVB), and his personal
ideal, William Stevenson Smith, for their inestimable contributions to the discipline.
Profound thanks are due to many participants
who have in various ways made this Festschrift
possible. Foremost among these are Jacks friends
and colleagues, the authors who have, despite the
heavy demands of their notoriously overburdened
schedules, so generously joined together to offer
Jack an exceptional gift. I note with satisfaction
that the articles included here reflect a diversity
of topics and themes of particular interest and
importance to the writers, and I am infinitely

touched by their gracious response. I am truly

grateful to my two fellow coordinators of this
project, our peerless editor Sue DAuria, who has
undertaken this lengthy, arduous taska labor
of lovewith infinite patience, unfailing good
humor, and a scrupulous efficiency; and Rita
Freed, Jacks good friend and frequent collaborator, who found time despite her weighty duties as
John F. Cogan, Jr. and Mary L. Cornille Chair, Art
of the Ancient World at the Museum of Fine Arts
in Boston, to function as logistics manager, wise
advisor, and ever-optimistic encouragerand to
contribute an article! The team at our publisher
Brill, including Publishing Manager Michiel Klein
Swormink, Production Editor Michael Mozina,
and Acquisitions Editor Jennifer Pavelko, whose
dedicated professionalism has made all our dealings a pleasure, has produced a quality publication of which we are all justly proud. My friends
Mary McKercher and Malcolm McCormick have
provided heartily appreciated assistance and support. Mikhail Ghali kindly supplied e-mail linkage
services from Cairo. Amal Safwat el Alfy, Director
of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Press, and
Janice Kamrin, Director of the Egyptian Museum
Database and Registrar Training Projects at the
American Research Center in Egypt obligingly
forwarded urgently needed archival photographs.
Ben Harer proposed an inspired amendment to
the working title, and Ogden Goelet contributed
the perfectly apt cover illustration. In the interests
of discretion, local e-maildrop was orchestrated
by Helen Atlas and Michaela Gold. Without all
these, and many other aiders, abettors, and wellwishers, this volume would not have seen the light
of day. Thank you, one and all. Shukran!
To JJ, with love and admiration,
Magda Saleh

some thoughts on

of thales and

O A

of anaximander

245

SOME THOUGHTS ON O OF THALES AND O A

OF ANAXIMANDER
Paul F. ORourke
Brooklyn Museum

It is a privilege for me to offer this short article

to the gentleman honored by this volume. Over a
number of years, Jack and I have happily shared
thoughts on points of common interest and even
had the good fortune to collaborate with another
scholar and friend on an article on a fragment of
Late Egyptian sculpture.1 I take particular pleasure in contributing an essay that discusses a possible point of conjunction of Egyptian and Greek
thought, a matter of great interest to Jack.
Standing as they do at the beginning of the
Greek philosophical tradition, Thales and Anaximander present myriad problems for the historian of philosophy. Their writings, long lost, if
ever extant,2 have come down to us in ancient
commentaries that are often concerned with the
writings and ideas of other philosophers who lived
generations after these two early thinkers. It is difficultin many places impossibleto determine
if the words attributed to them are direct quotes or
vague paraphrases. In addition, the doxographical tradition3 routinely presents the ideas of these
two philosophers in a terminology that was not
of their making, quite possiblyeven probably
distorting their original line of reasoning and ren1

J. Josephson, P. ORourke, and R. Fazzini, The Doha

Head: A Late Period Egyptian Portrait, MDAIK 61 (2005),
219-241.
2
See G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of
Texts (Cambridge, 1993), 86-88, on the likelihood or not
that Thales produced written work.
3
For the ancient commentators included under this
rubric, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics,
4-6.
4
In the study of Homeric poetry, a similar situation
obtains. See G.S. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume I:
Books 1-4 (Cambridge 1995, rep.), xvii: The Homeric epics
are in any event a special case, since they stand at the beginning of known Greek literature and the influences on them
are hard, if not impossible, to gauge; while literature and
culture after them were so manifestly affected by the epic
background that tracing influence at every point becomes
self-defeating.
5
Aristotle, Met. 983b 20f.: Most of the first philosophers
thought that principles in the form of matter were the only
principles of all things; for the original source of all existing
things, that from which a thing first comes-into-being and

dering undue emphasis on certain given points.

Attempting to establish precisely what these two
men were trying to say may often seem an exercise
in looking through a glass darkly.
Looking backwards from Aristotle through
Plato and the later Presocratics to their forebears
in Thales and Anaximander is not an exercise
in abject futility, however, and one can appreciate some sense of where each of these two men
stands in that tradition. A more intriguing question arises when we ask not what they were precursors to, but what traditions they themselves
were adopting or adapting.4
Let us begin by outlining the basic cosmological
theories of each of these thinkers and the routine
problems one encounters in such an exercise.
For the cosmology of Thales, two passages in
Aristotle form our only sources. They inform us
that in Thales vision: (1) water is the principle of
all things5 and (2) the earth floats on water.6
In his attribution to Thales that (water)
is the of all things, Aristotle used the word
in his sense of original constituent material that persists as a substratum into which all
will eventually return.7 We are further informed
into which it is finally destroyed, the substance persisting but
changing in its qualities, this they declare is the element and
first principle of existing thingsOver the number, however,
and the form of this kind of principle they do not all agree;
but Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says that
it is water. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics,
88-89.
6
Aristotle, de Caelo 294a 28f.: Others say that the earth
rests on water. For this is the most ancient account we have
received, which they say was given by Thales the Milesian,
that it stays in place through floating like a log or some other
such thing See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 88-89.
7
For the discussion of Aristotles assessment of Thales
theory, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics,
88-98, esp. 93-94. See also J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers 1 (London, 1979), 9, where he translates
as material principle. In both of these works, the authors
are citing Aristotle, Metaphysics 983b 20f. On the appropriateness of Aristotles use of the term in describing
Thales work and the problems that have arisen from that use,
see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 90f.

246

paul f. orourke

that Thales posited this theory to explain how the

earth remains suspended in space. According to
Thales, the earth rests on water.
There seem to be no disputes or questions
about the nature of in the ancient commentators. The word employed by Thales,
, appears to be a rather generic, non-technical term.8 In search of an answer to the question of what supports the earth, Thales thought of
the waters of the sea.9 Water was also moisture,
a manifestation of the principle of moist things.10
As a material element, water was, along with air,
earth, and fire, a principle in Aristotles sense of
the term.11 These four elements lie at much of the
heart of the discussion of the nature of things
by the Presocratics,12 and were ultimately to be
posited by Empedocles as a quartet of roots that
underlies all things.13 Be that as it may, one can
still argue that the word seems to have
been something of a catchall term for water, at
least for Thales.14
Anaximander, Thales successor and possibly
his student,15 posited that the principle of all
things was o.16 This word is a substantive
formed from the adjective o, one that has
a range of meanings from boundless; infinite
to endless; circular.17 On what Anaximander

meant by this word, both ancient and modern

commentators have generally disagreed.18 Furthermore, the statement in Simplicius that He
[Anaximander] says that it is neither water nor
any of the other so-called elements but some other
apeiron nature from which come into being all
the heavens and the worlds in them is noteworthy.19 This alleged denial that the principle is
water20 sounds like a rejection by Anaximander
of Thales basic premise.
In addition to this ostensible refutation of his
predecessors view, it has been argued that Anaximander made an apparent shift from a material principle like water to what seems to be an
immaterial one21 when he introduced the term
o, usually translated the infinite or the
indefinite.22 It is this point that has received much
of the attention in subsequent discussions of his
philosophy, both those of the ancient commentators and of modern scholars. The fact that Anaximanders successors seem to have returned to the
material realm in which to locate the principle of
all things23 has led some modern commentators to
conclude that these thinkers were explicitly rejecting his views and that Anaximander was either
too forward thinking for his time24 or even simply
confused.25

8
The word occurs as early as Homer and Hesiod.
It generally seems to mean water, of any kind, but in Hom.
rarely of seawater without an epith., according to the entry
in H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon with a
Revised Supplement (Oxford, 1996), 18451846.
9
See n. 6 above.
10
Aristotle, Met. 983b 20f.: taking the supposition
both from this and from the seeds of all things having a moist
nature, water being the natural principle of moist things.
See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 89.
11
The original constituent material of things, which persists as a substratum and into which they will perish. This
statement of Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 90,
is based on Aristotle, Met. A3, 983b 6f.
12
An important study is U. Hlscher, Anaximander and
the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy, in Studies in Presocratic Philosophy 1, ed. D. Furley and R.E. Allen (New York,
1970), 281-322. For an interesting discussion of the basic
elements that are predominant in early Greek speculative
thought, see G.E.R. Lloyd, Hot and Cold, Dry and Wet in
Early Greek Thought, in Furley and Allen, Studies in Presocratic Philosophy 1, 255-280.
13
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 286f.; M.R.
Wright, Empedocles, The Extant Fragments (London, 1995),
22ff.
14
The point here is not that the Greeks did not have a
range of words for water, which they certainly did, but rather
that Thales chose a seemingly generic, non-technical term by
which to name his principle. For a somewhat more complex
view, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 91f. See
also Hlscher, Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek
Philosophy, 306f.

15
Suda s.v. Anaximander. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 100-101.
16
According to the doxographical tradition, for which
see n. 18 below. See as well Hlscher, Anaximander and the
Beginnings of Greek Philosophy, 317-322.
17
Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 184.
18
See, for example, Simplicius Physics 24, 13: .the principle and the element of existing things was the apeiron
He says that it is neither water nor any of the other so-called
elements but some other apeiron nature from which come
into being all the heavens and the worlds in them See
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 106-108. Note
the editors avoidance of a translation of the term o.
So also Diogenes Laertius II, 1: Anaximander said that the
unlimited is principle and element, not distinguishing it as
air or water or anything else, for which see Barnes, Presocratics 1, 32.
19
See n. 18 above.
20
It is worth noting that the only physical element specifically named by Simplicius is water.
21
See, for example, Barnes, Presocratics 1, 36: What can
its [the apeiron] character have been?Vague and obscure,
but certainly distinct from the stuffs familiar to us.
22
On the meaning of this term, see the ensuing discussion.
23
See, for example, the claim of Anaximenes, a successor
and possibly a student of Anaximander, that the material
principle was air and the infinite (Diogenes Laertius II,
3), for which see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics,
143. See also the discussion below.
24
See Barnes, Presocratics 1, 26-27: Anaximanders
successors are often alleged to have betrayed his memory,

some thoughts on

of thales and

O A

of anaximander

247

The question remains: what precisely did

Anaximander mean by the term o?
Both ancient and modern commentators have
offered suggestions, most contradictory and
none seemingly satisfactory. Aristotle understood
o to mean spatially infinite.26 Questions have been raised, however, about whether
this was what Anaximander himself meant by this
term.27 Modern commentators like Francis Macdonald Cornford have modified the translation
of infinite for the term o, suggesting
a more generalized idea like indistinct.28 Jonathan Barnes also rejected the notion that the word
means spatially infinite.29 Some scholars have
reworked the etymology of the adjective apeiros to
render it intraversable.30 As one reads through
these discussions of the nature of o, both
ancient and modern, one experiences something
of a sense of vertigo. o is said to be both
infinite but finite at the same time; or it is infinite
but in a limited sort of way. Substantive answers
about its nature seem to prove elusive. But perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps
the answer to the questions about the nature of

o lies in the return to another question: precisely what did Thales mean by the term ?31
As we said above, Thales stated that the principle of all things was water,32 and the commentators, both ancient and modern, have said or
quarreled little about the specific meaning of the
term as used by Thales. Thus, raising the question
once again of what Thales meant by the term
does not seem to offer much help, at least
at first glance. Perhaps a better question may be:
Where did Thales get his idea about water as the
principle of all things?33
There is a well-known and documented ancient
tradition that Thales visited Egypt.34 Even Herodotus reports a story about the source of the flooding of the Nile that may be traceable to Thales.35
The ancients claim that Thales was a Milesian or
at least had connections with the city of Miletus.36
Tradition, as well, has it that the merchant city of
Naukratis in the Delta was settled by Greeks, at
least some of whom were Milesians.37 The date of
the founding of Naukratis is generally agreed to
have occurred in the Saite Period, possibly early
and within the time frame given for Thales floruit.38

retreating to primitive, Thaletan, thoughts and quitting the

speculative heights to which he had ascended, but see also
27, where Barnes rejects this claim. Hlscher, Anaximander
and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy, 321-322, focuses
much of his discussion of Anaximanders o on the
latters speculative powers.
25
See the negative conclusions of Barnes, Presocratics
1, 37, on the contributions of Anaximander to early Greek
cosmology: We find ourselves in a desert of ignorance and
obscurity; so, I suspect, did the Peripatetic historian. It is
possible that Anaximander set his views down with luminous
claritybut I doubt it, and I suspect that our uncertainty
about Anaximanders meaning reflects an uncertainty and
lack of clarity in Anaximanders own mind; as well as the
statement Indeed, I guess that Anaximanders interest in
cosmogony has been vastly overestimated, and his achievements consistently mispraised. The partial and fortuitous
survival of an obscure utterance has given him an undeserved
reputation for metaphysics. That sentence, hinting darkly at
a huge primordial tohu-bohu, was perhaps supported by a
sketchy paragraph of argument.
26
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 109, citing
Aristotle, Phys. 4, 203a 16.
27
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 109110: It is, however, uncertain that Anaximander himself
intended the apeiron to mean precisely the spatially infinite. So also Barnes, Presocratics 1, 31: Was the argument
of Aristotle built by Anaximander? Or are the materials used
in its construction late and synthetic? See finally Hlscher,
Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,
304-305.
28
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 110:
Thus Cornford and others argued that o meant

that which is internally unbounded, without internal distinctions, i.e. that which is indistinct, indefinite in kind.
29
Barnes, Presocratics 1, 36: Thus the word apeiros does
not, in itself, show that Anaximanders Urstoff was literally
infinite.
30
Barnes, Presocratics 1, 36 and 315, nn. 29-30.
31
This question has already been raised by Hlscher,
Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,
306.
32
See the discussion above and nn. 5-11.
33
Again Hlscher, Anaximander and the Beginnings of
Greek Philosophy, 307. See also 308-309, where he discusses
both Babylonian and Egyptian myths as potential sources.
34
Aetius I, 3, 1: Thaleshaving practiced philosophy in
Egypt; Proclus in Euclidem 65: Thales, having first come
to Egypt For these sources, see Kirk, Raven, and Schofield,
The Presocratics, 79.
35
The passage in question appears at Herodotus II, 20. See
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 79.
36
Diogenes Laertius I, 22 and Herodotus I, 170. See Kirk,
Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 76-77.
37
The ancient sources are Strabo 17. 1. 18, who dates the
founding of the city to the reign of Psamtik I (664-610 BC)
and Herodotus II, 178-179, who attributes the founding to
Amasis (570-526 BC). For a discussion of the various dates
given for the city based on the archeological excavations carried out at Naukratis from the late nineteenth century to the
present, see A. Leonard, Jr., Ancient Naukratis: Excavations
at a Greek Emporium in Egypt, Part 1. The Excavations at
Kom Geif, AASOR 54 (1997), 1-35.
38
On the time frame for Thales life, see Kirk, Raven, and
Schofield, The Presocratics, 76, citing Herodotus I, 74.

248

paul f. orourke

Thus, a real connection between Thales and Egypt

remains a distinct possibility.39
If we take the tradition of Thales connection
with Egypt seriously,40 we may find a firmer place
to ground our discussion. Furthermore, an examination of the Egyptian cosmological and cosmogonical traditions, earliernon-Greektraditions
from which Thales is said possibly to have developed his own theories, may lead us to experience
the dissipation of some of the mist and fog that
enshrouds the ideas of the early Greek thinkers.
Reading through the Egyptian sources, we
encounter a number of different words for water,41
some of which have very specific, delimited meanings. One of these is the noun variously written
,
,
,
and here transliterated
nwn,42 although the exact reading has remained
in question.43 It appears to be a derivative or a
nwy, one of the more
cognate of

39

The connection between Thales and Egypt via Miletus was already noted by Hlscher, Anaximander and the
Beginnings of Greek Philosophy, 310-311, though he specifically followed the founding tradition given by Strabo.
40
As Hlscher did. See his Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy, 310-313.
41
For example, R. Hannig, Grosses Handwrterbuch
Deutsch-gyptisch (Mainz am Rhein, 2000), 14901491 lists
nine entries under the heading Wasser, including words
like mw, nwy, nwn, mH, mtr, etc.
42
Wb. II, 214, 18-215, 12: das Urwasser.
43
The Wrterbuch entry gives a range of readings from
nww to nwn to nnw. See also P. Wilson, A Ptolemaic Lexikon,
OLA 78 (Leuven, 1997), 497, who gives the readings nwn
and nnw. See further C. Leitz et al., Lexikon der gyptischen
Gtter und Gtterbezeichnungen 3, OLA 112 (Leuven, 2002),
where the entry at 534-535 gives nw: Das Chaos (?) but a
further entry at 543-547 offers nwn: Nun. See as well B.
Altenmller, Synkretismus in den Sargtexten (Wiesbaden,
1975) 89-91; W. Barta, Die Bedeutung der Personifikation
Huh im Unterscheid zu den Personifikation Hah und Nun,
GM 127 (1992), 7-12. See finally J.P. Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Writings from the Ancient World 23
(Atlanta, 2005), 438, who translates the term nw as watery
and defines it as The universal ocean, existing before the
world was created and source of all water.
44
Wb. II, 221, 3-13: Wasser im gegs. zum Land. See
also the remarks of Wilson, Lexikon, 497, and S. Bickel, La
cosmogonie gyptienne avant le Nouvel Empire (Freiburg,
1994), 23.
45
On the reading, see n. 43 above. Useful accounts include
H. Grapow, Die Welt vor der Schpfung, ZS 67 (1931),
34-38; E. Hornung, Chaotische Bereiche in der geordneten Welt, ZS 81 (1956), 28-32; S. Sauneron & J. Yoyotte,
La naissance du monde selon lgypte ancienne, SO 1 (Paris,
1959), passim; J. P. Allen, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy
of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts, YES 2 (New Haven,
1988), passim.
46
See Wilson, Lexikon, 497, on such an association in
Ptolemaic texts. See also D. van der Plas, Lhymne la crue
du Nil (Leiden, 1986), 61, 64-65, for connections between

generic Egyptian terms for water.44 The word

Nun (nwn), however, was a technical term associated, among other things, with the origins of
the cosmos. According to Egyptian cosmogonical
texts, the world came into being from a primordial ocean that was called nw or nwn by them.45 In
addition to its association with the waters of creation, Nun was seen as a general term for flood
waters.46 Furthermore, this word has a very long
history in Egyptian thinking.47
Like many of their Near Eastern and Mediterranean neighbors, the Egyptians did not believe
in creatio ex nihilo.48 They believed that there was
some pre-existent space49 and that it was in this
already-extant realm that the act of creation took
place.50 This primordial space was Nun,51 an entity
believed to be an essentially watery mass, an interpretation that etymologies of the word nwn and its
cognates support.52 Two further characteristics of

the god Hapy (the personification of the inundation) and the

Nun. See finally D. Meeks and C. Favard-Meeks, Daily Life of
the Egyptian Gods (Ithaca, 1996), 92: He [Nun] resurfaced
in this world in several different formsthe Nile floods, the
ground water, and the seas that surround dry land.
47
F. Dunand and C. Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt:
3000 BCE to 395 CE (Ithaca, 2004) 45: If there was one element that all the cosmogonies agreed in defining as the first,
original element, it was Nun, the primordial entity, the uniformed expanse that had no beginning or end. References
to the Nun are found as early as the Pyramid Texts. See S.
Bickel, Cosmogonie, 23-31, and Allen, Genesis, 4 and 65, n.
9, and passim for references to the Nun in early texts. For
an extensive but damaged late demotic text whose subject
matter is the Nun, see M. Smith, On the Primaeval Ocean,
Carlsberg Papyri, 5, CNI Publications, 26 (Copenhagen,
2002). Smith dates this manuscript to the second century
AD. See finally J-F. Ppin, Quelques aspects de Nouou dans
les Texts des Pyramides et les texts des Sarcophages, BSAK
3 (1988), 339-345, esp. 344-345, for a discussion of Nun/
Okeanos in the Orphic hymn tradition, citing sources as late
as the sixth century AD.
48
Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 13: The idea of
non-being, total emptiness, absolute nothingness was foreign to Egypt.
49
Ibid.: everyone knew that a boundless watery region
had existed before the creation, its inert, unmoving waters
swaddled in absolute darkness.
50
Ibid., 92: Nun, though he was the Primeval Ocean as
such, nevertheless had a place within the divine company
because he represented the cradle of the world and was father
of the gods. E. Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient
Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. J. Baines (Ithaca, 1982),
147-148: From the Middle Kingdom on it [the epithet father
of the gods] is associated especially with the god Nun, who
is the primeval waters from which all the gods indeed originated, in divine form.
51
Allen, Genesis, 1-7, and n. 49 above.
52
Bickel, Cosmogonie, 23: Le Noun est un monde
aqueux. Son nom nww pourrait tre derive dune racine significant leaux qui aurait donn la valeur n lhiroglyphe.

some thoughts on

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of anaximander

249

Nun were darkness53 and inertia.54 Furthermore,

the Egyptians believed that Nun was not only the
place of creation but the matrix from which the
activity of creation unfolded.55 It is clear that,
for the Egyptians, water, especially the water
associated with origin of all things, was a very
complex entity.56
If Thales notion that water was the principle of
things had its origins in ideas that he derived from
the Egyptians,57 we may have better insight into
understanding the term as he intended it.
The idea of water as a source or even matrix of
the created world has a well-documented history
in Egyptian cosmological traditions, as we have
noted above.58 If we follow this assumed connection between of Thales and the nwn of
the Egyptians, certain statements encountered in
the Greek commentators appear to us in different
light. In the Egyptian way of thinking, Aristotles
remark that for there must be some natural
substance, either one or more than one, from
which the other things come-into-being, while it

is preserved59 is almost a given. The Nun of the

Egyptians was the source of creation, the matrix
of creation, and the principle of creation all in
one.60 Accepting an Egyptian basis for Thales idea
of , we no longer need to see his choice
of water as the primordial element as having a
vague, indistinct Near-Eastern origin.61 But it
is important to note that Thales seems to have
focused primarily, if not solely, on the aqueous
nature of the Nun.
Turning to Anaximander, we recall that he
is also said to have been a Milesian.62 He is also
called a pupil, possibly a kinsman, of Thales.63
Even modern commentators who question the
nature of their relationship at least agree that
there was a strong connection between the two
men.64 In order to clarify Anaximanders thesis
that o is the principle of all things, we
find help once again if we refer to the Egyptian
cosmogonical traditions. Specific characteristics
of the Nun noted above were water, darkness, and
inertia.65 Another very important characteristic of

La pronunciation usuelle Noun reflte une forme secondaire

dpoque tardive, probablement base sur lassociation de
leau primordiale et de ltat dinertie nnwt, form qui a t
reprise par le grec et le copte. See the statement at 23 as well:
Plusiers passages mentionent les eaux du Noun, citing CT
IV 189c; CT VI 280t-u.
53
Hornung, The One and the Many, 176-177: There are
also a few very distinctive positive definitions of the situation
before creation. The most important elements that constitute
the state of non-existence are two: limitless waters or the
primeval flood (Nun in Egyptian) and completely opaque,
total darkness (kkw zmAw in Egyptian).
54
Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 13: everyone
knew that a boundless watery region had existed before the
creation, its inert, unmoving waters swaddled in absolute
darkness. Hornung, The One and the Many, 66: Nun,
the weary or inert primeval flood
55
Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 51: Matter
was already in Nun, waiting to be coagulated to a point where
the dry contrasted with the unformed matter. Bickel, Cosmogonie, 23: Ce monde de la prexistence, appel le Noun
est une entit trs complexe, la fois un element, un lieu et
une divinit qui personnifie ces deux aspects.
56
So also Bickel, for which see n. 55 above.
57
This possibility has been raised elsewhere, albeit not
with any informed discussion. See, for example, Kirk, Raven,
and Schofield, The Presocratics, 93: Thales may have rationalized the idea from a Greek mythological form like the
Homeric one; he may also have been directly influenced (as
he seems to have been for the special detail that the earth
floats on water) by foreign, perhaps Egyptian versions. See
also D.R. McBride, Nun, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of
Ancient Egypt 2, ed. D.B. Redford (New York, 2001) 558.
58
On the Nun as matrix, see n. 55 above.
59
Aristotle, Met. 983b 20-2f. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 88-89.
60
On the continued existence of the Nun, see Dunand
and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 88: The wall that surrounded it [the temple]was perhaps at the same time the

image of Nun, who did not cease to be present in the world

that emerged from him. See also Meeks and Favard-Meeks,
Daily Life, 16: But the creation, the separation of the creatorgod, and the death of the precursor snakes did not, contrary
to what one might assume, leave the Primeval Ocean empty
and inert. On the Nun as the principle of creation, see Meeks
and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 92: Nun, though he was the
Primeval Ocean as such, nevertheless had a place within the
divine company because he represented the cradle of the
world and was father of the gods. Nun as the father of the
gods is a theme at least as old as the Coffin Texts. See, for
example, CT IV, 188-189. On the Nun as the matrix of creation, see n. 55 above. As father of the gods, Nun should not
be understood as the or a creator god, for which see Ppin,
Quelques aspects de Nouou, 340. Cf., however, Hlscher,
Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,
308, where he states that according to the cosmogony
of Heliopolis, the oldest god, Nun; See 308 n. 67 for the
sources on which he based his remarks. See further 311-312,
where he states that The Egyptian idea of the First God had
an essentially elementary character matched by no Greek god,
only by the Sea. He attributes to Anaximander a rationalistic and demythologizing turn in naming the principle
o. See finally M.R. Wright, Cosmology in Antiquity
(London and New York, 1995), 95f. for the claims that Anaximander called it [ o] divine, but immediately
glossed this as meaning immortal and indestructible.
61
See, for example, the discussion at Kirk, Raven, and
Schofield, The Presocratics, 90 and 92f. Hlscher is more open
to, and supportive of, the idea of specific Egyptian-Greek
exchanges in matters of cosmological speculation. See his
Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy,
310-311, and 312-313.
62
Diogenes Laertius II, 1-2. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 100-101.
63
See n. 15 above.
64
Barnes, Presocratics, 1 19: we need not accept the
conventional statement that they were teacher and pupil.
65
See nn. 53-54 above.

250

paul f. orourke

the Nun about which there is general agreement

is its lack of finiteness. It has been described as
boundless,66 as having no beginning or end,67 as
limitless,68 and as an unbroken infinity.69
Seen in this light, understanding what Anaximander meant by o may prove an easier
task. He, too, may have based his thinking about
the principle of things on ideas that he derived
from the Egyptians, specifically ideas associated
with the Nun.70 In reviewing the theses of Thales,
Anaximander may have objected to his predecessors use of the term to characterize the
Nun, seeing water as a limited and potentially
misleading term.71 His use of o may represent a word choice that he thought better captured the essence of what the Egyptians meant
by the term Nun.72 It may also be true that in his
alleged claim that o was the principle of
all things, there was no explicit or implicit refutation of Thales idea that was the material
principle.73 Rather, he may have been endeavoring to establish a clearer understanding of what
he thought the Egyptians meant by Nun. Thus, in
Anaximanders choice of the term o, we
may be looking at a corrective, one that focuses
on boundlessness as a primary characteristic of
the principle of all things.74
Seeing Egyptian antecedents in the thought of
the philosophers Thales and Anaximander and,
more specifically, seeing the word Nun as the
inspiration for their ideas about the nature of the
principle of all things, expressed in their translation of the term nwn as and o
respectively, apparently solves several problems.

We can establish a clearer relationship between

the ideas of these two early thinkers, even underscore a link that appears to be linear.75 Additionally, Anaximander ceases to appear as an anomaly
in a line of Greek thinkers wedded firmly to the
idea of materialism.76 If he understood that the
Nun was both material and infinite in the eyes of
the Egyptian cosmologists, and based his thoughts
about the material principle on such Egyptian
views, Anaximander can no longer be accused of
having departed from a tradition that assumed
a material basis for the origin of all things.77 The
introduction of the term o was not an
attempt to move the discussion into the realm
of speculative thought but was rather an intentional effort to set the discussion straight as Anaximander saw it.78 Furthermore, if we accept this
connection between the early Greek thinkers and
Egyptian cosmologists, a central idea of Anaximanders successor Anaximenes can be seen in a
better light as well. Anaximenes, we are told, was
a pupil of Anaximander who claimed that the
material principle was air and the infinite.79 In
light of the theory laid out above, it can now be
argued that Anaximenes, following Anaximander,
clearly understood that the principle of all things
had a complex nature and that one of its primary
characteristics was the infinite. In Anaximenes
own view, this principle was both air and the infinite. In essence, he retained Anaximanders fundamental understanding of the complex nature
of the material principle. He accepted one of its
primary characteristics, the infinite, but rejected
water as its basic material property, substituting

66
Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 13: everyone
knew that a boundless watery region had existed before the
creation...
67
Dunand and Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men, 45: Nun,
the primordial entity, the uniformed expanse that had no
beginning or end.
68
Allen, Genesis, 3-4, citing a text from the Sety I cenotaph, and Hornung, The One and the Many, 176-177.
69
Allen, Genesis, 7.
70
Hlscher, Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek
Philosophy, 320, is skeptical about finding a source for
Anaximander. But see n. 57 above.
71
See the discussion and n. 8 above.
72
Note that neither of these philosophers attempted to
import this foreign term into his discussion through a Hellenized writing of the word but chose instead to offer a Greek
translation of the borrowed concept.
73
See n. 18 above for the statement of Simplicius that
Anaximander rejected Thales notion of water as the material
principle. But see n. 74 following.
74
The possibility that Anaximander may not have rejected
Thales idea of water as the constituent element but added the
term apeiron to the mix seems to have been raised already by

Barnes, Presocratics 1, 31: Did Anaximander positively deny

that the unlimited was water or the like? Or did he rather
refrain from asserting that it was water or the like? The question is not merely trifling; for the view loses in plausibility if
he did not positively distinguish it from the elements.
75
On the possibility that Thales would have accepted the
notion that his could be described as o, see
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratics, 94, n. 1.
76
See discussion above and nn. 21-22.
77
See the discussion above and nn. 21-22. Simplicius
understood the apeiron as a material element. Simplicius,
Physics 24, 13: Anaximander, son of Praxiades, a Milesian who became successor and pupil to Thales, said that the
unlimited (apeiron) is both principle (arche) and element
(stoicheion) of things that exist. See Barnes, Presocratics 1,
29.
78
On Anaximander and speculative thinking, see Barnes,
Presocratics 1, 26 and also 23, citing W. Burkert, Lore and
Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, 1972), 308310.
79
Diogenes Laertius II, 3. See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield,
The Presocratics, 143.

some thoughts on

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air in its place. He was not returning the discussion to a material basis but simply continuing
the discussion that had begun with his predecessors. Additionally, accepting this line of reasoning
allows us to see these first Milesian philosophers
lying in closer conjunction than has been previously thought, more like three peas in the same
pod.80
To conclude, investigating such Greek and
Egyptian interconnections as these raises other
interesting points of comparison. Simplicius
remark that and the source of coming-to-be
for existing things is that into which destruction,
too, happens, according to necessity81 resonates tellingly with an Egyptian statement found

in Spell 175 of the Book of the Dead: What is a

lifetime of a life? says Osiris. Thou art (destined)
for millions of millions (of years), a lifetime of
millions (of years)And I will destroy all that I
have made. This land shall return into the Deep,
into the flood, as it was aforetime.82 Aristotles
statement that was the original constituent material of things, which persists as a substratum and into which they will perish83 certainly
catches the eye as well. Further exploration of
Egyptian-Greek interconnections may well open
other avenues for productive study and hopefully
expand the discussion of connections between the
ancient West and Near East to include Egypt as
well.84

80
Cf, however, Hlscher, Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy, 316, where he states that Anaximenes, coming later, in certain respects shows greater dependence on the East.
81
Simplicius, Physics 24, 13, for which see Kirk, Raven,
and Schofield, The Presocratics, 106.
82
See T.G. Allen, The Book of the Dead: or, Going Forth by
Day, SAOC 37 (Chicago, 1974), Spell 175, p. 184.
83
See n. 11 above.
84
See n. 61 above, and, for example, W. Burkert, Babylon,
Memphis, Persepolis (Cambridge, 2004), 21-70, where the
idea of interconnections between Europe and the ancient
Near East is still presented as somewhat generalized, but with
a decided emphasis on Mesopotamia. Burkerts statement
at 72 about specific Greek and Egyptian interconnections
beyond the areas of architecture and sculpture is telling: It is
more difficult to document interrelations in ways of thinking
or religious belief. On the possible influence of Egyptian and
Greek architecture and technology on the thought of Anaximander, see R. Hahn, Anaximander and the Architects: The

Contribution of Egyptian and Greek Architectural Technologies to the Origins of Greek Philosophy (Albany, 2001); and
Hahn, Proportions and Numbers in Anaximander and Early
Greek Thought, in Anaximander in Context: New Studies in
the Origins of Greek Philosophy, ed. D. Couprie, R. Hahn, and
G. Naddaf (Albany, 2003), 71-163; cf., however, others who
have argued for more specific Near Eastern-Greek interconnections, focusing particularly on Assyria beginning in the
seventh century BC. Some of these theses have made claims
for both direct Assyrian-Greek interconnections and indirect ones through the kingdom of Lydia, for example. For
works discussing Near Eastern and Greek interconnections, see, for example, S. Parpola, The Assyrian Tree of
Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek
Philosophy, JNES 52 (1993), 161-208; P. Kingsley, Ancient
Philosophy, Mystery and Magic: Empedocles and the Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford, 1995); M.L. West, The East Face of
Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth
(Oxford, 1997); and W. Burkert, Da Omero ai Magi: La Tradizione orientale nella cultura greca (Padua, 1999).