posted
Dissidents from the Euro-centered school of thought, will not like hearing this, but it appears that even the most important feature of Greek culture can trace its origins in Ancient Egypt: THE GREEK WRITING SYSTEM, or precisely, the Greek alphabet. Here are excerpts from several websites, making connections between Kemetian writing, the Phoenician writing system, and the Greek.
"It is important to note here that the Greeks learned their writing system from the Egyptians through the frequent travelers of the ancient world, the Phoenicians. In the course of their commercial dealings with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians imported the Egyptian script and molded it into an alphabet with a far smaller number of characters, all pronounceable and all consonants. As they traveled the Mediterranean and traded with the inhabitants of the Greek Isles, they gave their version of the Egyptian writing system to the Greeks. They in turn revised its orthography and added a number of written vowels. A system that eventually became the basis for the new Egyptian script, i.e. the Coptic."
"The 26 letter Roman alphabet is a distant but direct descendant of the complex ornate script of ancient Egypt. Scholars believe that this script inspired the development of the world's first alphabetic scripts, Phoenician and Aramaic, from which the Greek and Roman alphabets derive. Earlier still, it is thought that the idea of writing spread from Egypt to the Aegean, in particular influencing the mysterious and currently still undeciphered "Linear A" script of Minoan Crete, which has marked similarities to Egyptian hieroglyphs."
"The Phoenician alphabet developed from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, which was created sometime between the 18th and 17th Centuries BC. The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to the 1000 BC. Notable Features - The Phoenician alphabet consists of 22 letters, many of which have a number of different forms, and does not indicate vowel sounds.
The Proto-Canaanite Language
Origin Proto-Canaanite, also known as Proto-Sinaitic, was the first consonant alphabet. Even a quick and cursory glance at its inventory of signs makes very apparent this script's Egyptian origin. It is thought that at round 1700 BC, Sinai was conquered by Egypt (for its turquoise mines and trade routes). Egyptian influence must have poured into the local West-Semitic speaking population, who, among other things, adopted a small number of hieroglyphic signs (probably no more than 22) to write down their language. Phoenician was the immediate descendent of Proto-Canaanite.
There were many branches that sprang up from Phoenician, like Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Phoenician itself remained in use, in the form of Punic (more cursive), until about 200 AD."
Alphabet This chart shows a comparison between the Proto-Canaanite, Phoenician, and Greek alphabets:
So much for denial of important Kemetian influence on Ancient Greek civilization, within the circles of Euro-centered school of thought. In some ways, it is treated as a taboo subject. Interestingly enough, even those who harbor delusions of "out-of-Africa" Ancient Egypt, are still bothered by the idea of this influence.
...And I'm sure there are many more conclusions like this out there, putting the internet aside.
[This message has been edited by supercar (edited 30 December 2004).]
posted
Even the Greeks themselves admit writing came to them from the Levant. They have a myth of Cadmus bringing the alphabet from Phoenicia. Cadmus is the hellenized Semitic root QDM which mean the east and of old. According to the myth Cadmus the Phoenician is a descendent of Libya.
From Herodotus Histories book 5
quote: LVIII. These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. [2] At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician, as was quite fair seeing that the Phoenicians had brought them into Greece. [3] The Ionians have also from ancient times called sheets of papyrus skins, since they formerly used the skins of sheep and goats due to the lack of papyrus. Even to this day there are many foreigners who write on such skins.
LIX. I have myself seen Cadmean writing in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Thebes of Boeotia engraved on certain tripods and for the most part looking like Ionian letters. On one of the tripods there is this inscription:
Amphitryon dedicated me from the spoils of Teleboae.
posted
And so we can understand the importance of [wst] historians removing Kemet from Africa.
We can also see the tactical utility of the [wst] 'caucasian' ideology of history.
With this ideology Egypt-Greece-Phoenicia are all 'caucasian', therefore all western, therefore Europe places 'natural' claim on almost all accumulated civilisational legacy.
This ideology then justifies the statements of Eurocentrists (Lefkowitz) to the effect that Africans - ie - sub saharan Africans (what is the purpose of sub saharan African other than race euphemism? ?) never developed a system of writing. They simply ascribe ancient African scripts (merotic, mande, et al) to derivation ultimately of Kemetic, have removed Kemet from Africa, and this in turn allows them to sidestep the fact that it is Europeans who largely inherit writing from Africa and the Near East.
I'm also reminded of something said by linguist Christopher Ehret"There are at least seven or eight world regions which independently invented agriculture. None in Europe.
There is much talk in the [wst] about an excessively racial dialogue concerning history.
It should not be forgotten that the Eurocentrists created the modern race-dialectic; to create a self aggrandised view of their role in human history, and to justify transgressions against non-European peoples. They made their own bed. They would rather not lay in it, or even have the covers pulled to reveal what lays underneath it.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 30 December 2004).]
quote:Originally posted by rasol: It should not be forgotten that the Eurocentrists created the modern race-dialectic; to create a self aggrandised view of their role in human history, and to justify transgressions against non-European peoples. They made their own bed. They would rather not lay in it, or even have the covers pulled to reveal what lays underneath it.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 30 December 2004).][/B]
posted
When someone goes out of his/her way, to promote an idea that Kemetians weren't Africans per se, but that they were really "caucasoids", then shouldn't it be expected that he/she would also tolerate the idea of Kemetian influence on the Greeks?
Seriously, we've had bitterness expressed on the idea of Kemetians influencing ancient Greeks in any possible way. Here is an example of such response, made in this very section of EgyptSearch:
quote: This is ALL about politics and Egyptology is USED to make political points. When you hear someone talking about the AE influence on Greece they are talking about modern politics.
Also take the example of Lefkowitz's reaction to Martin Bernal, while in some discussion boards, several self-proclaimed direct descendants of Greeks have expressed their bitterness to Richard Poe's take on Kemetian influence on the Greeks. In fact, according to Richard Poe, he had a hard time getting help on funding for his book "Black spark, White fire", from many who didn't want to have anything to do with material that challenges their Eurocentered ideology. While not every single thing said outside of organized scholarly debates is accurate, the idea of any Kemetian influence on ancient Greek, seems to invoke some sort of a prick with a pin sensation among those within the Eurocentered school of thought circles. As such, irrelevant references to remarks made in peer-discussions in schools or other unofficial arena are often undertaken by the likes of Lefkowitz, when called upon to present arguments against scholars. One would think that, in order to refute someone (the addressee), reference to what that addressee said, is what matters. Fact is that historical clues and evidence point to such connections between Kemet and ancient Greek, and not a ploy motivated by an invested interest in owning a European civilization, as in the case of Ancient Egypt by various Eurocenteric-minded folks.
posted
On a somewhat lighthearted note, from a cartoon fan-page, here is a take on another Kemetian influence. I say "somewhat" lighthearted, because it implies that this "Osiris 4" civilization was an inheritance of culture from Kemet, with slaves working in grueling conditions during construction of monuments (clearly not a feature of the real Kemet).
Quotes from the characters:
Fry: Incredible. This place is just like the Ancient Egypt of my day.
Osiran: That is no coincidence. For our people visited your Egypt thousands of years ago.
Fry: I knew it! Insane theories: one! Regular theories: a billion!
Osiran: We learned many things from the mighty Egyptians, such as pyramid building, space travel and how to prepare our dead so as to scare Abbott and Costello.
...maybe distant descendants of "Osiris 4" will deny their ancestors' take on Kemetian influence.
[This message has been edited by supercar (edited 31 December 2004).]
posted
The Greeks and Egyptians learned from one another. In the old Meditarranean world cultures came in contact. Of course this doesn't mean that the Egyptians taught the Greeks everthing.
Northeastern Africans share their cultural origins both with East Africans and Middle Easterns equally.
quote:Originally posted by Orionix: [B]The Greeks and Egyptians learned from one another.
That statement may be politically correct (in your warped mind) but it is historically ignorant.
Kemetic civilisation is several thousand years older than Greek. That is why Ancient Greece traced their cultural origins substantially to Kemet. The Kememu trace their cultural origins to inner Africa. There was NO Greece to borrow anything from during Kemet's old kingdom. .
quote: Northeastern Africans share their cultural origins both with East Africans and Middle Easterns equally.
Another contrived and foolish non-sequitor as Greece is not a part of the Middle East;
and the Middle East is modern geo-political construct that is primarily defined by Islamic culture and the expansion of the Arabs..... both of which are of little relevance to Kemetic cultural origins.
posted
Another thing to point out would be that Herodotus' accounts of how the Pyramids were built are now known to be historically innacurate. In other words by the time of the Persian conquest (let alone the Greek conquest), knowledge of the construction of the Pyramids of the Old Kingdom had probably already been lost.
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quote:Another thing to point out would be that Herodotus' accounts of how the Pyramids were built are now known to be historically innacurate. In other words by the time of the Persian conquest (let alone the Greek conquest), knowledge of the construction of the Pyramids of the Old Kingdom had probably already been lost.
Actually, a man named Peter Hodges according to Peter Clayton's book Chronicle of the Pharaohs constructed a pyramid using these techniques. Herodotus was very inaccurate in many reguards but he did describe many funerary customs,mummification,and social customs of the ancient Egyptians. He mentioned that women in mourning threw dirt on their heads and beat their breasts. We see this in modern Egypt and in the tomb scene of Ramose during the 18th dyansty. Herodotus and Didorus Siculus's description of mummification is the only surviving reference,for we have no papyri that tells about the methods of mummification.
I trust the anthropological data in Herodotu's work,but I don't always trust the historical data. I do believe people are a bit pre-mature to say Herodotus never was carfeul about what he wrote. He was skeptical of many claims himself. Remeber also that Herodotus got much of his information talking to Egyptian priests.
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supercar
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posted
quote:Orionix wrote: The Greeks and Egyptians learned from one another.
quote:rasol replied: That statement may be politically correct (in your warped mind) but it is historically ignorant.
Kemetic civilisation is several thousand years older than Greek. That is why Ancient Greece traced their cultural origins substantially to Kemet. The Kememu trace their cultural origins to inner Africa. There was NO Greece to borrow anything from during Kemet's old kingdom...
Egyptology in EgyptSearch going into yet another year, about its third year or so. How about that? Looking forward to more enlightening and the not-so enlightening discussions.
Now to the topic: The thread title applies to people like Orionix, who are in denial of the fact.
quote:Orionix wrote: Northeastern Africans share their cultural origins both with East Africans and Middle Easterns equally.
quote:rasol's reply: Another contrived and foolish non-sequitor as Greece is not a part of the Middle East; and the Middle East is modern geo-political construct that is primarily defined by Islamic culture and the expansion of the Arabs..... both of which are of little relevance to Kemetic cultural origins.
In fact, if only Orionix knew that "Middle East" is a geo-political term, as you appropriately pointed out to him, which actually encompasses also parts of North Africa, he probably wouldn't be making a fuss over this term. This brings us to the last point made, about the application of "Middle East" terminology having no bearing whatsoever on the inward origins of Ancient Egyptian culture.
[This message has been edited by supercar (edited 01 January 2005).]
That statement may be politically correct (in your warped mind) but it is historically ignorant.
No it's not. You think Greeks learned everything from the Egyptians which is crazy man.
Actually most of the cultural influences came from the Asia Minor, not from Egypt.
People probably first entered the Greek heartland about 50,000 years ago in the Stone Age. They wandered in from southwest Asia and from Africa, hunting herds of game animals. About 10,000 years ago, people in the Middle East began farming the land, and knowledge of this new technology slowly spread with migrants into ancient Greece. By 7000 bc, increasing numbers of people were migrating from Asia Minor to start new farming communities in the Greek heartland, eventually establishing large settlements on the Balkan Peninsula, the Aegean Islands, and the large island of Crete. These Stone Age peoples made their tools and weapons from stone, bone, leather, and wood. Their technological skills greatly accelerated around 3000 bc when they learned from Middle Eastern peoples how to work with metals and use the wheel for transport. The period from about 3000 to 1200 bc is known as the Greek Bronze Age because bronze, a mixture of copper and tin, was the most commonly used metal.
quote:rasol:
Kemetic civilisation is several thousand years older than Greek. That is why Ancient Greece traced their cultural origins substantially to Kemet.
Just because Northeastern Africa is older doesn't mean the Greek culture is predominantly of Egyptian origin. This is a false misinterpretation.
quote:rasol:
The Kememu trace their cultural origins to inner Africa. There was NO Greece to borrow anything from during Kemet's old kingdom.
The ancient Egyptians are descended from Paleolithic Northeast Africans.
However in 332 bc, Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and annexed it to his Hellenistic empire. When he died in 323 bc, his friend and general Ptolemy became satrap, or governor, of Egypt. In 305 bc he took the title of king of Egypt, thus founding the Ptolemaic dynasty of pharaohs. This line of Hellenistic rulers held power for almost 300 years. Cleopatra VII, the last of them, committed suicide after the Romans defeated her forces at the Battle of Actium in 31 bc.
The Romans conquered Egypt in 30 bc, ruling it as a province of their empire for the next several centuries. One of the first countries to be exposed to Christianity, Egypt became predominantly Christian by the end of the 3rd century ad. In 395, when the Roman Empire was divided, Egypt was included in the Eastern Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire.
quote:rasol:
Another contrived and foolish non-sequitor as Greece is not a part of the Middle East; and the Middle East is modern geo-political construct that is primarily defined by Islamic culture and the expansion of the Arabs..... both of which are of little relevance to Kemetic cultural origins.
This is ALL about politics and Egyptology is USED to make political points. When you hear someone talking about the AE influence on Greece they are talking about modern politics.
It's common knowledge now that AE influenced Greece culture.
The pantheon of greek gods corresponding to the older AE pantheon is one obvious clue. Also there's the art below, from Greece's "archaic" period (5th century B.C.) which shows AE influence -- the left foot forward, striding pose (MILLENIA older than Greece)...
540 bc
550 bc
"The frontal pose, the left foot extended forward, the arms attached or close to the hips, the rigid pose, and the mysterious smile are all characteristics of the Kouros and Kore statues of the Archaic period. The sculpture of the Archaic Greek style is evidently influenced by ancient Egypt as the commerce between the two countries was flourishing."
"Behind the Phrasikleia Kore in the picture from the National Museum of Athens we see a Sphinx found at Spata in Attica. Marble, circa 570 B.C. Sphinxes were used to top funeral stele in Attica until 530 B.C."
quote:No it's not. You think Greeks learned everything from the Egyptians which is crazy man.
No one thinks that. The parent thread deals with specifics which you did not address. WANT TO KNOW WHAT WE THINK? WE THINK YOU CAN'T ADDRESS THE ISSUE AT HAND. Instead you make the usual vapid straw-man reply as quoted above.
quote:Just because Northeastern Africa is older doesn't mean the Greek culture is predominantly of Egyptian origin.
Another straw-man remark. Re-read the parent post, and tell us how your response addresses the SPECIFICS that are cited.
quote:rasol:
The Kememu trace their cultural origins to inner Africa. There was NO Greece to borrow anything from during Kemet's old kingdom.
quote:Orionix writes: The ancient Egyptians are descended from Paleolithic Northeast Africans.
Everyone knows that, why do you waste everyone's time with dimwitted delay tactics(?) You are still not addressing the parent post. We also know that the Greece conquered Egypt followed by the Romans and Arabs, but that is also not relevant.
quote:Orionix writes: It is relevent to Northeast Africans because according to genetics they are in an intermediate position between sub-Saharans and Middle Easterns.
We are not discussing genetics so this is also irrelevant unless the point of your posts is that you are genetically incapable of making sense.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 01 January 2005).]
quote:Wasn't the first Semitic script and dialect of Sumerian origin (c. 4000 BC)?
The first Semetic script was Akkadian. Cuneiform was supposed to the the oldest written language in the world,but it appears that Egypt might have any older script based off the excavations at Abydos by Gunter Dreyer.
It is also possible that early civlizations in China and India have older scripts than both the ancient Egyptians,Sumerians, and other people.
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supercar
unregistered
posted
quote: ausar: [b]It is also possible that early civlizations in China and India have older scripts than both the ancient Egyptians,Sumerians, and other people.
Not ruling out the possibility mentioned; I just have a question on the available indicators that suggest such a possibility.
quote:Not ruling out the possibility mentioned; I just have a question on the available indicators that suggest such a possibility.
I read some stories at the BBC news webiste. I don't have the links infront of me. What I believe is that possibly early civlizations all developed their own script seperately from each other.
You might be able to find the link to these stories on the BBC website under archaeological news.
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supercar
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posted
quote: ausar: I read some stories at the BBC news webiste. I don't have the links infront of me. What I believe is that possibly early civlizations all developed their own script seperately from each other.
How about the ties between Phoenician, Greek and Kemetian writing, do you have any views on that?
posted
Certainly Egyptian influences travelled far and wide via the Romans. Statues of Isis-Aphrodite have been found as far afield as North Britain, and even if the link is weak, it still exists.
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No one thinks that. The parent thread deals with specifics which you did not address.
WANT TO KNOW WHAT WE THINK? WE THINK YOU CAN'T ADDRESS THE ISSUE AT HAND. Instead you make the usual vapid straw-man reply as quoted above.
It's obvious that Egypt influenced Greece. I believe this is taught to every student of classics, it is hardly a revelation.
That their culture came from there is sheer nonsense, the Greek culture is little like the Egyptian.
For example:
1. They do not pray to Egyptian Gods with animal heads, Greek deities like all European peoples were human like.
2. Greeks did not mummify the deads; in fact they cremated them and scattered their ashes in urns.
3. Greeks did not build pyramids. The Greek writing system is not based on hieroglyphs et cetera.
quote:rasol:
The Kememu trace their cultural origins to inner Africa. There was NO Greece to borrow anything from during Kemet's old kingdom.
We already had a thread about this before and Psusennes I proved to you that there is no evidence that Kemet had any racial meaning or was in reference to the people's skin color.
posted
As Ausar pointed out, traditionally in western dialogue Mesopotamian writing is supposed to be the world's oldest, and Mesapotamia is susposed to be THE cradle of civilisation. Mdw ntr is supposed to be somehow derived from or at least inspired by 'earlier' cuneiform even though they are fundamentally different, and the notion that cuneiform is earlier has never been proven.
Also bear in mind that tremendous resource has been poured into scouring the Tigres Euphrates region for evidence of the desired conclusion; whereas Ta Seti is now largely buried underneath a giant man made lake.
It's amazing how fast and loose some western historians can be with the facts, requiring very little evidence, ignoring evidence to the contrary, leaping to conclusions and then repeating them until they are accepted as fact (ie - Columbus discovered America). Such is the way of dogma.
The earliest writing ever seen may have been discovered in southern Egypt. The hieroglyphics record linen and oil deliveries made over 5,000 years ago. The find challenges the widely-held belief that the first people to write were the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) sometime before 3000 BC.
The exact date of Sumerian writing remains in doubt but the new Egyptian discoveries have been confidently dated to between 3300 BC and 3200 BC using carbon isotopes.
It is worth noting as always that the earliest examples of mdw ntr come from Ta Shemu and Ta Seti, and some of the iconography appears to be derived from Saharan cave paintings that go back 1000's of years earlier.
Similarly China and India appear to have independant and extremely old traditions of writing. You think there is any amount of archeological discovery that would ever lead to [wst] referring to China as the cradle of civilisation?
Mesopotamia has also been called the 'cradle of Eurocentrism' which is funny, because...it's not even in Europe.
That is the subject of this thread. You might have begun be acknowledging the obvious and then discussing specifics, instead of attempting to lead us on another one of your ridiculous 'snipe hunts'
quote: I believe this is taught to every student of classics
No it's not. The whole point of classicism was to revise the traditional view of the Greeks learning from the far more ancient Nile Valley and Mesapotamian civilisations and attributing it instead to something called: the Greek Miracle. Only in the [wst] can ethnic grandstanding be justified via a religious argument (glib invocation of miracles) and yet taught as a secular science.
quote:rasol: The Kememu trace their cultural origins to inner Africa. There was NO Greece to borrow anything from during Kemet's old kingdom.
quote:Orioinix writes: We already had a thread about this before and Psusennes I proved to you that there is no evidence that Kemet had any racial meaning or was in reference to the people's skin color.
posted
Orionix: Have you actually read Martin Bernal's Black Athena, which goes into great detail on the way the Greek's borrowed, adapted and modified Kemetic religious iconography and Gods? The point of the title is that Athena herself (most Greek of goddesses) is posibly derived from the Kemetic Goddess Neith.
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Certainly Egyptian influences travelled far and wide via the Romans.
Egyptian influence on greece predates the Roman presence in AE, if that's what you're refering to. The statues above, for example, are from around 550 b.c., which is just before AE's first persian period, predating the ptolemys, predating augustus.
Egyptian influence on greece is seen by most historians as direct (see quote above), rather than through any third parties.
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No it's not. The whole point of classicism was to revise the traditional view of the Greeks learning from the far more ancient Nile Valley and Mesapotamian civilisations and attributing it instead to something called: the Greek Miracle.
It is a fact that the Greeks were largely influenced by Egypt and Mesopotamia but they were also influenced by Northern Europeans (what Westerners would call "Aryans").
Martin Bernal wrote:
quote:While I am convinced that the vast majority of Greek mythological themes came from Egypt or Phoenicia, it is equally clear that their selection and treatment was characteristically Greek, and to that extent they did reflect Greek society.’[20]
quote:Admittedly, part of the production systems, the language, the gods and shrines, the myths, the magic and astrology, the alphabet, the mathematics, the nautical and trading skills, of the ancient Greeks were not their own original inventions but had clearly identifiable antecedents among their longer established cultural neighbours.
quote:rasol:
Have you actually read Martin Bernal's Black Athena, which goes into great detail on the way the Greek's borrowed, adapted and modified Kemetic religious iconography and Gods? The point of the title is that Athena herself (most Greek of goddesses) is posibly derived from the Kemetic Goddess Neith.
True this is Egyptian influence though i don't have the book i read parts of it.
Athena was derived in large part from the Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) Goddess Neith (notice that the two names share the same sounds in a different order).
Neith is one of the most ancient deities associated with ancient Egyptian culture. Flinders Petrie noted the earliest depictions of her standards were known in predynastic periods, as can be seen from a representation of a barque bearing her crossed arrow standards in the Predynastic Period (Fig. 1, left) [5] http://www.geocities.com/skhmt_netjert/neith.html
quote:Originally posted by Orionix: We already had a thread about this before and Psusennes I proved to you that there is no evidence that Kemet had any racial meaning or was in reference to the people's skin color.
You mean the two of you play deaf, dumb, and blind to the mound of evidence that ascertains KM in Kmt refers to the people and have brought absolutely no citations from primary sources that lead to any other conclusion.
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quote:Originally posted by Orionix: We already had a thread about this before and Psusennes I proved to you that there is no evidence that Kemet had any racial meaning or was in reference to the people's skin color.
You mean the two of you play deaf, dumb, and blind to the mound of evidence that ascertains KM in Kmt refers to the people and have brought absolutely no citations from primary sources that lead to any other conclusion.
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posted
"They do not pray to Egyptian Gods with animal heads"
Actually, for a short time they attempted to assimilate bimorphic deities, but this failed miserably. The Roman Historian Podiamus said that the people 'laughed to see such effigies'. Indeed, the bimorphic deities were poked fun at in both mainland Greece and Rome, and thus it was Isis and Osiris that recieved the most attention.
This statue of Anubis (more correctly Anubis-Hermes) dates to the 1 or 2nd Century AD. The Romans also sculpted Thoth in ibis and baboon form, as well as several other bimorphic deities. The Vatican Museums have a nice collection of them.
[This message has been edited by Psusennes I (edited 02 January 2005).]
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quote:It's obvious that Egypt influenced Greece. I believe this is taught to every student of classics, it is hardly a revelation.
That their culture came from there is sheer nonsense, the Greek culture is little like the Egyptian.
For example:
1. They do not pray to Egyptian Gods with animal heads, Greek deities like all European peoples were human like.
2. Greeks did not mummify the deads; in fact they cremated them and scattered their ashes in urns.
3. Greeks did not build pyramids. The Greek writing system is not based on hieroglyphs et cetera.
One major difference also was that women in ancient Egyptian soceity were treated on equal status as opposed to Greco-Roman soceity. The Greco-Romans looked at women a mere property of men,and they were not allowed equal acess to finacial insitutions and divorce. This is why Herodotus when he saw women in the markets of Egypt he thought this was strange because in his own native land women were not allowed such leverage.
I must mention that Greece owers other debtas not just to Egypt but to the Babylonians and Phonecians as well. The early Hesiod epics early have Mesopotamian elements lifted from Gilgamesh,the Pimperton tablets from Babylon shows Pythagorean theroem before Pythagoras,the musical notation in Greco-Roman record traces back to Babylon,and some of the ships the Greeks used are Phonecian in origin.
The mathematical papyri of Rhind and Moscow do show that some Greek concept usually atributed to Greco-Roman thinkers might have come from Egypt. The examples are: the area of a trucated pyramid,diameter of a circle,and an accurate estimate of pi. All these elements are to be found in the Rhind and Moscow Papyrus.
Check out a book by Richard Gillings called Mathematics in the Time of the Pharaohs.
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