EgyptSearch Forums: What Herodotus got right and wrong ?

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Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :

On this board is a debate about the validity of Herodotus and what relevence he has to the study of ancient history. Indeed, many things Herodotus got wrong,but he also described many things that were later documented by other Greco-Roman historians. The apperance,manners,and customs of the indigenous Egyptians was very accurate. Let's examine what Herodotus got right:

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He mentioned that women in Egypt at funerals wailed and ripped their clothes,placed mud on their heads,and beat their breasts. In modern Egypt this continues to this very day in rural villages in Upper Egypt. This was documented by Edward Willams Lane in Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians

Herodotus mentioned how children were born and that these children would recieve a hair cut and that Egyptian parents would place their hair in a ball and burn them to a specific ntr. This was documented by the late anthropologist Winifried S. Blackman in her various studies.

Herodotus mentioned how certain Libyan tribes would burn scars into faces and these people were pastorialists. Modern Southern Sudanese mark themselves with scar marking and also do many modern Nubian groups.

Herodotus mentions that Syrians and Phonecians learned circumcision from indigenous Egyptians. This is well documented that circumcision was praticed probably from early dyanstic times to in later periods. The oldest remains of such are within Egypt.

Herodotus describes the annual festivals that were conducted to Bubastis which is modern day Tanta. He also describes the activities here where women would flash themselves and expose their vulva to Bastet. He also describes the drunkeness and lewdness of these festivals. He mentions a festival in Sais in the Delta where people would lead a procession with laterns. In modern times both the festival of lanterns and that of Bastet exist. In modern times the moulids dedicated to Sheikh Bedawi were just as Herodotus described.

He describes the Aethiopies as tall and the longest lived people. Most likely he was describing Southern Sudanese people and these people are the tallest groups in Africa. The Nuer,Shilluk,and Dinka groups. All of these groups are Nilo-Saharan speakers like most modern Nubians.

Questionable claims that Herodotus made:

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He claims that pharaoh Necho II sent a expedition using Phonecians to circumnavigate Africa

He makes the claim that all the Greek gods came from ancient Egypt. Some possibly did but I doubt all.

He claims the Dorians in Greece were Egyptians. This claim needs further archaeological proof.

He claims that the Aethiopies in Northern India secreate black sprem because they were black.

If there are any other minor details I missed then please add them.

Posted by Kem-Au (Member # 1820) on :

He was probably wrong about the number of people he stated that were needed build the pyramids. But what must be made clear is that Herotodus made a distinction between what he heard and what he saw.

Posted by Supercar (Member # 6477) on :

How about one more thing he got right: Describing Egyptians as being black and Wooly haired!

Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :

quote:
I don't espouse this about Herodotus, but rather it is the Truth about him.
This is actually, what he was called by the people who knew him!!
HERODOTUS WAS CALLED THE FATHER OF LIES BY HIS
PEERS AND PEOPLE WHO KNEW HIM!!

So! When Marco Polo arrived back in Europe from his travels in the Far East, he was called a liar by his peers also! When Marco Polo told about the wonders of Chinese civilization he beheld like coal, gunpowder, and fireworks, Europeans called him crazy and they ostracized and persecuted him for it!!
Does this mean that everything he said about China and the other places he visited were all lies?! Does it mean that all the things he saw didn't exist and were all made up?!

The fact is Herodotus's reports were based on two main things: What he saw, and what he heard.
You have a better chance trying to refute what he heard, but trying to refute what the guy saw is a lot more difficult.
Herodotus was very meticulous in his descriptions of places, peoples and things he saw, especially if it was something 'new' or different from what he and other Greeks are used to seeing.
Herodotus described the Egyptian people as 'black' pure and simple, he even went so far as to describe other African features like their hair. If you read the whole book of the "little middle-age jewish lady" then you would know she also agrees with this!
Herodotus' peers found nothing bizzare or outlandish about claims that the Egyptians are black. Every Greek who had heard of the Egyptians also heard of their black appearance as well! In fact, the Greeks had a myth which explained why the peoples of the lands south of the Mediterranean(North Africa) were 'burnt'. It was the myth of Phaethon, have you heard of it?
Herodotus claims don't just pertain to Egypt either

quote:
...e.g., of gold-digging ants the size of foxes (3.102-05); of races of people bald from birth (4.23) or with the feet of goats (4.25) or with only one eye (4.26); [FN 1] of bizarre sexual practices (these you'll have to find for yourselves!); of plants which, when thrown on a fire, emit a smoke that makes people drunk "just as wine does the Greeks" (1.202 — surely a bizarre fiction of some sort!)

Sure, many of the impossible things he reports could easily be refuted, things like giant gold-digging ants and races of bald or goat-footed or one-eyed people. I'm not surprised if these were things that he only heard about and not actually witnessed. When Herodotus was in the Near East he heard stories from the locals about vipers with bird wings that flew around. He didn't believe it, but he reported it anyway. When Herodotus visited the nomadic Scythians,in what is now Ukraine, he was told of a people called the Neurians who lived to the west and who claim to turn into wolves once a year (this btw, is the earliest written reference to werewolfism). Herodotus reported this too, despite expressing his own skeptecism.
What about the other things?

There's no doubt Herodotus had reports on sexual practices that he and other Greeks would find "bizare", considering that women in Greek culture were sexually repressed. During his stay in Egypt, Herodotus was shocked at the sexual freedom that unwed Egyptian women had, he thought there were no virgin girls in the whole country![contrast this with women in the Near East]
During his stay with the Scythians Herodotus was told of another people west of the Scythians called the Agathyrsi, who were said to engage in "promiscuous sex" women and men alike. Today scholars have shown that the Agathyrsi practiced sexual orgies as part of their sacred fertility rites, which were not unlike the secret Dionysia and Bacchanalia cult rituals of Greece and Rome.

As far as plants that when thrown on a fire, emit a smoke that makes people 'drunk'..Come On!! As if you haven't heard of herbs that produce intoxicating smoke when burned! You have heard of Marijuana haven't you?! There are other species of Hemp, some of which have been known to various people even since ancient times. Nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes, like the Scythians would burn hemp and use the intoxication of the smoke in their shamanist rituals.

All in all, you can't just refute most of what Herodotus says and call him an outright liar, just because his peers did! Another report his people thought was a crazy farse, was the fact that the Nile River flowed from south to north, because the Greeks thought rivers could only flow from north to south as most rivers do. Modern geographers and scientists now know rivers flow from a higher elevation to a lower elevation.

I think I've proven my point in the other thread!