Friday, October 8, 2010

Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks

WASHINGTON—A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at the National Geographic Society to announce they had "entirely fabricated" ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of Western civilization.

The group acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing society existing in Greece more than two millennia ago was a complete fiction created by a team of some two dozen historians, anthropologists, and classicists who worked nonstop between 1971 and 1974 to forge "Greek" documents and artifacts.

Just one of the "ancient" artifactsdreamed up in a basement in Somerville, MA
"Honestly, we never meant for things to go this far," said Professor Gene Haddlebury, who has offered to resign his position as chair of Hellenic Studies at Georgetown University. "We were young and trying to advance our careers, so we just started making things up: Homer, Aristotle, Socrates, Hippocrates, the lever and fulcrum, rhetoric, ethics, all the different kinds of columns—everything."

.
"Way more stuff than any one civilization could have come up with, obviously," he added.

Read more, from The Onion....
  

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you invented the ancient Aztecs?

Michael E. Smith said...

I was hoping no one would ask that question! But I guess if it took several scholars 3 years to invent the Greeks (that is, to invent the information we have about the Greeks), then the available knowledge about the Aztecs could probably be invented by one person in a few weeks.

Raymond Vagell said...

That had me went ... WHAT?!?!?? Then I realized it was from The Onion. :)

Anonymous said...

Is this some kind of joke? This is ridiculous; I think they are flattering themselves and try to be on the spotlight again. The importance of the Greek civilisation has been established in modern thought since the 18th century, and Greece alone - not taking into account its ancient colonies - is full of artefacts, inscriptions and buildings that speak for themselves. These "scientists" with their outrageous statements they give too much credit to themselves and insult the hundreds of eminent Classicists, Archaeologists and Historians around the world.

Anonymous said...

These greeks have similarities with turks and arabs, I knew it!

Anonymous said...

"The importance of the Greek civilisation has been established in modern thought since the 18th century" was fabricated too.

You're welcome!

Aldo said...

Greeks don't exist,are an invention...Pelasgians were then who creat the european civilization.And the pelasgian language,customs are conserved in modern albanian...The truth will win...

Anonymous said...

I don't believe that Roman civilization, reduced to what? it's common denominator, could have been the basis for this creation either.

Really, I need to investigate this on my own, but I do know that Aristotle could not have written over 10,000 scrolls, books, whatever! Especially since the Alexandrian Library was destroyed beforehand...and no one knows what happened to all those scrolls!

Afrikan said...

Well, us Africans knew this all along. Europeans use lies, fabrications, magic and con games and violence,to get along socially. The fabricated a story about blacks being inferior, in order to enslave us for their benefit. Its sociopathic how they enslave, justify it for years, drop a nuclear bomb on civilians and justify it, to the point of claiming innocence, the colonise and say they are doing people a favor. Europeans are t kind of folks who live at the expense of others,they try to justify lying, stealing,killing as necessary. On the left of them, they are good story tellers, magicians, entertainers, covering everyone's eyes.