Friday Fun: Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks

Ah, The Onion. I haven’t used them in a while for my Friday Fun and it was feeling like it was way overdue.

As usual, classic stuff: Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks:

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.”

And lest people think that this frivolous article has no bearing on the weighty issues of the day in terms of scholarly communications…

“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.”

See! They were driven to perpetrate the greatest hoax of our times by research metrics!

And there’s even science-y content too:

“Geometry? That was all Kevin,” said Haddlebury, referring to former graduate student Kevin Davenport. “Man, that kid was on fire in those days. They teach Davenportian geometry in high schools now, though of course they call it Euclidean.”

(As a counterpoint to this article, check out this slightly older Onion piece: Archaeologists Unearth Lousiest Civilization Ever.)

Comments

#1 Knurl
October 8, 2010

So Prometheus didn’t invent the barbecue? My weekends will never be the same.
#2 Andrew G.
October 9, 2010

Paging Jean Hardouin…
#3 John Thielking
October 11, 2010

This is obviously a work of fiction since I was learning about the Greek Myths in high school in 1979. School textbooks don’t get updated that fast.
#4 linda
October 14, 2010

Really?

I do not think so. may be they invented that everything is Greek! But I do not think that the masterpieces, philosophers did not exist…may be many of them were Albanians…this is a logical thought since Albanian language is older than Greek..Albanians (Ilirians) have been always there, next to Greek (for not to say before), so how it is possible one populations next to the other for thousand of years did not produce everything where the other produced everything. Then are the archeology and linguistics, is Albanian language that explain that…even the genes.
#5 Gigi
October 27, 2010

Linda babe the Albanian language is made out of turkish, Greek, Italian and slavic words.in Fact albanians are not natives of the Mediteranean or the Balkans. Ancient Albania was in Caucasus and Albanians are azeri new comers in the are of the Balkans. They do not speak a word in common with ancient Illyrians and half their country is full of ancient Greek theaters and temples. Sorry but archaeological evidence always come to clear out ignorance
#6 George
October 30, 2010

Gigi, it’s alright to hate albanians, but the words you are using to set your kind of propaganda isn’t a very constructive answer to put. You are wrong and your words are nonesense, so please go read a book, before you contribute by your ignorance.

Thank you.
#7 Mike
August 27, 2011

Ha what a bunch of lies… everyone is jealous of what the ancient Greeks did. Thats all this is about
#8 Collin
August 29, 2011

@3,4
This is humor. Please read their disclaimer:
http://www.theonion.com/faq/#faq-editorial
#9 John Dupuis
August 30, 2011

Yeah, Colin. Wow. Sometimes the Internet just surprises the hell out of me.