Olympic Games (interesting, actually)

[Eleatic Guest]

However the majority of the elements such as Religion, Maths, Science, Time, Literature, Athletics, that you refer to as "Western civilisation" naturally evolved in the land between two rivers that is today known as Iraq.

And Egypt?

Anyways, first: that "land between two rivers that is today known as Iraq" is anything but a purely geographical notion, since it housed over the millenia a myriad of different civilizations. We always have to keep that in mind.

Second, perspective: why stop at Mesopotamia? There is always a before. Jericho is five thousand years older than Babylonia and Assyria, and so are a number of proto-cities in what is today Anatolia and Persia. The basics of agriculture, medicine, religion, astronomy, pottery, stone building, town walls, irrigation are far older than the oldest civilizations in what is today Iraq. Does not that put Mesopotamia in the same class of dependent civilization receiver, as some orientalists put the Greeks? I believe very much, if we use a consistent set of criteria.

Third, we should be cautious about wholesale credits: the elements you mentioned above, were most certainly all present in Mesopotamia in sometimes more, sometimes less elaborate fashion. At their time very much unsurpassed. But the Greeks gave them a whole new quality by their discovery of critical thought, and that revolutionary development - which today more than ever determines our world views - was genuinely Greek. I think if orientalists would acknowledge that, just as much as classicists need to value the fundamental contribution of the orient, there would be no need of disagreements.

Regards