Summarizing the work of Martin Bernal, Assmann says that “the Philhellenic movement in German Romanticism was inextricably combined with Judeophobia and Egyptophobia. This new image of Greece was instrumental in shaping a new image of Germany. The ‘Aryan myth’ had a big share in this retrospective self-modeling, along with Herder’s concepts of national genius and originality.”

Gives one pause.