Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert (born Neuendettelsau (Bavaria), February 2, 1931) is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland who has also taught in the United Kingdom and the United States. He has influenced generations of students of mythology since the 1960s. He has published books on the balance between lore and science in the followers of Pythagoras and more extensively on ritual and archaic cult survival, on mystery religions, and on the reception in the Hellenic world of Near Eastern and Persian culture.

Further reading

• Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, 1972.
• Ancient Mystery Cults, Harvard University Press, 1987: based on his Jackson Lectures at Harvard, 1982.
• The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, 1998.

External links

• Biography and selected books