DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17531#0005
NAUKRATIS, 1903.
In the spring of 1903 I was enabled by a grant from the Craven Fund
of the University of Oxford to return to the site of Naukratis. Having left
certain parts of the Mounds unexplored in 1899 1 because tliey were either too
high, or too sodden, with the infiltration of water, I intended to attack them
whenever the sebakh diggers should have removed the unproductive upper
layers, and a season of low Nile level had occurred. The results of this
campaign, the last, I expect, that will be undertaken at Naukratis, I embody
in the following Report, discussing at the same time certain points on which
new light can be thrown from other sources.
A.—THE Site.
The identification of the site of Naukratis, so brilliantly made by
Mr. Petrie, has never been questioned. All scholars agree, moreover, with
his contention that Naukratis lay to west, not east, of the Great or ' Agatho-
daemon ' Nile of Ptolemy. Mr. Petrie, however, maintained that the town
did not lie actually on that river, but on a derived Canal. His grounds were
these. (1) Herodotus (ii. 97) says that during the Inundation there was water
passage from Naukratis to Memphis under the Pyramids: but that the usual
way lay by the apex of the Delta (i.e. by the river itself): (2) Strabo (xvii.
23), after mentioning the Nitriote Nome in the course of a geographical
survey, which proceeded from north to south, says irX^alov Se ical ivravOa
7roAt? MefeXao? eV dpiarepa 8e iv tc3 Ae\ra iirl fj,ev tco iroTap,a> NavKpaTif.
This statement, said Mr. Petrie, in that it placed the town on the left bank
of the river, was the result of a confusion in Strabo's mind. For, in fact,
Naukratis was on the right of the Canopic Nile as one ascends. Strabo
should have said on the left of a derived Canal.
In this interpretation of his authorities, the arguments for which failed
at the time to convince his colleague, Mr. Griffith,2 Mr. Petrie seems to have
1 See B.S.J, vol. v. pp. 26 ff.
2 Nauk. ii. p. 83. I do not agree with Mr.
Griffith's argument either, though I come to
his conclusion. I see no reason for placing
Naukratis on the East of the river, not
supposing 'Delta' as used by Strabo to mean
only the land between the rivers : and the fact
that Ptolemy put the Nome of Naukratis on
In the spring of 1903 I was enabled by a grant from the Craven Fund
of the University of Oxford to return to the site of Naukratis. Having left
certain parts of the Mounds unexplored in 1899 1 because tliey were either too
high, or too sodden, with the infiltration of water, I intended to attack them
whenever the sebakh diggers should have removed the unproductive upper
layers, and a season of low Nile level had occurred. The results of this
campaign, the last, I expect, that will be undertaken at Naukratis, I embody
in the following Report, discussing at the same time certain points on which
new light can be thrown from other sources.
A.—THE Site.
The identification of the site of Naukratis, so brilliantly made by
Mr. Petrie, has never been questioned. All scholars agree, moreover, with
his contention that Naukratis lay to west, not east, of the Great or ' Agatho-
daemon ' Nile of Ptolemy. Mr. Petrie, however, maintained that the town
did not lie actually on that river, but on a derived Canal. His grounds were
these. (1) Herodotus (ii. 97) says that during the Inundation there was water
passage from Naukratis to Memphis under the Pyramids: but that the usual
way lay by the apex of the Delta (i.e. by the river itself): (2) Strabo (xvii.
23), after mentioning the Nitriote Nome in the course of a geographical
survey, which proceeded from north to south, says irX^alov Se ical ivravOa
7roAt? MefeXao? eV dpiarepa 8e iv tc3 Ae\ra iirl fj,ev tco iroTap,a> NavKpaTif.
This statement, said Mr. Petrie, in that it placed the town on the left bank
of the river, was the result of a confusion in Strabo's mind. For, in fact,
Naukratis was on the right of the Canopic Nile as one ascends. Strabo
should have said on the left of a derived Canal.
In this interpretation of his authorities, the arguments for which failed
at the time to convince his colleague, Mr. Griffith,2 Mr. Petrie seems to have
1 See B.S.J, vol. v. pp. 26 ff.
2 Nauk. ii. p. 83. I do not agree with Mr.
Griffith's argument either, though I come to
his conclusion. I see no reason for placing
Naukratis on the East of the river, not
supposing 'Delta' as used by Strabo to mean
only the land between the rivers : and the fact
that Ptolemy put the Nome of Naukratis on