DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5538#0046
26 PHARAOHS, FELLAHS, AXD EXPLORERS.
an ear-ring, to what period each should be assigned. He
must be conversant with all the types of all the gods; and
last, not least, he must be able to recognize a forgery at first
sight.
After this, it must I think be admitted that the explorer,
like the poet, is " born, not made." The wonder perhaps is
that he should ever be born at all. Fortunately, however,
for the cause of knowledge, this phenomenal individual does
from time to time make his appearance upon earth ; and ac-
cording to the form he assumes under his different avatars,
he proceeds to excavate Troy, Curium, Halicarnassus, Nin-
eveh, Bubastis, or Naukratis.
The discovery and excavation of the scanty ruins of this
last site—the famous and long-lost city of Naukratis—was
due to Mr. Petrie. Former travellers had, for the last fifty
years, sought for it in vain, and given up the quest in de-
spair. Ebers looked for it at Dessuk, and Mariette at Sal-
hadscher, in the neighborhood of Safe. Mr. Petrie found it,
almost by accident, in the course of an archaeological tramp
undertaken at the commencement of his working season in
1884. He was tracking the western frontier-line of the Del-
ta, and thus came across a large mound some three thousand
feet in length by fifteen hundred feet in width, the surface
of which was so thickly strewn with fragments of fine
Greek figured ware that it was impossible to walk upon
it in any direction without crushing these beautiful pot-
sherds at every step. It was, in fact, to quote his own
words, "like walking through the smashings of the vase-
room of the British Museum." It was to this place that he
returned in 1885, when he made one of the most important
historical and archaeological discoveries which have ever
rewarded the labors of the explorer in Egypt.
The local name of the mound and of the adjacent village
(for which it is vain to look in any guide-book maps) is Ne-
bireh. The place lies about equidistant between Alexandria
and Cairo, and about six miles west-north-west of Tell el
Barud. When Mr. Petrie first found his way thither, he
an ear-ring, to what period each should be assigned. He
must be conversant with all the types of all the gods; and
last, not least, he must be able to recognize a forgery at first
sight.
After this, it must I think be admitted that the explorer,
like the poet, is " born, not made." The wonder perhaps is
that he should ever be born at all. Fortunately, however,
for the cause of knowledge, this phenomenal individual does
from time to time make his appearance upon earth ; and ac-
cording to the form he assumes under his different avatars,
he proceeds to excavate Troy, Curium, Halicarnassus, Nin-
eveh, Bubastis, or Naukratis.
The discovery and excavation of the scanty ruins of this
last site—the famous and long-lost city of Naukratis—was
due to Mr. Petrie. Former travellers had, for the last fifty
years, sought for it in vain, and given up the quest in de-
spair. Ebers looked for it at Dessuk, and Mariette at Sal-
hadscher, in the neighborhood of Safe. Mr. Petrie found it,
almost by accident, in the course of an archaeological tramp
undertaken at the commencement of his working season in
1884. He was tracking the western frontier-line of the Del-
ta, and thus came across a large mound some three thousand
feet in length by fifteen hundred feet in width, the surface
of which was so thickly strewn with fragments of fine
Greek figured ware that it was impossible to walk upon
it in any direction without crushing these beautiful pot-
sherds at every step. It was, in fact, to quote his own
words, "like walking through the smashings of the vase-
room of the British Museum." It was to this place that he
returned in 1885, when he made one of the most important
historical and archaeological discoveries which have ever
rewarded the labors of the explorer in Egypt.
The local name of the mound and of the adjacent village
(for which it is vain to look in any guide-book maps) is Ne-
bireh. The place lies about equidistant between Alexandria
and Cairo, and about six miles west-north-west of Tell el
Barud. When Mr. Petrie first found his way thither, he