DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.619#0005
PREFACE.
It is a golden principle to let each year see the publication of the year's work,
in any research; but a writer places himself thus at the disadvantage of
showing how his information may have been defective, or his views requiring
change, as year after year goes on. Such a course, however, is the most
honest and the most useful, as half a loaf is better than no bread. This volume,
therefore, with all its imperfections, its half-gleaned results, its transitory
views, comes forth to show what is already ascertained ; and to supply a mass
of certain facts for the assimilation of scholars, who may accept or not the way
in which they are built up.
It may be said that further research in what is already known ought to
have been made, before placing results in such a form. I think not. So long-
as enough study is given to the materials to present them in an intelligible and
usable form, it is better to let them be at the disposal of all students, without
waiting for a final summing up at the close of the excavations ; for no results
can be final until we have completed all that modern civilization will do toward
preserving the history of Naukratis. It is this book or nothing that is the
choice ; for my time has been so occupied in the lengthy work of unpacking
over seventy cases of antiquities, arranging them, and preparing most of the
plates which accompany this volume, that I had to be content with far less
research than I had wished for and intended; and further, many unexpected
affairs connected with this Fund have unavoidably swallowed up my remaining
days, so that I have had to write the greater part of this volume at a
hurried pace and without power of referring to the antiquities themselves.
Had it not been for the special labours of those who have assisted in
working out the present results, Mr. Head, Mr. Ernest Gardner, and Mr.
Cecil Smith, it would have been impossible to make the account as complete as
it is ; for neither time nor technical knowledge would have sufficed me to treat
It is a golden principle to let each year see the publication of the year's work,
in any research; but a writer places himself thus at the disadvantage of
showing how his information may have been defective, or his views requiring
change, as year after year goes on. Such a course, however, is the most
honest and the most useful, as half a loaf is better than no bread. This volume,
therefore, with all its imperfections, its half-gleaned results, its transitory
views, comes forth to show what is already ascertained ; and to supply a mass
of certain facts for the assimilation of scholars, who may accept or not the way
in which they are built up.
It may be said that further research in what is already known ought to
have been made, before placing results in such a form. I think not. So long-
as enough study is given to the materials to present them in an intelligible and
usable form, it is better to let them be at the disposal of all students, without
waiting for a final summing up at the close of the excavations ; for no results
can be final until we have completed all that modern civilization will do toward
preserving the history of Naukratis. It is this book or nothing that is the
choice ; for my time has been so occupied in the lengthy work of unpacking
over seventy cases of antiquities, arranging them, and preparing most of the
plates which accompany this volume, that I had to be content with far less
research than I had wished for and intended; and further, many unexpected
affairs connected with this Fund have unavoidably swallowed up my remaining
days, so that I have had to write the greater part of this volume at a
hurried pace and without power of referring to the antiquities themselves.
Had it not been for the special labours of those who have assisted in
working out the present results, Mr. Head, Mr. Ernest Gardner, and Mr.
Cecil Smith, it would have been impossible to make the account as complete as
it is ; for neither time nor technical knowledge would have sufficed me to treat