DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.619#0044
THE HOUSES OF NAUKRATIS AND THEIR CONTEXTS.
35
CHAPTER V.
TOE HOUSES OF NAUKRATIS AND THEIR
CONTENTS.
37. The plan of the streets of the town, so far
as they can be traced, on pi. xli, will show their
general arrangement. As has been said before,
the difficulty of tracing the slight indications that
could be seen was considerable; and hence some
rectification of this plan may, perhaps, be made
by future work, particularly in those parts in
which T have had to make extensive guesses at
restoration, owing to the ground being covered
with a thick coat of pottery and earth, or being
totally denuded. The enclosure, which is supposed
to be the Palaistra, does not seem to have
contained any large stone building, as no chips
of stone are found about it; it seems rather to
have been a secular building of some kind, and
as the Palaistra was dedicated to Apollo (see
inscription pi. xxx.), it is likely to have lain near
the temple of Apollo. It is doubtful whether
there was an agora at Naukratis, as the Pan-
Hellenion would fulfil so many purposes of an
agora. Religious processions and festivals, public
deliberations, the headquarters of the city officials,
and monuments and memorials, would all have
their natural place in the great civil, religious, and
military enclosure of the Pan-Hellenion. It
would only be the more private side of civil life,
the gymnasium, palaistra, and stoa, that we
should seek for in the city.
It will be seen that there are at the upper and
lower margin of the plan two sets of arrow-lines;
these point to the directions of the streets, which
appear to have been built from two rather different
bases. The lower set of arrows is parallel with
the Great Temenos wall, and points to the streets
of the eastern side of the town more particularly;
while the upper set points to a system of streets
which make a small but distinct angle of about
10° or 12° with the other series. This seems
most likely to have been the system derived from
the line of the canal which skirted this side of the
city. Two such systems together show that there
must have been some other element beside the
canal-line to influence the builders in the earliest
times; and it seems therefore to give some weight
to the early age of the Great Temenos. (On the
subject of lines of roads and streets, see Proc.
Arch. Inst. February 1, 1878.)
Comparatively little was done in excavating in
the town, the three places which took up nearly
all our work being the gateway building in the
Great Temenos, the large block of chambers in
the same, and the temenos of Apollo. Most of
the objects from the town were therefore obtained
from Arabs digging there for earth ; every day
during their digging season I used to go out and
buy up what they had found, often spending more
than an hour in going round the place. Hence I
seldom knew the details of a find, and even the
site of it was often not known ; so there is not the
completeness in the following accounts of these
finds which would otherwise have been attained,
and it seems to be best to simply treat them in
their chronological order, as nearly as I can.
38. Perhaps the earliest of the miscellaneous
objects are the pieces of engraved shell (pi. xx.
10, 12, 10), which were found scattered in dif-
ferent places, the largest (no. 10) coming from
the south side of the Palaistra. These belong to
the class of engraved shells of the Tridacna
squamosa, isolated examples of which have been
found in places widely separated, Canino in
Etruria, Bethlehem, and Assyria. Five specimens
are known hitherto, and here at Naukratis are
fragments of three more. It seems not impro-
bable that this city may have been the home of
such objects, and that they may perhaps have all
had their origin here. Among the shells collected
at Naukratis, is a small Tridacna not worked;
this proves that these shells in an unwrought
state were brought from the Red Sea to Naukratis.
Next there are two other examples of wrought
shells evidently belonging to Naukratis, the frag-
ment of mother-of-pearl (pi. xx. 11), and a piece
f 2
35
CHAPTER V.
TOE HOUSES OF NAUKRATIS AND THEIR
CONTENTS.
37. The plan of the streets of the town, so far
as they can be traced, on pi. xli, will show their
general arrangement. As has been said before,
the difficulty of tracing the slight indications that
could be seen was considerable; and hence some
rectification of this plan may, perhaps, be made
by future work, particularly in those parts in
which T have had to make extensive guesses at
restoration, owing to the ground being covered
with a thick coat of pottery and earth, or being
totally denuded. The enclosure, which is supposed
to be the Palaistra, does not seem to have
contained any large stone building, as no chips
of stone are found about it; it seems rather to
have been a secular building of some kind, and
as the Palaistra was dedicated to Apollo (see
inscription pi. xxx.), it is likely to have lain near
the temple of Apollo. It is doubtful whether
there was an agora at Naukratis, as the Pan-
Hellenion would fulfil so many purposes of an
agora. Religious processions and festivals, public
deliberations, the headquarters of the city officials,
and monuments and memorials, would all have
their natural place in the great civil, religious, and
military enclosure of the Pan-Hellenion. It
would only be the more private side of civil life,
the gymnasium, palaistra, and stoa, that we
should seek for in the city.
It will be seen that there are at the upper and
lower margin of the plan two sets of arrow-lines;
these point to the directions of the streets, which
appear to have been built from two rather different
bases. The lower set of arrows is parallel with
the Great Temenos wall, and points to the streets
of the eastern side of the town more particularly;
while the upper set points to a system of streets
which make a small but distinct angle of about
10° or 12° with the other series. This seems
most likely to have been the system derived from
the line of the canal which skirted this side of the
city. Two such systems together show that there
must have been some other element beside the
canal-line to influence the builders in the earliest
times; and it seems therefore to give some weight
to the early age of the Great Temenos. (On the
subject of lines of roads and streets, see Proc.
Arch. Inst. February 1, 1878.)
Comparatively little was done in excavating in
the town, the three places which took up nearly
all our work being the gateway building in the
Great Temenos, the large block of chambers in
the same, and the temenos of Apollo. Most of
the objects from the town were therefore obtained
from Arabs digging there for earth ; every day
during their digging season I used to go out and
buy up what they had found, often spending more
than an hour in going round the place. Hence I
seldom knew the details of a find, and even the
site of it was often not known ; so there is not the
completeness in the following accounts of these
finds which would otherwise have been attained,
and it seems to be best to simply treat them in
their chronological order, as nearly as I can.
38. Perhaps the earliest of the miscellaneous
objects are the pieces of engraved shell (pi. xx.
10, 12, 10), which were found scattered in dif-
ferent places, the largest (no. 10) coming from
the south side of the Palaistra. These belong to
the class of engraved shells of the Tridacna
squamosa, isolated examples of which have been
found in places widely separated, Canino in
Etruria, Bethlehem, and Assyria. Five specimens
are known hitherto, and here at Naukratis are
fragments of three more. It seems not impro-
bable that this city may have been the home of
such objects, and that they may perhaps have all
had their origin here. Among the shells collected
at Naukratis, is a small Tridacna not worked;
this proves that these shells in an unwrought
state were brought from the Red Sea to Naukratis.
Next there are two other examples of wrought
shells evidently belonging to Naukratis, the frag-
ment of mother-of-pearl (pi. xx. 11), and a piece
f 2