Naukratis

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Coordinates: 30 ° 54 '  N , 30 ° 36'  E

Map: Egypt
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Naukratis
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Egypt

Naukratis was an ancient Greek trading town and was located in Egypt in the western Nile Delta (in ancient times on the east bank of the Canopian arm of the Nile ) about 11 kilometers northeast of Ad Dilinjat and about 18 kilometers north-northwest of Kawm Hamadah . It was made around 630 BC. BC, according to other sources around 560 BC. Founded from the Polis Miletus . Naukratis was famous for the vessels and flower threads made there. According to the archaeologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith , the name of the city in the town of An-Niqrash to the east is said to have been preserved to this day.

Lore

History and stories

Eusebius of Caesarea reports that Naukratis was founded by Milesians in the fourth year of the seventh Olympiad (749 BC) . Scientists today question the correctness of this early date.

Athenaios quotes from the work About Aphrodite by Polycharmos : During the 23rd Olympiad (688 BC) Herostratos, a trader from Naukratis, is said to have acquired an old Aphrodite statue in Paphos on Cyprus and took it home with him. His ship got caught in a storm on the Egyptian coast. His men were very concerned because they did not know where they had ended up. So they gathered in front of the statue and asked the goddess for help. Suddenly she filled the air with the scent of the myrtle , the sky cleared and the ship made it safely to Naukratis. Out of gratitude, Herostratos donated the statue to the temple of Aphrodite and celebrated a festival with his friends. He gave each guest a naukratite, a garland woven from myrtle.

30 Milesian ships are said to have defeated the general Inaros I (around 665 BC) at the time of Psammetich I and then founded the city of Naukratis. Herodotus contradicts this statement, saying that the Ionians and Carians ended up on the coast to plunder the land. Psammetich I allied with them and they helped him to defeat his adversaries. In gratitude, he gave them land to settle near the town of Bubastis (about 100 km east of Naukratis). The place was called Stratopeda (army camp). Also according to Herodotus, the Pharaoh Amasis instructed the Greeks to settle and establish a trading post. Here, however, Herodotus apparently only relied on statements from Greeks who belonged to the temple of Hellenion , which was in fact founded in the reign of Amasis, namely by traders who came later than those from Aegina, Samos and Miletus, and theirs Temples were much older. At the beginning of the rule of Amasis there was the Greek colonization, which started around 620 BC. Had begun, was already well advanced. At this time nine cities, four Ionian Chios , Teos , Phokaia and Klazomenai , four Doric Rhodes , Knidos , Halicarnassus and Phaselis and the Aiolic Mytilene are said to have founded the Hellenion as a common sanctuary.

Xanthos, a trader from Samos, is said to have been in the 6th century BC. The hetaerae brought Rhodopis to Naukratis and offered them for sale. Charaxos, the brother of Sappho , is said to have fallen in love with her and therefore ransomed her. Later the pharaoh Amasis is said to have fallen in love with the hetaera.

Athenaios reports that there was also a Prytaneion and that solemn banquets were celebrated there on the feast days of Hestia Prytanitis , Dionysus and Apollon Komaios .

location

Much confusing and contradicting has been handed down about the location of Naukratis, which made it difficult to locate the city for the first time. Strabo says that it should be right on the Canadian arm of the Nile. Herodotus adds that during high tide Naukratis became an island and that is why you passed the pyramids on the direct route to Memphis and if you wanted to go from Kanobos to Naukratis over the fields of Anthylla and Archandros.

Claudius Ptolemy gave in his Geographia the coordinates for the location of Naukratis, which suggest a location west of the Canobe arm of the Nile. Also Konrad Peutinger located on his card Peutinger Naukratis west of kanobischen Nilarms.

exploration

Plan of the city according to Petrie:
A = large Temenos
B = El Gaief or Kum Gaief village
C + D = limestone mining
E = Temple of Hera
F = Temple of Apollo
G = Hellenion
H = huts
I = Arab village

The ruins of Naukratis were found and excavated in the winter of 1884/5 by Flinders Petrie near Nebireh on the Abu-Dibab Canal , about 75 km southeast of Alexandria . The following winter, Ernest Arthur Gardner continued the excavations under the guidance of Flinders Petrie. In winter 1898/9 and spring 1903 David George Hogarth examined the excavation site. In 1977 the American archaeologists William D. Coulson and Albert Leonard Jr. began their research in Naukratis and surveyed the site in 1977/8. They carried out further investigations and excavations in the southern part of the site from 1980 to 1982. Due to the increased water table, the northern part of the ancient city is located inside a lake, which makes archaeological research impossible.

The archaeological site is now divided into two parts, a north inhabited by Greeks called Naukratis and a south inhabited by Egyptians called Pi-emro . In the north, Petrie was able to identify a sanctuary of Apollo based on inscriptions on offerings. The sanctuary was about 40 by 80 meters in size. Two phases of construction, an older archaic and a younger classical temple, could be discovered from the temple building . They were both about 8 by 15 m in size. After the first temple was demolished, the second was built in the same place around 440 BC. Built from marble. Architectural fragments are reminiscent of the decoration of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis . Furthermore, Petrie found a temple of the Dioscuri to the north and an Aphrodite sanctuary to the south and a district that could later be identified by Gardner as Heraion . Gardner was also able to prove two construction phases for the temple of Dioscuri and even three construction phases for that of Aphrodite. To the north, Hogarth found a structure with shrines to Aphrodite, Artemis and Heracles , which he identified as the Hellenion.

In the south of the excavation site, Petrie found a scarab factory and the so-called great temenos , which could later be identified as a Ptolemaic temple. The only entrance to this district was a pylon in the west which, according to Peter, was destroyed during the Persian invasion and later rebuilt by Ptolemy II Philadelphus . Within this district he found a square building with votive offerings under all corners from the time of Ptolemy II. In 1899, a stele of Nectanebos I , later called Naukratis stele, was found in Kum Gaief . Based on the unprocessed and processed mussel shells that were found in Naukratis, it is assumed that a mussel factory was also located here. Numerous iron tools and iron ore were also found, which suggests an iron industry.

Gardner found a Roman era cemetery and one that was used from the Hellenistic to Roman times. He could only find body burial and neither cremation nor mummification . The tombstones showed Greek scenes with Egyptian influence. Both stone and terracotta coffins , large amphorae and wooden coffins with terracotta decoration were used to hold the corpse .

meaning

Under Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt, Naukratis was the only place in Egypt through which goods from Greece could be imported. Because of this peculiarity, Naukratis was more of a trading center than a polis (city-state) in the true sense, but the city was one of the few places in Egypt that had the status of a polis in Ptolemaic times. Naukratis was still inhabited in Christian times and had a bishop at that time.

Sons of the city

Christian bishops

See also

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Michel M. Austin: Greece and Egypt in the Archaic Age. In: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Suppl. 2, Cambridge Philological Society, Cambridge 1970.
  • John Boardman : The Greeks Overseas. Penguin Books, Baltimore 1964.
    • German: colonies and trade of the Greeks: from the late 9th to the 6th century BC Chr. Translated by Karl-Eberhardt u. Grete Felten. Beck, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-406-08039-1
  • Ernest Arthur Gardner: Naukratis, Part II. Trübner & Co., London 1888. (full text)
  • Ursula Höckmann (Hrsg.): Archaeological studies on Naukratis = Archaeological studies on Naukratis 2. Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2007. ISBN 978-3-88462-233-9
    • Part 1: Ursula Höckmann: Cypriot-Greek sculpture from Naukratis and the rest of Egypt. Kouroi, other Greek figure types and sculptured vessels.
    • Part 2: Wolf Koenigs: The archaic Greek components from Naukratis.
  • Ursula Höckmann (Ed.): Greek ceramics of the 7th and 6th centuries. v. From Naukratis and other places in Egypt. (= Archaeological studies on Naukratis. Volume 3). Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2012, ISBN 978-3-88462-318-3 .
    • Part 1: Udo Schlotzhauer: Investigations into archaic Greek ceramics from Naukratis.
    • Part 2: Sabine Weber: Investigations into archaic Greek ceramics from other Egyptian sites.
    • Part 3: Hans Mommsen, Udo Schlotzhauer, Alexandra Villing, Sabine Weber: Determination of the origin of archaic shards from Naukratis and Tell Defenneh by neutron activation analysis .
  • David George Hogarth et al. a .: Excavations at Naukratis. In: The Annual of the British School at Athens . Volume 5, 1898-1899, pp. 26ff. (Full text)
  • David George Hogarth, Hilda Lockhart Lorimer , Campbell Cowan Edgar : Naukratis, 1903. In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 25, 1905, pp. 105-136. (Full text)
  • Albert Leonard jr .: Naukratis. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 561-564.
  • Astrid Möller : Naukratis. Trade in archaic Greece . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0-19-815284-1 .
  • Gabriele Nick: Cyprus-ionic small sculpture made of limestone and alabaster (=  archaeological studies on Naukratis . Volume 1 ). Bibliopolis, Möhnesee 2006, ISBN 3-933925-77-0 .
  • Flinders Petrie : Naukratis. London 1986–88 ( full text ) (Reprint of the London 1888 edition: Ares Publications, Chicago Ill. 1992, ISBN 0-89005-508-4 , ISBN 0-89005-509-2 )
  • Udo Schlotzhauer: Greek ceramics of the 7th and 6th centuries before Christ from Naukratis and other places in Egypt = Archaeological studies on Naukratis 3. Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2012. ISBN 978-3-88462-318-3

Web links

Remarks

  1. Ernest Arthur Gardner : Naukratis. Part II. London 1888, pp. 15, 80.
  2. Eusebius of Caesarea: Chronicon.
  3. Athenaios: Deipnosophistai. 15, 675.
  4. ^ Strabo : Geographica. 801.
  5. Herodotus : Histories. 2, 152-154.
  6. Herodotus: Histories. 2, 178-179.
  7. ^ Oswyn Murray: The early Greece (= Dtv history of antiquity. Volume 4400). German first edition, 5th edition, Dtetscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 978-3-423-04400-4 , p. 283; see. also MM Austin: Greece and Egypt in the Archaic Age. Cambridge 1970 and Boardman: Colonies and Commerce of the Greeks: from the late 9th to the 6th centuries BC Chr. Munich 1981, chapter 4.
  8. Herodotus: Histories. 2, 178-179
  9. ^ Strabo: Geographica. 808
  10. Herodotus: Histories. 2, 135.
  11. Athenaios: Deipnosophistai. 4, 32.
  12. ^ Strabo: Geographica. 803
  13. Herodotus: Histories. 2, 97.
  14. The Naukratis Project includes: 1) an excavation program in Naukratis by an interdisciplinary team. The primary goal is to determine the sequence of layers with which the excavations to date can be classified and the ceramics can be classified. 2) an appraisal of all ancient sites in the vicinity of Naukratis in order to determine the character of the still visible remains, the degree of conservation and the extent of the modern damage caused by agriculture and settlement. William DE Coulson, Albert Leonard Jr .: The Naukratis Project: 1981. In: American Journal of Archeology. (AJA) No. 86, 1982, pp. 260-261.
  15. ^ A. Leonard Jr., WDE Coulson: A Preliminary Survey of the Naukratis Region in the Western Nile Delta. In: Journal of Field Archeology. No. 6, Boston 1979, p. 154. - ("On arriving at Naukratis the visitor may well be disappointed for the entire site of the early excavations is under water, a plight predicted by Petrie in 1886 ..")
  16. Michel Le Quien : Oriens christianus in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, in quo exhibentur Ecclesiae patriarchae caeterique praesules totius Orientis. Paris 1740, 2, p. 523.
  17. ^ Giorgio Fedalto ' Hierarchia Ecclesiastica Orientalis, II: Patriarchatus Alexandriae, Antiochae, Hierosolymitanae. Padua 1988, p. 597.
  18. Stefan Timm : The Christian-Coptic Egypt. Volume 4, Wiesbaden 1982-1992, p. 1749.