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Chapter I: THE EXPLORER IN EGYPT. [continued]
Fig.7:
Plan of Naukratis. The plan is reduced from Mr. Petrie's large plate in
"Naukratis," Part I., and shows the lines of the ancient streets, and
the sites of such temples and public buildings as were discovered in
the course of the first season's work, including the Great Temenos
(Pan- Hellenion). The temples of Hera and Aphrodite were found the
following year. The canal to left follows the course of the ancient
canal which formed the famous "port" of the city.
[p.26] The discovery and excavation of the scanty
ruins of 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 despair. Ebers looked
for it at Dessuk, and Mariette at Salhadscher, in the neighborhood of
Sa'is. 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 Delta,
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 crashing 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. [p.27]
The local name of the mound and of the
adjacent village (for which it is vain to look in any guide-book maps)
is Nebireh. 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 was the first European traveller
who had set foot in that secluded hamlet; and when he applied for
permission to excavate the mound, he found the place unknown, even by
name, to the official world at Bulak. The painted pot- sherds with
which the place was strewn, literally "thick as leaves in Vallombrosa,"
proved on examination to be even more beautiful and various than he had
at first supposed. Here were cup-handles with men's heads modelled in
relief; [p.28] fragments of archaic vases painted in black and crimson
on a buff ground with figures of griffins, hogs, and the like;
fragments of light brown ware with archaic animals in black and red,
the ground jparseme with flowers; others of the finest work, with
figures of horses, goddesses, and so forth, left in the brown body on a
black ground; and a great abundance of all the common sorts of red
pottery with raised patterns of lines and balls, brown with red
fret-work, black on bronze picked out with chocolate and white, and
many more varieties than I have space to enumerate. With these he also
found fragments of Greek and Cypriote statuettes in limestone and
alabaster; pottery and limestone whorls (some notched where worn by the
thread) ; stamped amphora-handles, Greek and Egyptian weights, beads,
terra-cotta statuettes, and small objects of various kinds in green
glazed ware.
Strangely enough, Mr. Petrie seems to have
had no suspicion of the truth, and when, on the fourth day after his
arrival at Nebireh, he discovered a limestone slab engraved with an
inscription in honor of one Heliodorus, a citizen of Naukratis, he was
utterly taken by surprise. "I almost jumped," he said," when I read
these words:”
''The City of Naukratis [honors]
Heliodorus, son of Dorion Philo . . .
Priest of Athena for life . . .
Keeper of The Records for virtue and good-will."
So,
here was Naukratis that ancient and famous mart where Greek and
Egyptian first dwelt and traded together on equal terms; Naukratis,
founded, as it is believed, by Milesian colonists; granted, with
special privileges and charters, to the Hellenic tribes by Amasis II of
the Twenty- sixth [p.29] Egyptian Dynasty; and renowned in the times of
Athengeus and Herodotus for the skill of its potters and the taste of
its florists! And now discovery followed fast upon discovery, every
day's work bringing more and more corroborative evidence to light.
Inscriptions, coins, sculptures, bronzes, terra-cottas turned up in
astonishing profusion, and among other treasures a fine slab engraved
with the dedication of a palaestra, or public wrestling-school, for the
youth of the city. As the trenching and clearing progressed, yet more
important results were obtained. The sites, ruins, and sacred
enclosures of two temples dedicated to Apollo the one erected upon the
debris of the other were first brought to light.
The
earlier structure was built of limestone, and, to judge by the style of
columns and cornice, dates from about 700 to 600 BC. The later (circa
400 BC) was of white marble, and exquisitely decorated. Close outside
the temenos-wall of one of these temples Mr. Petrie came upon a great
deposit of magnificent libation-bowls, accidentally broken in the
service of the temple, and thrown out as useless. Most of them are
inscribed with votive dedications by pious Milesians, Teans, and
others. Later on, the remains of the famous Pan-Hellenion, and the
ruins of the temples of Hera, Zeus, and Aphrodite were discovered, all
of them mentioned by Herodotus and Athenaeus.
These discoveries were
the work of two successive seasons, the first season's explorations
being conducted by Mr. Petrie, and the second by Mr. Ernest A. Gardner,
now Director of the English School of Archaeology at Athens. The [p.30]
lines of the streets of the ancient city were yet traceable ; the
"potters' quarter" was identified; and not only were several of the
potters' kilns found intact, but also the ruins of a potter's factory.
This potter, whomsoever he may have been, did a great trade in scarabs.
He made all sorts of things miscellaneous amulets, toys, gods, beads,
and so forth but scarabs were his specialty. The Egyptian scarab is now
so familiar an object in all museums and private collections that I
need hardly describe how these tiny amulets are made in the shape of a
beetle the backs exactly imitated from nature, but the undersides
engraved, like seals, with an immense variety of devices, such as
mottoes, sacred emblems, figures of gods and kings, scrolls, animals,
fish, flowers, and the like. In the ruins of this old artist's
workshops Mr. Petrie found hundreds of scarabs, finished and
unfinished, hundreds of clay moulds for casting the same, lumps of
various pigments for coloring the scarabs, and other appliances of the
trade. The scarab-maker's business came somehow to an untimely end
about five hundred and seventy years before Christ; for the place had
evidently been suddenly deserted, all the good man's stock in trade
being left behind. As the Greek colonists fought at that time on the
side of Apries, the legitimate Pharaoh, when Amasis revolted and
usurped the throne, we may fairly conclude that Naukratis suffered for
the loyalty of her inhabitants, and that our scarab-maker was ruined
with the rest of his fellow-citizens.
In another part of
the town Mr. Petrie came upon the remains of a jeweller's workshop,
containing a quantity of lump silver, and a large store of beautiful
archaic Greek coins, fresh from the mint of Athens. These coins had
never been in circulation, and they were doubtless intended to be made
up into necklaces and earrings, after a fashion much admired by the
fair ladies of Hellas, and recently revived by the jewellers of modern
Europe.
Most important, also, is the evidence here brought
to bear upon the origin and growth of the ceramic arts of Greece.
Patterns which we had long believed to be purely Greek are [p.31] now
traced back, step by step, to Egyptian originals. The well-known "Greek
honeysuckle" pattern, for instance, is found to be neither Greek nor
honeysuckle. The Naukratis pottery furnishes specimens of this design
in all its stages. In its most archaic form, it is neither more nor
less than the stock "lotus pattern" of the Egyptian potters. Taken
in hand by the Greek, it becomes expanded, lightened, and transformed.
Yet more important is the light thrown upon the origin and development
of Greek art. We have long known that the early Greek, when emerging
from prehistoric barbarism, must have gone to school to the Delta and
the Valley of the Nile, not only for his first lessons in letters and
science, but also for his earliest notions of architecture and the
arts. Now, however, for the first time, we are placed in possession of
direct evidence of these facts. We see the process of teaching on the
part of the elder nation, and of learning on the part of the younger.
Every link in the chain which connects the ceramic art of Greece with
the ceramic art of Egypt is displayed before our eyes in the potsherds
of Naukratis.
More novel
and curious than all, however, was a series of discoveries of
ceremonial deposits buried under the four corners of a building
adjoining the Pan-Hellenion (fig.8).
The enclosure wall of the
Pan-Hellenion was fifty feet thick and forty feet high, and it was
built about [p.32] six hundred or six hundred and fifty years before
the Christian era. Within this enclosure "were clustered not only the
temples of the gods, but the treasury and storehouses of the citizens,
who were essentially a trading and manufacturing community. In a later
age Ptolemy Philadelphus appears to have filled up a breach in this
wall with a great building and gate-way, and it was under the four
corners of this gate-way that the masonic deposits of the royal builder
were found. Under each corner, upon the dark clay of the soil, had been
laid a little bed of white sand; and in this bed of white sand, which
Mr. Petrie scraped away with his own hands, he found a whole series of
diminutive models laid in a specially prepared hole, upon which sand
had afterwards been poured in such wise as completely to cover the
objects beneath.
This set of masonic deposits,
as also those discovered by M. Naville at Tell Qarinus, are in the
British Museum. These objects were of three kinds;
namely, models of tools, models of materials, and models commemorative
of the ceremony performed in laying the foundations. There was, for
instance, a model hoe for digging out the ground; a model rake, such as
those used for making mortar; a model adze; a model chisel; a tiny
trowel for spreading the mortar; a model hatchet for shaping the beams;
and four little alabaster pegs models of those used to mark out the
four corners of the building. These were the models of tools.
Then
came models of articles used in the masonic ceremony : a model mortar
and pair of corn-rubbers, a pair of model libation-vases, and four
model cups in glazed pottery. These, probably, had reference to some
rite in which offerings of bread, oil, and wine were made. Also, there
was found with them a model sacrificial knife and axe, such as might be
used for the slaying of victims. These were the ceremonial objects.
Finally,
there were samples of materials: a model brick of Nile clay; a tiny
plaque of glazed-ware; other plaques of lapis lazuli, agate, jasper,
turquoise, and obsidian; a Liliputian ingot of iron; and other ingots
of copper, silver, lead, and gold. The largest of these are less than a
domino, and the majority [p.33] are less than half that size. Last of
all last and lowest so firmly attached by a bed of rust to the handle
of a second miniature bronze trowel that it could not be removed
without danger of breakage, was found a little plaque of oval lapis
lazuli in the form of a royal cartouche, engraved with the names and
titles of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The model clay brick shows the material
of the mass of the building ; the plaque of glazed- ware represents the
tile-facings and general surface decoration ; while the plaques of
precious stones show the more costly substances used for inlaying.
These objects are now in the British Museum. They are most beautifully
wrought, in perfect preservation, and so small, that they would all lie
upon a sheet of letter-paper. This was the first discovery of masonic
deposits ever made in Egypt, and it marks an entirely new departure in
the field of exploration. It is impossible, indeed, to over-estimate
the historical value of a discovery which thus places in our hands for
future use a key to the* age and date of every important building in
Egypt.
This discovery was made five years ago, and it has
already borne abundant fruit. Masonic deposits were found by Mr. Petrie
in 1886, at Tell Nebesheh, under the substructions of a temple built by
Amasis II. in the ancient Egyptian city of [p.34] Am; and again under
the substructions of a ruined temple at Tell Gemayemi, during the same
year, by Mr. Griffith. At Tell Qarmus, in 1887, M. Naville also
discovered a series of ceremonial deposits of the time of Philip
Arrhideus. Explorers, in short, now make systematic search for
foundation deposits, and up to the present time, with but one
exception, they have invariably found them.
No
large works of sculpture were found in the ruins of Naukratis, with the
exception of two much-damaged sphinx- es and the remains of a headless
colossal ram in white marble. Hands, feet, and other fragments of
life-size statues were, however, turned up in the precincts of the
various temples, besides a large number of smaller heads and torsos of
marble, limestone, and terra-cotta. Some of these represent [p.35] the
deities worshipped in these temples, while others are fashioned in the
likeness of their votaries. Some, again, date from the rude archaic
beginn
Fig.9:
Archaic Statuette of a Hunter, found in tho ruins of the Temple of Aphrodite at Naukratis. (British Museum, Greek department.)
The treatment of the head and hair is distinctly Cypriote in
style, while the rigidity of the pose, and the "hieratic" position of
the feet and arms, are as distinctly Egyptian. A much-defaced votive
inscription in archaic Greek characters is engraved on the right leg.
Found on the same site, but widely separate in date, is the beautiful
terra-cotta head of Aphrodite, here reproduced as an example of the
high degree of perfection to which the Greek artists of Naukratis had
attained before the decadence of the city, when superseded by
Alexandria (fig.10). The excavation of the Temple of Aphrodite proved to be
extraordinarily rich in fragments of painted andinscribed Greek ware.
A huge trench appears to have been dug round the temple plat- form in
ancient times, and into this trench must have been thrown an immense
store of bowls, vases, cups, and figurines the ceramic treasures of the
temple. The clearing of this mine of precious fragments occupied Mr.
Gardner for several weeks, six or seven basketfuls being the result of
each day's work.
Fig.10: Head of Aphrodite. From the ruins
of the Temple of Aphrodite, Naukratis. Alexandrian period. (British Museum, Greek department).
[p.36]
One week alone - the week ending on February 13, 1886 - yielded no less
than thirty-five large basketfuls of these exquisite potsherds, making,
at a rough computation, about four hundred and fifty pounds in weight,
or a total number of twenty-five thousand fragments. The sorting and
classifying of the fragments consumed more than a year of Mr. Gardners
time; and about twenty or twenty-five vases, bowls, and other objects
have been put together more or less completely. Two of these mended
bowls, described by Mr. Ernest A. Gardner as among "the most
magnificent examples of ancient pottery found at Naukratis" are here
reproduced (figs. 11,12). These bowls have each two triple handles terminating in a
human face at each end ; while midway between the handles on each side
is a boss with two faces back to back. A frieze of gazelles browsing on
a ground parseme with floral and other emblems, runs round the outside;
the inside being decorated with a central star-shaped ornament
surrounded by a frieze of
Fig.11 (right): Votive bowl (mended) discovered in the great trench of the Temple of Aphrodite, Naukratis. (British Museum.)
Fig.12 below): Votive bowl from Naukratis, seen from above (British Museum).
lions, geese, sphinxes, etc. Some of these
votive offerings, as shown by the graffiti of the donors, were given by
citizens of Teos, and others by Milesians. Taken chronologically, these
Naukratis fragments - for they are mostly fragments -constitute not
only a series of valuable finds, but an "object-lesson" of the highest
interest on the history of the ceramic arts of Greece. We irst of all
detect the Milesian colonist trying his "apprentice hand" at
scarab-making, and producing at best but a blundering imitation of that
popular product of his adopted home. Next we find him taking to
pottery, properly so called; and, with the vivacious fancy of his race,
adapting, varying, and playing with the old stock subjects of Egyptian
ornament. Presently he casts aside the trammels of tradition and
launches out into a style of his own a style as purely Hellenic, and as
original, as if his first lessons had never been learned in an Oriental
school.
Fig.13: Gorgoneia (From the
cemetery, Naukratis.) The Greeks of the later period at Naukratis were
interred for the most part in wooden coffins ornamented with rosettes,
gryphons, and gorgoneia in terra-cotta, painted and gilded. These
gorgoneia are moulded in the classic type of the Alexandrian period.
[Continue to Chapter 2.] |
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