Naukratis: the Greeks in Egypt

Project leader: Alexandra Villing

Department: Greece and Rome

Project start: 2004
End date: 2013

Other British Museum staff:

Project curators:

• Marianne Bergeron
• François Leclère
• Ross Thomas

Contributors:

• Jeffrey Spencer, Neal Spencer (Ancient Egypt
  and Sudan)
• Michela Spataro, Rebecca Stacey, Caroline
  Cartwright (Conservation and Scientific Research)

External partners:

• Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
• Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge
• More than 50 other museums and collections worldwide holding material from Naukratis
• Dr Penelope Wilson, Department of Archaeology, Durham University
• Dr Alan Johnston, University College London
• Prof Ursula Höckmann, Mainz
• Dr Udo Schlotzhauer, German Archaeological Institute, Eurasia Department, Berlin, Germany
• Prof Hans Mommsen, Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, Universität Bonn

Project funded by:

• The Leverhulme Trust
• The Shelby White - Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications
• The British Museum
• The Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Germany, and the British Museum's Caryatid Group of Supporters of the Greek and Roman Department generously supported the Colloquium Naukratis: Greek Diversity in Egypt (2004).

Description:

The ancient city of Naukratis, a Greek trading post in Egypt, was a centre of cross-cultural contact in the ancient world. Yet 130 years after its re-discovery and excavation, the site and its history still remain little understood.

Ancient Naukratis was rediscovered in 1883-4 by Sir William Flinders Petrie, pioneer of Egyptian archaeology. Later excavations by Petrie and others revealed remains of several Greek sanctuaries, houses, workshops, a cemetery, and an Egyptian temple. They produced thousands of finds, including painted Greek pottery; Greek, Cypriot and Phoenician transport amphorae; stone sculptures and terracotta figurines; faience scarabs and amulets; tridacna shells; alabaster alabastra; bronze figurines; iron tools; weights; coins, jewellery and architectural elements. These finds were soon distributed to collections and museums all over the world.

Less than half have ever been studied or catalogued, and the Egyptian and Ptolemaic material in particular deserves more attention. As a consequence, much of the history of the site and what it can reveal about interactions between Greeks, Egyptians and other peoples remains undiscovered.

The Naukratis project, an interdisciplinary venture involving both Greek archaeologists and Egyptologists, aims to remedy this situation by re-evaluating the early excavations and by cataloguing and analysing the numerous finds they produced. The British Museum, holding several thousand of these finds, is the natural centre for such a project.

Objectives:

This project is studying the excavated objects, and re-evaluating the archaeology, development and role of the site in Greek-Egyptian relations.

Fundamental to this is a catalogue containing the complete body of about 13,000 surviving finds from the early excavations at Naukratis, which are currently in more than 60 museums and collections worldwide, and their recontextualisation with the help of publications and archival material.

This will be published as a British Museum Online research catalogue, containing the complete catalogue of finds in the shape of a searchable database, as well as analyses of the site’s history and archaeology and its place in the development of Greek-Egyptian relations.

In this way, one of the richest archaeological assemblages in the Eastern Mediterranean and important cultural crossroads will be made to speak to us once more.

Publications:

A. Villing and U. Schlotzhauer (eds), Naukratis: Greek Diversity in Egypt. Studies on East Greek Pottery and Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean (London, 2006)

M. Spataro and A. Villing, “Scientific Investigation of Pottery Grinding Bowls in the Archaic and Classical Eastern Mediterranean”, British Museum Technical Research Bulletin 3 (2009) pp. 89-100

R. Stacey, C. Cartwright, S. Tanimoto and A. Villing, ‘Coatings and Contents: Investigations of Residues on some 6th century BC Vessel Sherds from Naukratis (Egypt)’, British Museum Technical Research Bulletin 4 (2010) pp. 19-26

A. Villing, ‘Egyptian connection’, British Museum Magazine 56 (Autumn-Winter 2006), 46-48

Images (from top):

• Faience head of a Ptolemaic queen, probably Arsinoe II, found at Naukratis (1888,0601.38)
• Archaic Cypriot terracotta figure of a sphinx, found at Naukratis (1888,0601.101)
• David Hogarth’s excavations at Naukratis