Ancient Naukratis: Excavations at a Greek Emporium in Egypt, Part 1: Excavations at Kom Ge'if

439 Pages·1997·90.035 MB·English

by  Albert Leonard

ANCIENT NAUKRATIS
Excavations at a Greek Emporium in Egypt
Part I
The Excavations at Kom Ge’if
i
THE ANNUAL OF
THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH
Volume 54
Series Editor
Nancy Lapp
ii
ANCIENT NAUKRATIS
Excavations at a Greek Emporium in Egypt
Part I
The Excavations at Kom Ge’if
by
Albert Leonard, Jr.
with contributions by
Andrea Berlin, Douglas J. Brewer,
Brian S. Chisholm, Patricia Crawford, Joanne Curtin,
Jeanne Hourston-Wright, and David S. Reese
American Schools of Oriental Research
iii
ANCIENT NAUKRATIS
EXCAVATIONS AT A GREEK EMPORIUM IN EGYPT
Part I
The Excavations at Kom Ge’if
By
Albert Leonard, Jr.
Volume 1 in the Ancient Naukratis series.
The Ancient Naukratis series is edited by
William D. E. Coulson
Albert Leonard, Jr.
Co-directors, Naukratis Project
Volumes in this series already published are:
Vol. 2, Part I The Survey at Naukratis, by William D. E. Coulson
Vol. 3 The Tomb Chamber of Hsw the Elder: The Inscribed Material at
Kom El-Hisn I: Illustrations, by D. P. Silverman
Vol. 6 Greek Painted Pottery from Naukratis in Egyptian Museums,
by Marjorie S. Venit
This volume has been published with the assistance of the
Provost’s Author Support Fund of the University of Arizona.
ç1997
American Schools of Oriental Research
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leonard, Albert.
Ancient Naukratis / by Albert Leonard, Jr. : with contribu-
tions by Andrea Berlin . . . [et al.].
p. cm. — (Annual of the American Schools of Ori-
ental Research : v. 54)
Includes bibliographical references.
Contents: V. 1. The excavations at Naukratis. Pt. 1. The ex-
cavations at Kom Ge’if —
ISBN 0-7885-0392-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Naucratis (Extinct city) 2. Excavations (Archaeol-
ogy)—Egypt—Naucratis (Extinct city). I. Berlin, Andrea.
II. Title. III. Series.
DT73.N3L46 1997
932—dc21 97-28045
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper. †
iv
To Mary
v
The di¯culty of detecting and following brick walls in the saturated
clay of Naukratis is far greater than I have observed anywhere
else, and fully bears out the words of Mr. Petrie and
Mr. Gardner . . . We used all possible care
in the search and now record
faithfully just what we
found: we can
do no more.
(Hogarth 1898–1899: 31)
vi
Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
List of Plates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
List of Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Chapter 1. A History of the Excavations at Naukratis/Kom Ge’if, Albert Leonard, Jr. . . . 1
Chapter 2. Excavations in the Northwest Area, Albert Leonard, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Chapter 3. Excavations in the Southeast Area, Albert Leonard, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Chapter 4. Excavations in the Northeast Area, Albert Leonard, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Chapter 5. Excavations in the North Area, Albert Leonard, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Chapter 6. The Pottery from the Northwest and North Areas, Andrea Berlin. . . . . . . . . . 136
Chapter 7. Miscellaneous Material Culture, Albert Leonard, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Chapter 8. The Carbonized Plant Remains, Patricia Crawford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Chapter 9. The Human Burials in the South Mound, A. Joanne Curtin, Jeanne
Hourston-Wright, and Brian S. Chisholm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Chapter 10. The Animal Bones and Shells, David S. Reese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Chapter 11. The Fish Bones, Douglas J. Brewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Appendix Field Pottery Fabric Types, Albert Leonard, Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Plates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
vii
viii
Preface
The work of the Naukratis Project has been concentrated in the western Nile Delta, speci˜cally
in an area bounded by the sites of El-Barnugi in the north and Kom el-Hisn in the south (see ˜g. 1.1).
This area contains the ancient city of Naukratis (modern Kom Ge’if), which. according to the Greek
Historian Herodotus, was the ˜rst and only city in which the early Greek merchants were allowed to
settle. The area also contains a number of other sites dating from Pharaonic through later Roman
times. Unfortunately, little is known of these sites and their state of preservation. Indeed, the process
of decay and modern encroachment has been so serious in the Delta that a resolution was passed at
the Second International Congress of Egyptologists held at Grenoble, France, in September 1979,
giving top priority to survey work in the Delta. Accordingly, the Naukratis Project has involved:
1) A survey of all ancient sites within an approximate 30 km area to the north and west of Naukratis
in order to learn more about the environs of the city. Such a survey has assessed the character of the
visible remains, the state of site preservation, and the extent of intrusions made by modern settlements
and cultivation (see now Coulson 1996: 2) a program of excavation at the site of Naukratis based on
modern excavation techniques and backed by an interdisciplinary support staˆ.
This volume of the Ancient Naukratis series is divided into two volumes. The ˜rst describes the
results of the excavation at the southern end of the ancient city at a mound within the village of Kom
Ge’if; the second volume details the excavations to the northeast of that village in an area known to
both Petrie and local farmers as Kom Hadid.
Because the details of the stratigraphy at Naukratis had been debated for almost a century, the
strategy of our excavations in the South Mound at Kom Ge’if was to present ˜rst the maximum ver-
tical exposure of the archaeological soils still extant between the rising ground water and the sebakhin-
scarred surface of the ancient site. Then, after we had produced a clear understanding of the historical
periods that were still preserved at Naukratis, we would direct our emphasis to the clearing of larger
(horizontal) areas in an attempt to elucidate the type(s) of occupation represented by each chrono-
logical/historical phase in the life of the inhabitants of this famous emporium.
Excavation was conducted according to a modi˜ed “Wheeler-Kenyon” (balk/debris) method of
excavation (Dever and Lance 1978; Seger 1971) that was speci˜cally tailored to meet the particular
problems of excavation in the Nile Delta. At Naukratis all archaeological excavation was done by the
excavation team and volunteers under strict supervision by experienced ˜eld and square supervisors.
The use of local labor was limited to the removal of already-excavated soils, the washing of pottery,
and guarding of excavation areas. Our ga˜r, Mr. Ahmed Shehab Mousa, the local antiquities guard,
provided immeasurable help in securing quali˜ed people to help us in this respect.
The basis of our recording system is the Locus, de˜ned simply as any three dimensional entity
encountered during the excavation process. Loci can be either arti˜cial (a procedural device more
commonly termed a probe), or they may be authentic (such as a wall, pit, soil lens, or ˘oor). Occa-
sionally a Locus will carry a “Point P” su¯x (Locus XXXX.P) a device that is restricted to artifactual
and ecofactual material found directly on a ˘oor or surface, and is used to call attention to the asso-
ciation of that material to the ˘oor/surface. Also used is a “Point One” su¯x (Locus XXXX.1), which
is used as a control when collecting the ˜rst 10 cm below such occupation surfaces.
The basic unit of our excavation system is the “pottery bag,” which represents the speci˜c material
collected from a precisely-recorded, three-dimensional entity and in that regard may be considered to
ix
x Preface AASOR 54
be a mini-Locus (Seger 1971: 16). A pottery bag may be excavated as one Locus and on the basis
of subsequent study be reassigned to another Locus, but it always remains intact and cannot be
subdivided. Any suspicion of contamination in a pottery bag automatically reassigns it to the latest
of the Loci under consideration, or to Top-soil. A typical pottery bag from our excavations might be
recorded as “N.I.492.40,” which stands for Naukratis, Field I (Kom Ge’if), Area/Square 492, Bag 40.
This will have been the fortieth bag assigned during the excavation in Area 492, and that was assigned
(or reassigned) to Locus 49214, a Locus that is considered to be part of Northwest Phase 8B.
Artifacts (e.g., pottery, glass, coins) as well as ecofacts (e.g., bone, shell, soil samples) are all at-
tached to an individual pottery bag so that if that bag is reassigned during the interpretive phase, all
of the material culture will remain (and move) together. Ceramic artifacts other than sherds as well
as other objects of material culture are assigned a Material Culture Number (MC#) sequentially as the
excavation progresses in a given square. They are also tied to the recording of the pottery bag but,
since the numbers are assigned in the square notebook, there may be more than one MC#27 but there
will only be one MC#27 from Area/Square 315—that from pottery bag N.I.315.38 which is assigned
to Locus 31514.
The present volume, therefore, presents the ˜rst of the two-part ˜nal report on our excavations
at the ancient city of Naukratis, speci˜cally the work in the “South Mound” in the modern village of
Kom Ge’if. Chapter 1, written solely by the present author, attempts to put the work of the Naukratis
Project in the context of the previous excavations and interpretations of the site. It should now be read
in conjunction with Richard Sullivan’s “Psammetichus I and the Foundation of Naukratis” (Coulson
1996: 177–95) which was unavailable to me at the time that this chapter was written. Chapters 2
through 5, also by the present author, describe the stratigraphy and supply interpretation for the ex-
cavations in the four major areas of the South Mound. Although the interpretations are those of the
author, their formulation was assisted by the ˜ne stratigraphical eye of Cynthia Johnson-Romy who
did much to put this material in order. Ultimately these chapters are based on the meticulous exca-
vation done by an exceptionally dedicated cadre of volunteers and faithfully recorded by area/square
and ˜eld supervisors. The Locus Summaries appended to each chapter re˘ect the work of many of the
staˆ members and specialists. Chapter 6, on the pottery from the North and Northwest Areas, is the
work of Andrea Berlin who joined us late in the study phase our project, but whose scholarship and
personality breathed new life into the publication process. Chapter 7, dealing with miscellaneous
pieces of the material culture, is not intended to be the last word on these pieces but rather an attempt
to present them in a manner in which others might make use of them in future research. Chapter 8
is the study of the carbonized plant remains that were collected by a ˘otation system designed and
constructed in the ˜eld by Julie Hansen. She and Patricia Crawford sorted most of the samples that
were allowed to be sent to the U.S. by the Egyptian Organization of Antiquities, after which Craw-
ford brought the analysis through to the point of completion. Chapter 9, which records and examines
the human remains from the cemetery that covered the South Mound, ˜nds its genesis in the work
of Jeanne Hourston-Wright and Joanne Curtin who excavated and stabilized the burials themselves,
and who produced an exemplary ˜eld report of their work. This work was subsequently expanded
through the help of Brian Chisholm producing the basis of the chapter that appears in this volume.
Despite numerous attempts over the years, the author has been unable to reestablish contact with
these authors and so their report is produced here as it was originally submitted with a minimum of
editing by the author for consistency in format. The Human Remains Catalogue (HRC) appended to