ARCHAEOLOGY. (GK.ECO-EGYPTIAN.) 



33 





almost the equal of Karnak. The sculptures 

 with which the chambers and columns are 

 decorated are of most fine and delicate execu- 

 tion, while some of the wall-subjects would 

 not suffer in the comparison if placed side by 

 side with the choicest bas-reliefs of Abydos." 



Necropolis of Ekmeen. Of the cemetery of 

 Ekmeeu, which M. Maspero discovered in 1882, 

 he says in his report for 1885 : " No cemetery 

 ever better deserved the name of necropolis. 

 It is really a city whose inhabitants may be 

 counted by the thousand, and have risen in 

 their turn at our call for fifteen months with- 

 out their number seeming to diminish ; not only 

 is it bored with pits and chambers, but all the 

 natural fissures and faults of the limestone 

 have been utilized for the deposition of bod- 

 ies." Mummies, swathed but coffinless, are 

 piled up in regular layers, like wood in dock- 

 yards ; and on top of these, mummies in wooden 

 cases have been piled up to the ceiling, the top- 

 most ones being jammed in without regard to 

 the damage they might suffer from rubbing. 

 The close crowding of the bodies could not 

 have been explained without information from 

 contemporary documents respecting the man- 

 ner in which the care of the dead was pro- 

 vided for. Persons of moderate fortune and 

 of the middle classes intrusted the mummies of 

 their relatives to undertakers, affiliated with 

 the priesthood, who lodged them in store- 

 houses, and in consideration of an annual rent 

 obligated themselves to take care of them and 

 perform the prescribed services over them on 

 the appointed days. When the rent ceased to 

 be paid, the mummy-keepers would send them 

 away. In a quarter of the cemetery occupied 

 by families that were contemporary with the 

 Antonines, the mummies seemed to be of an 

 entirely new type. Most of them represent 

 the corpse clothed in festal garments and reveal 

 its exact form, as if made in a mold of it. In 

 the mummies of the women particularly, the 

 smallest details of the body under the vest- 

 ment are exhibited with a curious distinct- 

 ness. 



Naucratis and its Gneco-Egyptian Relics. Mr. H. 

 Flinders Petrie began his second season of work 

 under the direction of the " Egypt Exploration 

 Fund" late in the autumn of 1884, at Nebireh, 

 a place that he had previously observed, and 

 had mentioned in his address at the meeting 

 of the Fund, as " a promising Greek site." It 

 is a short distance northeast of the station of 

 Tell-el-Barud, on the railway from Alexandria 

 to Cairo. He had not been long at work there 

 before he found an inscription recording cer- 

 tain honors that had been conferred upon one 

 Heliodorus, a deserving citizen, a priest of 

 Athena, by the city of Naucratis ; and this, with 

 other Greek inscriptions and objects which he 

 afterward found, led him to suppose that the 

 place might be on the site of the ancient Greek 

 emporium of Naucratis, which reached its cul- 

 mination as a center of Grecian civilization 

 and a commercial mart in the age of Amasis. 

 VOL. xxv. 3 A 



Further investigations have confirmed his opin- 

 ion, and established it almost to a certainty. 

 Though the city of N aucratis held a very im- 

 portant position during the later Egyptian 

 dynasties, it had disappeared in the time of 

 Commodus, and its site was wholly unknown 

 and hardly conjectured until Mr. Petrie came 

 upon it almost by accident in 1884. During 

 the working season of 1885 the greater part of 

 the mound of Nebireh was trenched, cleared, 

 and thoroughly explored ; and it has yielded a 

 multitude of treasures of early Grecian and 

 Graeco-Egyptian art. Among the buildings dis- 

 covered were the sites and ruins, with their 

 sacred inclosures, of two temples dedicated to 

 Apollo ; one built of limestone, and assigned, 

 from its architectural peculiarities, to between 

 700 B. o. and 600 B. c. ; and the other, of white 

 marble, exquisitely decorated, which is assigned 

 to about 400s. c. Outside the temenos-wall 

 of one of these temples was a deposit of mag- 

 nificent libation-bowls, which had been broken 

 in the service and thrown out as useless, most 

 of which were inscribed with votive dedica- 

 tions by pious Milesians, Teans, and others. 

 A bowl dedicated to Hera, one to Zeus, and 

 several to Aphrodite, were found, but the sites 

 of the temples of those deities have not yet 

 been identified. Other objects, the discovery 

 of which goes to confirm the identification of 

 the place, are, a fine inscribed stone commemo- 

 rating the dedication of a palaestra ; a collection 

 of weights; coins of^Egina, Samoa, Chios, and 

 Athens ; and a copper piece, the designs and in- 

 scriptions on which indicate that it was a coin 

 of the confederate cities of Alexandria and Nau- 

 cratis, struck at the time of the revolt during 

 the minority of Ptolemy V. The lines of the 

 ancient streets of the town have been traced, 

 and the position of the Agora defined. Under 

 the highest part of the mound was excavated 

 an immense building, erected as a kind of plat- 

 form and containing many chambers on two 

 levels. The lower series of chambers have no 

 doorways, but were apparently entered from 

 above, after the manner of the ancient Egyptian 

 store-houses or granaries ; while the chambers 

 on the higher level, none of which communi- 

 cate with one another, open upon a series of 

 intersecting corridors or passages. This is sup- 

 posed to have been some kind of store-house, 

 or a depot for the reception of foreign goods ; 

 or, perhaps, the Hellenium, a building erected 

 by the subscriptions of many Greek cities for 

 purposes partly commercial and partly relig- 

 ious. Votive deposits were found at the four 

 corners of the entrance-gateway of the inclos- 

 ure surrounding this building, consisting of 

 miniature libation-vases and cups in porcelain ; 

 alabaster jugs and limestone mortars ; trowels, 

 chisels, hoes, and knives, in bronze and iron ; 

 bricks of mud, limestone, and porcelain ; ingots 

 of silver, copper, iron, and tin ; specimens of 

 leaf-gold ; and tiny plaques of jasper, lapis 

 lazuli, turquoise, agate, quartz, and obsidian. 

 With these were found some small cartouch- 



