Villing - 24 Naukratis - Religion in A Cross-Cultural Context

Naukratis: religion in a cross-cultural context
Alexandra Villing
British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 24 (2019): 204–247
ISSN 2049-5021
Naukratis: religion in a cross-cultural context
Alexandra Villing
‘The Jew, the Mahometan and the Christian deal with one another as if they were from the
same religion, and only call infidels those who go bankrupt’: Voltaire’s famous words about
the London Stock Exchange in the early 18th century highlight how the pursuit of profit can
unite representatives of different faiths in one common aim.1 In the ancient world, too, trade
and commerce brought into contact not just different peoples but also their religious practices
and ideas and these, in turn, could acquire a vital role in such cross-cultural contact. This is
true also for interrelations between Egypt and the Mediterranean world in the 1st millennium
BC (Villing 2017b, with further literature). Egyptian pharaohs offered diplomatic gifts to
major Greek sanctuaries; Greek and other foreign mercenaries made dedications to Egyptian
sanctuaries and erected tomb monuments combining Egyptian and foreign funerary rites; and
trading ports hosting ethnically mixed populations and their sanctuaries became gateways for
economic exchange between Egypt and the Mediterranean world.
One such interface was the port city of Naukratis, located on the Canopic branch of the Nile,
some 80km inland of the Mediterranean Sea and of its sea-facing sister-port Thonis-Heracleion
(Fig. 1). As a place where from the late 7th century BC Greeks (and other foreigners) lived
and worshipped side by side with Egyptians, Naukratis offers a unique perspective on the role
of religion in the interaction between Egypt and its neighbours that has attracted increasing
scholarly interest of late (Demetriou 2012; 2017; Daniels 2015; Williams 2015). Drawing on the
latest research on Naukratis and referencing some of the key trajectories of current scholarship,
the present article aims to provide an overview of the religious landscape of Naukratis set
into a wider comparative framework, both past and present. A discussion of (some) historical
approaches to cross-cultural trade and trading ports from the 19th to the 21st century provides
the historiographical background for assessments of Naukratis. It is followed by an outline of
the city’s sacred and economic topography and connectivity, before a final section explores how
archaeological and historical evidence and comparative data available to us today may help to
shed light on the relationship between religious and commercial practices and processes in a
pluri-ethnic port.
1 Voltaire, Lettre VI. Sur les Presbytériens, in Lettres philosophiques, Amsterdam 1734. Translation modified from Gekas
and Grenet 2011, 89. I am grateful to Alan Johnston, Barbara Kowalzig, Aurélia Masson-Berghoff, Astrid Möller and Ross
Thomas for helpful discussion and comments during the gestation of this article.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Villing_24.pdf
2019 NAUKRATIS: RELIGION IN A CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT 206

Fig. 1: Map of the Egyptian Nile Delta with ancient sites, Nile channels and canals marked. © François Leclère,
based on satellite image of 02 05 2003, Visible Earth Record no. 24588 (Jacques Descloitres, Modis Rapid
Response Team, NASA/GSFC).
Economy, religion and cross-cultural encounters
Historical perspectives on trading ports: from the 19th to the 21st century
With most of Archaic Greek trade, and a substantial portion of Classical trade, probably passing
through the port, Naukratis was a key hub in the commercial networks that linked Egypt and the
Greek world.2 Its role as a gateway was reflected in its dual economic structure: as is clear from
the decree inscribed by pharaoh Nectanebo I in 380 BC on a pair of nearly identical basalt stelae
erected at both Thonis-Heracleion and Naukratis (von Bomhard 2012; Fig. 2), Naukratis was
not only a Greek-administered emporion housing Greek traders and their sanctuaries (Herodotus,
Histories 2.178–79; cf. Bresson 2005; Demetriou 2011), but also an Egyptian per-meryt, ‘house/
domain of the harbour/riverbank’, run by and controlled by Egyptian officials and indeed their
temples (Agut-Labordère 2012; cf. Colburn 2018).
Naukratis’ special status as a trading port at the cusp of two great civilisations that united
traders from a dozen otherwise fiercely independent Greek cities has long inspired comparison
2 There is no space here to discuss the nature of trade via Naukratis; for further details and literature see: Möller 2000;
Villing 2013; 2015. The exact date and nature of Naukratis’ trade monopoly is disputed; it is mentioned in Herodotus (2.179)
as a thing of the past and thus appears to have been in place either from the site’s foundation or from the time of Amasis,
until probably the beginning of Persian rule.
207 ALEXANDRA VILLING BMSAES 24

with the great international trading harbours of modern history. For German 19th-century
Egyptologist Georg Ebers (1887, 77), the confederation of Greek merchants at Naukratis recalled
first and foremost the arrangements of the Hanseatic League, a Northern German organisation
of traders and cities that existed from the 12th to the 17th century (Hammel-Kiesow 2000).
With trading stations (kontors and factories) from Novgorod to Lisbon, including a major kontor
at London’s Steelyard, Stalhof (Fig. 3), the Hanse successfully operated across the numerous
political borders that divided not just its trading partners but also, as at Naukratis, its members.
Ebers (as others after him, cf. Krämer 2016, 89) also drew comparisons with the Portuguese and
later Dutch port of Deshima (or Dejima), situated on an artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki
(Fig. 4a). Between the 17th and 19th centuries, foreign traders in isolationist Edo-period Japan
were confined here, largely to stave off the threat of European interference in internal politics
and the propagation of Christianity (Goodman 1986; 2000; Blake Willis 2008). Even though
access to the island was highly regulated, geishas (Fig. 4b) were among those who regularly
crossed the boundary, an aspect that may well have reminded Ebers of the famously beautiful
hetairai of Naukratis (Herodotus, Histories 2.135), some of whom at least may have been Egyptian
(Villing 2013, 86–87; Johnston 2014, 44).
Fig. 2: The ‘decree of Sais’ of Pharaoh Nectanebo

I on the Naukratis stela, 380 BC. Cairo, Egyptian
Museum JE34002. © Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Fig. 3: London Steelyard 1812, etching and engraving by Bartholomew Howlett, ‘The Steel Yard &c. Thames
Street’. British Museum 1880,1113.1512. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Fig. 4: a) Nagasaki bay with Dejima, mid-19th-century Japanese woodblock print. British Museum 1951,0714,0.28.
© Trustees of the British Museum; b) a Dejima prostitute with a portrait of her Dutch lover, Japanese woodblock
print, c. 1800. British Museum 1951,0714,0.20. © Trustees of the British Museum.

For 19th-century British scholars it was treaty ports in China such as Hong Kong or Canton
that most readily sprang to mind as comparisons (Rennell 1830, 530), often carrying with them
colonial notions of cultural hierarchy. Percy Gardner’s (1892, 191) vision of the establishment of
Naukratis as the first step in the domination of ‘uncongenial’ Egypt by the ‘enterprising Hellenic
race’ with its ‘nobler order of ideas’ is perhaps the best-known example, comparing the Greeks in
Egypt with the position of ‘an Englishman in Canton’ – and perhaps, implicitly, the British in late
19th-century Egypt. Flinders Petrie, the first excavator of Naukratis, too, refers to British Treaty
ports, but also the great British manufacturing centres: foregrounding the port’s economic role,
he saw in Naukratis ‘the Greek Hong Kong and Birmingham in one’ (Petrie 1886b, 47).
The fundamental intertwining between wider social, religious and political frameworks and
scholarly knowledge creation is quickly becoming well-trodden ground in the study of 19th-
century Egyptology (Gange 2013), and we are rightly alert to the dangers of facile equations
that illuminate current preconceptions more than ancient realities. Nonetheless, comparative
approaches can be instructive. Among the most productive and influential strands in scholarship
over the past decades have been those that have drawn on ethnographic parallels and modern
economic theory or studied the social networks of trading diasporas. The former have pointed
to how the relationship between locals and foreign traders always carried with it an inherent
tension: cities or states had an economic need to attract foreign traders, which often involved
granting them certain privileges, rights and protections as an economic and social status group;
at the same time they also needed to regulate their activities, not least to mitigate the risk of
political interference and social conflict (Gekas and Grenet 2011; Gelderblom 2013). As Philip
Curtin observed in his classic study (Curtin 1984), cross-cultural trade frequently involved the
physical segregation of foreign traders. In the medieval kingdoms of sub-Saharan Africa, for
example, commercial transactions were handled by Muslims in separate trading or merchants’
towns, close to, but physically distinct from, royal residences. This recalls the situation at Dejima,
but Naukratis, too, has been considered a classic example, from both a cultural and an economic
perspective. Thus, Astrid Möller in her 2000 study of the site argued in detail for Naukratis as
conforming to Karl Polanyi’s economic model of a ‘port-of-trade’, a well-connected but physically
segregated port that facilitated exchange between differently organised economies, in this case
the redistributive, centralised economy of Egypt and the individually enterprising traders of
Greece (Möller 2000; 2001; Graslin and Maucourant 2005).
Undoubtedly Naukratis did indeed function as an intercultural interface within a regulated
environment controlling trade and taxation, but it would probably be a mistake to expect it to
fully adhere in all respects to the ideal type of a port-of-trade (Demetriou 2012; Daniels 2015,
303–5; Krämer 2016). This is not least because rigidly centralised, redistributive models of Near
Eastern economies have been increasingly questioned in recent scholarship, indebted in part to
‘orientalising’ tendencies in scholarship (e.g. Nakassis, Parkinson and Galaty 2011; Bennet and
Halstead 2014; Manning 2018, 42–43, 174–75). Instead, more nuanced models that recognise
a greater interplay between central economic power and private initiative are gaining ground
also for Egypt (Warburton 2010; Zingarelli 2010). This is true especially for the Late Period,
where sources suggest that greater individual economic agency went along with a rise in ‘middle
classes’ and greater local or regional independence (Assmann 1996b, 90–92; Agut-Labordère
2013; Moreno García 2015). New archaeological discoveries, moreover, raise questions regarding
Naukratis’ ‘isolation’ from its hinterland. Finds of Greek fineware pottery at coastal Thonis-

Heracleion (Grataloup 2015), Rhakotis (Weber 2012, 202–04) and Plinthine (Dhennin and Redon
2013; Barahona-Mendieta, Pesenti and Redon 2016) and farther inland at sites such as Kom
el-Ahmar (Mohamed Kenawi, pers. comm.) or the city of Sais (Weber 2012, 209–12; Wilson,
this volume) suggest that exchange with Greeks from the late 7th century BC onwards also
reached sites in the wider region around Naukratis, highlighting the danger of basing historical
conclusions on scant excavation and surface survey data, when much evidence still lies deeply
buried under the Delta’s alluvial soil (Masson-Berghoff and Thomas forthcoming).
These developments are mirrored in scholarship in related fields. A case for considerable
interaction in comparable ‘trading colonies’, for example, has recently been made for the trade
‘diaspora’ of Assyrian merchants residing in kārums (‘ports’) in Anatolia (Gräff 2005; Michel 2014).
Contrary to expectations, the lower city of 19th–18th century BC Kanesh in central Anatolia, a
key centre for long-distance trade, displayed no clear segregation of neighbourhoods (Michel 2014
with further references); rather, textual records indicate that while some areas were dominated
by Assyrians, others housed a mixed population of Assyrians and Anatolians. Domestic material
culture showed little difference between houses, and nor did faunal assemblages (Atici 2014).
On the other hand, Assyrians clearly retained at least some of their funerary and, importantly,
religious customs, including maintaining a local temple to their god Assur. A certain amount
of reciprocal borrowing was nonetheless observed in the religious sphere, with Anatolian ritual
objects present in both ‘Assyrian’ and ‘Anatolian’ houses, and Assyrians worshipping the local
Anatolian goddess of Kanesh, Annā, while Anatolians occasionally swore to a symbol of the
god Assur (Michel 2014, 78). Interestingly, also for the ‘trading towns’ of sub-Saharan Africa
described by Curtin (1984), archaeological work at Gao-Saney and Gao Ancien suggests that
while the former indeed was home to a mercantile community that likely served the latter, its
population was not confined to Muslim North African merchants but comprised a substantial
indigenous population as well as nomadic groups, while also the probably royal town of Gao
Ancien, at least in later periods, included Muslim residents of local and North African origin
(Insoll 1997).
Further instructive comparative data is provided by the complex economic networks operating
in the medieval and early modern Mediterranean, from foreign traders in Venice (Concina 1997;
van Gelder 2009) to the diasporas of Jewish merchants (Trivellato 2009; Goldberg 2016; cf. also
Gekas and Grenet 2011), where commercial partnerships were often international and bridged
religious and cultural boundaries, though not at the expense of dispensing with cultural traditions.
The need for communication fostered the spread of a commercial lingua franca well beyond the
Mediterranean (Dakhlia 2016), while a network of ports linked the Christian and Muslim shores
of the Mediterranean and served as hubs for information exchange and deal-making. Zones that
reliably produced agricultural surpluses, such as Sicily or the Nile Delta, were long-term elements
in exchange networks (Goldberg 2016, 23–24, 343–44). Jews and Armenians were among the
most active agents in such long-distance trade, but Greeks also played important roles: throughout
the 17th and 18th centuries, about half the shipping between Egypt and the rest of the Ottoman
Empire was carried out on Greek and Turkish ships, with merchants coming primarily from the
Aegean coastline of Anatolia or the nearby islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Rhodes,
as well as from Thessaloniki and Crete (Greene 2010, 122–37) – a roll-call not far removed from
that of Naukratis, once more underlining the long-term persistence of geographical connectivity

(Braudel 1966; Horden and Purcell 2000).3 The grand houses of the port cities of Damietta and
Rosetta (Fig. 5) testify to the role played by immigrant Anatolian and European merchants.
In such settings of close contact, as Curtin noted, it was often the case that ‘intermarriage
produced a mixed-race, mixed-cultural community able to act as cultural brokers’ (Curtin 1984,
150); similarly, marriage could underpin long-distance links between business partners. Such
intermingling, though, was not left unregulated. Coexistence and interaction among diverse
groups was subject to articulated state policies, but was regulated especially by social norms and
codes of behaviour (Trivellato 2009; Gekas and Grenet 2011, 100–01). Nonetheless, coexistence
was not always conflict-free: as the story of the big Eastern Mediterranean trading cities from
Alexandria to Smyrna shows, periods of harmonious coexistence alternated with violent conflict
often sparked, at least on the surface, by religious tension (Mansel 2010).
Fig. 5: View of Rosetta, 1802. Baron Dominique Vivant Denon, ‘Vue de Rosette’, study for pl. 14 of Voyage
dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte, pendant les campagnes du Général Bonaparte. British Museum 1836,0109.13.b.
© Trustees of the British Museum.
3 It is interesting to note in this context that in the Ptolemaic period, immigrants to Alexandria included individuals from
the areas of Cyrenaica, Caria, Pamphylia, Thrace, Crete, Attika, Thessaly, Ionia, and the cities of Cyrene, Athens, Herakleia,
Miletos, Syracuse, Magnesia, Corinth, Chalkis, Aspendos and Argos, a list that in part attests to long-standing maritime links
but also reflects more recent political developments: Mueller 2005, 77.

Negotiating identities, regulating interactions: deliberating the role of religion in economics
With both religious and economic behaviour deeply embedded in social and cultural structures,
it is no surprise perhaps to find the two were frequently intertwined.4 To this day the maritime
ex-votos in the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde at Marseilles (Gambin 2014) bear witness
to the need for divine protection for dangerous long-distance travel, exemplified through the
ages in port sanctuaries and maritime religion (Fenet 2016; Eckert 2016; see also Gambin 2014;
Jaspert, Neumann and di Branco 2018). Yet the commercial aspects of travel also benefited from
divine patronage. This has been highlighted especially in recent research drawing on insights
from so-called New Institutional Economics, which has emphasized the fact that, besides
institutional and community organisation, it is shared, supra-institutional and socially enforced
codes of behaviour and expectations that provide ‘market governance’ for international business
communities (Trivellato 2009): in this context, religion can function both as a rallying point for
trading communities, and as a lingua franca of trust to mitigate the economic risk of bad dealing.
Both aspects have been recognised and exploited from antiquity to modern times.
For ancient Greeks, ‘those men with whom I share sacrifices and common festivities’ (Isaios
fr. 4 Scheibe, apud Dionysios of Halikarnassos, Isaios 10) were as good as kin: cult activity
establishes a close social bond, a bond that distinguishes those in the worshipping group from
those on the outside, but into which foreigners may be invited to join, e.g. in communal feasting
(Vlassopoulos 2015). The economic role of this phenomenon is exemplified e.g. in the foreign
(Greek, Italian, Phoenician and Egyptian) merchant associations of Delos, vital agents in the
Hellenistic Mediterranean economy who congregated in their own sanctuaries and meeting
places. As scholars have noted, the Delian merchants’ religious institutions and practices were
a means of organising practical support, asserting their corporate identity and thus fostering
trust in prospective business partners (Rauh 1993, with Boussac and Moretti 1995; Hasenohr
2003; Zarmakoupi 2015). Similar commercial associations of merchants, which functioned as
‘intermediate’ institutions between market and government and bolstered merchants’ negotiating
position in relation to state authorities, were a common feature also of modern ports; while
frequently multi-ethnic, they could also become focal points for the shaping of new shared
identities (Gekas and Grenet 2011, 96–100). One especially pertinent example is the church
of Nossa Senhora do Loreto in Lisbon, founded with papal permission in 1521 as a religious
congregation to represent the Italian merchants in Portugal (Trivellato 2009, 216–17). As Italy
still lacked a formal political identity at that point, the case presents an intriguing parallel for
the crystallisation of a Panhellenic identity among diverse Greek traders around the Naukratite
Hellenion, which was both a sanctuary and the centre of the port’s Greek administration (Malkin
2011, 87–95; Demetriou 2012).
In addition to constituting groups, religion also helped to mediate between them. Even if
details of belief were not shared, a common recognition of divine authority and parallel cultural
practice ensured that divine oversight of transactions and the threat of sanctions proved a
powerful institution for regulating economic behaviour (Padilla Peralta 2013; Daniels 2015).
If this international ‘language of trust’ worked for Jewish, Muslim and Christian merchants, it
was even more effective among traders operating within the polytheistic systems of antiquity,
4 The fundamental argument is set out in Eidinow 2015, who rightly underlines that economic behaviour can never be
entirely disembedded from a society’s culture and its institutions, principles and processes.

in which even gods could be ‘translated’ from one culture to another (Assmann 1996a; Pfeiffer
2005; Parker 2017, 33–76). Examples for the economic role of such ‘translation’ range from the
worship of Baal and his identification with Poseidon by the Institution of the Poseidoniasts of
Berytos, an association of merchants from Beirut on Hellenistic Delos (Hasenohr 2007), to the
Mediterranean-wide networks of cults of Aphrodite-Astarte or Herakles-Melqart (Malkin 2011,
119–41), to which perhaps also the cult of Herakles(-Khons) at Thonis-Heracleion and Naukratis
(Höckmann 2010; 2013) can be added.
The cults of Naukratis: mythical landscapes, urban topographies and sacred networks
Sacred geographies and commercial networks
For the peoples of the Mediterranean, and none more so than the Greeks, religion was thus a
vital social and economic institution that underpinned notions of self and other and regulated
interaction. At the same time, it was also a way to help map and organise, cognitively and
mentally, physical, political and economic space (see Kowalzig 2007; Lane Fox 2009; Malkin
2011; Vlassopoulos 2013, 147–54; Gambin 2014). Mythical journeys of heroes and gods – and
later of saints – encapsulated knowledge of Mediterranean land- and seascapes as well as of the
peoples that inhabited them, and thus provided important orientation for sailors, travellers and
traders. Landmarks such as shrines were the physical markers within this conceptual landscape.
Actual journeys, such as pilgrimage to sanctuaries (Greek theoria), and the filiation of cults forged
and structured networks of sacred geographies and helped to regulate the flow of traffic along
well-ploughed routes. Major festivals fulfilled an economic role themselves as periodic markets.5
Religious networks that were spelled out in myth and embodied in ritual performance often
followed the trajectories of trade, thus mapping maritime knowledge onto religious practice
as well as entailing notions of social and economic obligation and reciprocity that enhanced
economic security (Kowalzig 2007, 56–128; 2010; 2013, 198–210; Kowalzig 2018) or embodied
political power, as in the case of the Athenian Empire or the Ptolemaic network of Isis-Arsinoe
shrines.
As is discussed more fully in the present volume by Carrez-Maratray (see also Fabre 2006;
Villing 2017b), in the Greeks’ mental maritime map Egypt was primarily the Nile Delta, often
conceptualised as a Mediterranean ‘island’ (Strabo, Geography 17.1.4). Egypt’s coastal regions were
woven into familiar Greek narratives, such as the story of Typhon (Herodotus, Histories 3.5),
which links the area beyond Pelusium with the central Egyptian religious narrative of Horus
vanquishing Seth, Perseus’ Watchtower (Herodotus, Histories 2.15), or the characters of Kanobos
and Thon referencing the ports of Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion (Goddio 2015).
Naukratis, too, was embedded in this sacred landscape, though not so much through myths
but rather through its cults. This is most obvious in the case of the sanctuary filiations of
Samian Hera, Milesian/Didymaean Apollo and Aeginetan Zeus, to which I will return later.
The persistence (or revival) of links between mother and filial cult is illustrated by a Hellenistic
inscription attesting that Apollo at Didyma received sacrifice and a phiale from two Naukratites
(Anaxithemis son of Anaxithemis, and another person of whom we do not have the name,
5 Horden and Purcell 2000, 438–49; Rutherford 2013; Kowalzig 2018; for the medieval and later periods, see e.g. Bacci and
Rohde 2014; Dabag et al. 2016. On festivals and markets, see Horden and Purcell 2000, 432–34; Davies 2007.

son of Androteles) perhaps members of a Naukratite religious delegation, theoria, or perhaps
proxenoi (‘agents’) of Naukratis in Miletos (Rutherford 2013, 289–91, 300–03). But Naukratites
also participated in wider sacred networks: in the 6th century BC they contributed to a gift
of alum for the temple at Delphi (Herodotus, Histories 2.180)6 and by the mid-4th century BC
they were active as dedicants in Delos.7 Later on, Delos was also one of the places recorded as
having a local ‘agent’ in Naukratis. This proxenos, Dionysios, son of Potamon, is one of several
individuals from Naukratis who were appointed formally to act as agents for particular cities,
representing their (commercial) interests at Naukratis and acting as ‘guest friends’ to visitors
from these cities.8 Between the latter half of the 5th and the 3rd century BC, nine such proxenies
are attested linking Naukratis with Lindos, Rhodes, Ios, Kos, Iasos, Delos, Delphi and Athens
(Fig. 6 and Table 1). The inscriptions recording the decrees conferring the proxeny were erected in
sanctuaries of the cities that issued the decrees, and thus placed under the protection of the gods;
one of them, the Lindian proxeny decree for Damoxenos (Fig. 7),9 moreover stipulated a copy to
be erected in the Hellenion. Clearly, Naukratis was significant enough to engender demand for
proxenies, and much of this significance was probably economic: flourishing trade with Egypt
is evident not only from the mention of Egyptian traders and Egyptian imports in Athenian
comedies,10 but also from the presence of Egyptian traders among the resident foreigners, metics,
in the Athenian port of Piraeus, who established a shrine of Isis here (Simms 1988–89; Sofia 2016,
70–74, 116–18; Villing 2017a, 88). Among the several grave markers of Naukratites who died in
Athens is that of Phaidimos, who was buried just before or soon after 400 BC (Fig. 8),11 as well as
that of Pais (‘boy’ – a generic slave name?), whose mid-4th-century BC tomb stone in the Piraeus
bears both a Greek and a demotic inscription, suggesting he was of Egyptian parentage.12 Yet
proxenoi also had vital religious roles, such as hosting envoys announcing Panhellenic and other
6 That the Delphic oracle may have been involved in sanctioning the foundation of sanctuaries at Naukratis is suggested by
Williams 2015, 185–86 fig. 8, p.193, in relation to a votive inscription restored – perhaps too optimistically – as Aphro]dite
Py[thochrestos; a possible role of the foundation of Naukratis as a polis is argued by Herda 2008, 48
7 Several dedications are recorded: Delphi, CID II 4 (360 BC) col. 1, lines 37–37 (Ναυκρατῖται ἐξ Αἰγύπτου), col. 3, lines
21–26 (Εὐτέλης Ναυκρατίτας; Τύρις Ναυκρατίτας); Delphi, CID II 10 (356 BC) fr. B (at least three Naukratites whose names
are only partially preserved).
8 Bresson 2000, 26–36; Pébarthe 2005; Rutherford 2013, 194–95; http://proxenies.csad.ox.ac.uk/.
9 Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, I.1.a.3019, from collection Golenischeff; see Bresson 2000, 27–35.
10 They include linen, papyrus, alabastra, bread, cakes, Nile fish, spices, myrrh, natron and medicinal plants: Sofia 2016,
xx–xxvi.
11 Marble loutrophoros inscribed with the name Phaidimos of Naukratis, British Museum 1816,0610.124 (Sculpture 683;
Inscription 105): IG II–III(2).3.2 9986; Redon 2012, 78–79 no. 6; Ginestí Rosell 2012, 344 no. 490. I am grateful to Robert
Pitt for confirming the dating of this piece.
12 Bäbler 1998, 209 no. 3; Ginestí Rosell 2012, 346 no. 492. I am grateful to Günter Vittmann for sharing his thoughts on
the difficult demotic text of the Piraeus stela (which will also be discussed by Vleeming in preparation), not all of which can
be read with certainty. It is unclear whether the Greek Pais has a demotic equivalent in, but according to Vittmann at least
two other (male) names are present, Achoapis and Petamunis(?), the latter designated as a father. Other individuals from
Naukratis attested on 5th–4th-century BC grave markers from Athens include Parmenon, Dionysios son of Parmenon, and
Olympos son of Sannion. Among other individuals from Egypt recorded in Athens from the late 5th century BC onwards
are the ‘Egyptian’ Hermaios of Thebes, a weaver, as well as several women, among them Saitis, the daughter of Egyptian
Euethis. The evidence is discussed in Bäbler 1998, 69–77, 207–11 nos 1–8; Bresson 2000, 34, 77; Redon 2012; Ginestí Rosell
2012, 344–47 nos 489–96. To my knowledge there is no evidence as yet for any residents, Egyptian or otherwise, of Thonis-
Heracleion having lived or died abroad.

significant festivals including those of Delphi and Delos – indeed, this must be the prime reason
that the latter two sites both entertained proxenoi at Naukratis. Of course, sacred geographies
and commercial networks were by no means segregated, as not least the case of Hellenistic Delos,
a key hub of Hellenistic and Roman trade, illustrates.
Table 1. Proxenies of Naukratis13
Date City of proxeny Name of Ethnic Find-spot Publication

proxenos
c.440-420 Lindos Damoxenos, ‘living in Egypt’ Decree orders copy Lindos II 16
BC (terminus son of to be erected in the app.
ante quem Hermon Hellenion ‘in Egypt’. Bresson 2000,
411 BC) Stela was purchased 26–29
in Cairo before 1908; Pébarthe 2005
Naukratis is the most
likely find-spot.
408/9 BC ‘all the ?-as, son of Αἰγ[ύπτιον τ]ὸν ἐγ Lindos, sanctuary of Lindos II 16
Rhodians’ – Pytheas Ναυκράτ[ιος Athena. Bresson 2000,
apparently = ‘an Egyptian (?) 26–36
before the from Naukratis’
island‘s A less likely
synoikism and reading is
the foundation ‘Aeginetan’ instead
of the city of of ‘Egyptian’
Rhodes
349/8 BC Athens Theogenes, ‘Naukratites’ Found in Athens (a) IG II³ 294 (=
son of on the Akropolis and IG II ² 206)
Xenokles (b) near the Lysikrates
monument.
c.325–300 Iasos Dynnis ‘Naukratitas’ Maddoli 2007,
BC no. 6
4th century Kos IG XII.4 1:4
BC (Iscr. Cos 95)
4th century Delphi several proxenoi; FD III.1 419
BC all names lost;
possibly brothers
277/6 BC Delphi Philoxenos, Naukratites’ FD III.1 114
son of Redon 2012,
Men(d)ion no. 16
Late 3rd Delos Dionysios, Naukratites’ IG XI.4 561
century BC son of
Potamon
Ios IG XII.5 1(9)
13 For the standard abbreviations used for epigraphic publications, see https://epigraphy.packhum.org/biblio#b122.

Fig. 6: Map of proxenies of Naukratis, modified from base map of http://proxenies.csad.ox.ac.uk/.
Fig. 7: Lindian proxeny decree for Damoxenos,

from the Hellenion at Naukratis, c. 440–420 Fig. 8: Marble loutrophoros inscribed with the
BC. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, name Phaidimos of Naukratis, from Athens,
I.1.a.3019, from collection Golenischeff. © c. 410–380 BC. British Museum 1816,0610.124.
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. © Trustees of the British Museum.

No less significant than the bounded sacred space of the city and its sanctuaries, which linked
Naukratis to sacred and economic networks via filiations and proxenies, was the wider natural
landscape of Naukratis – and notably Egypt’s great river, which connected most of the Egyptian
territory with the Mediterranean world and carried most of its trade. The Greek fascination with
the Nile mostly centred on the yearly inundation and the fertility this brought, which is a constant
feature of Greek discourse on Egypt (Bonneau 1964; Vasunia 2001; cf. also Blouin 2014). For
Homer, the river was virtually identical with the country: it was simply ‘Aigyptos’, Egypt, or
‘Aigyptos potamos’ the Egypt river; soon after we also begin to find the name ‘Neilos’ (Jentel
1992; A. C. Smith 2011, 27–29). In the early part of the 5th century BC, a lost play by Aischylos
describes how ‘all luxuriant Egypt, filled with the sacred flood, makes Demeter’s life-giving
grain spring up’ (fr. 193 Mette). Ionian philosophers sought rational, ‘scientific’ reasons for this
seemingly mysterious phenomenon, while others, such as Pindar (fr. 282 Maehler), fell in with the
Egyptians’ own, religious, explanations, which attributed the river’s flow to the agency of gods
such as Hapy or Osiris.14 Apart from the unusual inundation, Greeks, of course, were eminently
familiar with the vital importance of rivers for both trade and connectivity and subsistence
(Arnaud 2016). Greek trading posts and settlements abroad were often located on the mouths of
large rivers, from Methone on the Haliakmon or Berezan and Olbia near the mouth of the river
Bug to Histria on the mouth of the Danube or Al Mina at the mouth of the Orontes. At home,
many of the most important Greek cities, including those involved in trade at Naukratis, were
located at the mouths of large rivers, from Miletos at the mouth of the Meander, to Phokaia and
Smyrna at the mouth of the Hermos. The recognition of the river and its delta landscape as a vital
source of agricultural and trade wealth and a significant element in the construction of local or
regional identity15 is underlined by the unusual prominence of potamonyms, i.e. personal names
deriving from rivers, in the onomastics of these regions (Thonemann 2006; 2011). One carrier
of such a name is Potamon (‘River’), father of Dionysios, whom we have just encountered as a
Naukratite proxenos of 3rd-century BC Delos. Another is preserved in a 6th-century BC votive
dedication scratched onto a pottery cup: Neilomandros, whose name combines the Egyptian
Nile, Neilos, and the Milesian river Maeander, Maiandros (Fig. 9; Thonemann 2006). Possibly a
(descendant of) a Milesian now based in Naukratis, Neilomandros exemplifies the dual identity
of those Greeks who had gone to live in Egypt, and it is telling that this mixed identity is
expressed through the ‘confluence’ of two great rivers of Egypt and Greece.
The prominence of the Nile in the consciousness of Greeks at Naukratis mirrors the
importance it had in the religious life of the (mixed) population of Naukratis. As is discussed in
the present volume by Thomas, numerous figures of an ithyphallic child-god or a nude female,
many carrying objects or symbols referring to the Nile inundation or related religious rites,
suggest that the traditional Egyptian religion related to the fertility brought by the river was
practised at Naukratis.
14 Pindar refers to a colossal figure who controlled the flow of the Nile river, apparently by moving its feet; see Rutherford
in preparation.
15 Sometimes personified, but this is a rather late phenomenon; among the earliest examples is an early 5th-century BC
amphora that combines human representations of the Nile (Nilos), Maeander, Strymon and Skamander together with their
father, Okeanos, the Ocean: see A. C. Smith 2011, 28–29, fig. 3.4–5, for an interpretation of the scene in the context of
contemporaneous Athenian politics.

Fig. 9: Votive dedication to Aphrodite by Neilomandros on a Laconian black-figure pottery kylix by the Naukratis
Painter, from the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Naukratis, c. 570–560 BC. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, AN1896-
1908-G.133.1 (AN1888.1325). © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Photography by British Museum
staff.
The sanctuaries of Naukratis
Insights into the religious life of Naukratis are provided by a large body of archaeological data,
excavated by a succession of archaeologists from 1884 until the modern day. This is, however, in
large parts a problematic, selective and biased dataset. When Petrie arrived at Naukratis in 1884,
about a third of the ancient settlement mound was already dug away by locals, including most of
the later levels in some sanctuaries, and their mining of the mound for fertile soil (and antiques)
continued alongside early excavations. Further destruction occurred subsequently. Difficulties
in identifying built structures resulted in incomplete and inaccurate plans, and only a selection
of finds was kept by the early excavators. The American fieldwork of 1977–83 added useful new
evidence but also new complications through its problematic interpretations. Since 2011 the
British Museum’s Naukratis Project has been addressing these issues through a restudy of earlier
and a programme of new fieldwork (e.g. Villing et al. 2013–19; Thomas and Villing 2013; Thomas
2015a; Thomas and Villing forthcoming a, b, c and in preparation), but some limitations and
uncertainties remain. This is true also for maps of Naukratis, including our own (Fig. 10), which
is but a construct that shows the site as it never would have appeared at any one point in time.
Collapsing different phases into one, it can represent only what is known to us from Petrie’s and
Hogarth’s maps (demonstrably inaccurate in a number of points), limited American excavations
and our own more extensive geophysical and archaeological data. Nonetheless, it serves a useful
purpose by providing an overview of the basic layout of the town, with a considerable likelihood
– supported by geological work – that the foundation of many, though hardly all, buildings

retained their basic footprint from the Late into the Roman period.
A look at the city’s layout further emphasises the centrality of the river, the Canopic branch of
the Nile, which is now securely located to the west of town (Pennington and Thomas 2016). Both
Greek and Egyptian sanctuaries are lined up along this commercial and religious artery. The
Egyptian sanctuary of Amun-Ra, the largest structure in the town, dominated the southern part
of the site, just as the (smaller) structure that most likely is the Greek Hellenion dominated the
north. Also in the north were the large precincts of the Dioskouroi, Hera and Apollo, all directly
adjacent to each other.16 The central part of the site housed the smaller temenos of Aphrodite.
The dating of these sanctuaries has long been a subject of debate, with repercussions for
historical interpretations (see e.g. the diversity of opinions in Bowden 1996; Möller 2000; Herda
2008; Leclère 2008; Polinskaya 2010; Fantalkin 2014): is the Egyptian sanctuary of Amun-Ra a
Ptolemaic foundation and the Egyptian quarter of Naukratis thus a ‘suburb’ of an earlier Greek
town – or vice versa? Was the sanctuary of Hera founded later than that of Apollo, reflecting
an early leading role by Miletos and a later involvement only by Samians? Does the Hellenion
represent a restructuring of the port’s economic organisation under Amasis and a change in
political power and alliances, away from an early dominance by Miletos, Samos and Aigina? Was
the sanctuary of Aphrodite (and perhaps that of the Dioskouroi) primarily for the townspeople
or the ‘polis’ of Naukratis, while other sanctuaries belonged to cities and traders with only a
temporary stake in the emporion? Were Cypriot kouros figurines dedicated to Apollo (and other
gods) by mercenaries or by young men becoming full citizens of the polis (Höckmann 2007,
contra Herda 2008, 50–51) – or can indeed either of these hypotheses be upheld? Our present state
of knowledge, even if significantly better than some decades ago, does not allow us to answer
all of these questions with certainty yet, and we must refrain from basing far-reaching historical
conclusions on a too small and probably unrepresentative sample. Still, some observations are
possible.
First of all, reanalysis of the site’s stratigraphy combining recent data with earlier fieldwork
indicates that the major Greek and Egyptian sanctuaries were built on virgin soil at the same
level, i.e. they are unlikely to substantially post-date the site’s foundation (Thomas and Villing
in preparation). This is confirmed by a range of other evidence. As is discussed in more detail by
Masson-Berghoff in the present volume (see also Masson-Berghoff forthcoming), religious ritual
in the large Egyptian sanctuary of Amun-Ra undoubtedly dates back to at least the beginning
of the 6th century BC, and there are indications also of other Egyptian cults already in the Late
Period. Most of the Greek sanctuaries have yielded datable material, such as Cypriot figurines and
Greek pottery, that confirm their existence by before or around 600 BC (Villing et al. 2013– 19;
Thomas 2015b; see also Möller 2000; Kerschner 2001; Schlotzhauer 2012). The sanctuary of
Aphrodite was up and running well before 600 BC, and pottery from the sanctuaries of Apollo,
but also the Dioskouroi, indicate a similar date. While the handful of finds from the sanctuary of
Hera are insufficient evidence to securely suggest a foundation date, an early date is again likely.
Looking at the map, the run of sanctuaries in the north certainly looks as if it was planned in
one sweep, consisting of large precincts with much space for feasting and storage. These would
have been less empty than they look today, probably housing temporary buildings in addition to
permanent structures (the local scarceness of stone offset by the liberal use of plaster-clad mud
16 Our own recent excavations suggest that the sanctuary of the Dioskouroi was larger than previously thought and directly
abutted the Hellenion, see below.

brick), most of which were lost already before the excavators arrived: the fact that only a single
fragment of Archaic architecture survives from the large sanctuary of Hera indicates the scale of
destruction.
Fig. 10: Map of Naukratis incorporating all previous fieldwork and preliminary geophysics results. © The
Naukratis Project, Trustees of the British Museum. Map by Ross Thomas.

The fact that the Hellenion is set back from this main run of sanctuaries could, but need
not, suggests a later foundation after all the river-space had already been taken: areas safe from
flooding are likely to have been limited at Naukratis as in many other Nile Delta settlements.
This also explains why buildings were tall: as groundplans visible in magnetometry show, at
Naukratis as elsewhere, the predominant dwellings were Egyptian tower houses, several storeys
high (Thomas 2015a). Votive pottery found in our own recent, still unpublished excavations
in the easternmost part of the Dioskouroi sanctuary where it abuts the Hellenion, however,
suggest a date for the latter no later than the early part of the 6th century BC; and early dating
is also supported by finds made by Hogarth within the precinct, including, for example, Cypriot
figurines (Thomas 2015b, 22–24).
Apollo, Hera and Zeus
At least three of the Greek sanctuaries of Naukratis were cult filiations, as reported by Herodotus
(Histories 2.178), and supported by archaeological evidence. The sanctuary of Apollo was
founded by Milesians, with Apollo here explicitly designated as Milesios and Didymeus (Fig.
11), incarnations of Apollo that played a key role in Miletos’ civic life (Ehrhardt, Höckmann and
Schlotzhauer 2008; Herda 2008). The extra-urban oracle shrine of Apollo at Didyma probably
not only played a role in the cult filiation (Herda 2008, 47 n. 267) but also received the earliest
reported dedication by an Egyptian pharaoh to a Greek sanctuary, a corselet worn in battle by
Necho II, probably a reference to the importance of Ionian (and Carian) mercenaries for the
Egyptian army (Herodotus, Histories 2.159). Rich deposits of dedications dating back to the late
7th century BC were found intact by Petrie (Petrie 1886a), and the sanctuary of Apollo is also the
only Greek sanctuary at Naukratis from which at least a small number of architectural pieces are
preserved to give us a hint of how the sanctuary might once have looked (Fig. 12). Hellenistic
dedications and donations by Naukratites to Apollo’s sanctuary at Didyma may be founded
on this long-lasting religious connection, but also reflect a desire on the part of Hellenistic
Naukratites to emphasise the importance and antiquity of their city (Ehrhardt, Höckmann and
Schlotzhauer 2008, 170; Redon 2012; cf. Rutherford 2013, 289–91).17
Another cult filiation is the sanctuary of Hera founded by Samians (Petrie 1886a, 16–17;
Gardner 1888, 60–61; Möller 2000, 97), which had special sanctuary crockery shipped from its
mother sanctuary on Samos (Fig. 13), perhaps as part of a founding ceremony.18 On Samos the
Heraion was the island’s main sanctuary in the Geometric and Archaic periods and a linchpin
in Archaic networks of trade, counting among its most famous offerings a ship, a cauldron
dedicated by the legendary late 7th-century BC Samian trader Kolaios, as well as statues offered
by Pharaoh Amasis (Herodotus, Histories 4.152; 2.182). Much of the Naukratite Heraion appears
to have been destroyed already before it was investigated by excavators, making it difficult to
ascertain its date and layout. Judging from the sole surviving fragment of Archaic architecture, a
17 Sponsorship could also extend to presumably non-sacred activities, such as in the case of Kallias of Naukratis, honoured
as a contributor to the building of walls at Kolophon in 311/306 BC: Redon 2012, 76–77 no. 5.
18 As suggested by Schlotzhauer 2006; the recent suggestion by Avramidou (2016) that the vessels both in Samos and in
Naukratis could have been intended for workmen engaged in building work, following Egyptian practice, is unconvincing
and contradicted among other things by the find-spots of the vessels, including finds made close to the altar in recent, still
unpublished fieldwork in the Samian Heraion (pers. comm. Jan Marc Henke).

piece of large egg-moulding (Fig. 14), the built structures in the precinct must have been sizeable,
and similar in date and style to those in the early Samian Heraion.19 Given the size of the temenos
and taking the Samian Heraion as a comparison, the only foundations noted by Gardner and
identified by him as the ‘temple’ (Gardner 1888) might in fact belong to a subsidiary building,
while the main temple, oriented west–east, lay more to the south.
a)
b)
Fig. 11: Votive dedications to Apollo: a) to Apollo Didymeus on an Ionian cup, c. 580–550 BC. British Museum
1886,0401.262; b) to Apollo Milesios on an Athenian black-figure olpe, c. 580 BC. British Museum 1886,0401.737.
19 Mentioned in Gardner 1888, 61 (cf. Königs 2007, 345), only recently identified with a piece published in the British
Museum’s catalogue of sculpture as of unknown provenance.

Fig. 12: Artist’s impression of the Late Archaic Apollo sanctuary. Drawing by Kate Morton, © Trustees of the
British Museum.
a) b)
Fig. 13: Fragments of sanctuary pottery from the Archaic Heraion of Naukratis, c. 600–560 BC: a) ‘Hera’
cup. British Museum 1911,0606.23; b) ‘Hera’ mug. British Museum 1888,0601.401. © Trustees of the British
Museum.

Fig. 14: Architectural fragment (egg-moulding) from the Archaic Heraion of Naukratis. British Museum B403.
The third cult filiation is that of Zeus Hellanios, mentioned by Herodotus (2.178) as an
Aeginetan foundation. Though it has not yet been located, we need not necessarily assume
that Herodotus was mistaken, especially as it is now clear that parts of the town still remain
untouched under the earth, including underneath Roman layers in the western parts of town
(Thomas 2015a). Up to three votive inscriptions have been taken to refer to Zeus Hellanios,
two of them on Chian vessels from the Aphrodite sanctuary, although none has the complete
title and their interpretation remains debatable (Johnston 2014, 32). Zeus Hellanios is certainly
a uniquely fitting cult for Aeginetan traders to have established at Naukratis, embodying the
island’s reputation for xenia and eunomia, hospitality and good, lawful order (Kowalzig 2010;
Polinskaya 2013, 335–43).
Though we know nothing of the process by which these sanctuaries would have been founded,
it is likely that they were erected (and financed) as a communal effort either by associations of
traders, by the poleis they represented (similar to treasuries20), or indeed (though perhaps this is
less likely) by the mother sanctuaries themselves.21 Comparative evidence certainly suggests that
poleis drew heavily on their citizens for financing the construction of sacred buildings (Burford
1965; Dignas 2002, 23–24). However we resolve this murky question, apart from providing divine
protection and a ‘home from home’ for Greek sailors and traders, the richly decorated temples
20 Constantakopoulou 2017, 50–51. The relationship between the economic and religious role of sanctuaries in emporia is of
course complex, not least given that the role of major festivals as periodic markets for regional and supra-regional trade may
have been instrumental in their development, as suggested by Davies 2007, 63–65.
21 As argued by Avramidou 2016, 54. We perhaps should not entirely exclude a role being played by sanctuaries, though:
sacred funds (from land leases, taxation and gifts) listed on a 6th-century BC inscription from the Ephesian Artemision may
represent the sanctuary’s special fundraising for building work: Dignas 2002, 142–43.

were also conspicuous statements on the part of their founders, which mirrored the intensive
inter-polis competition that led to ever more ambitious temples being built in the Greek, notably
Ionian, homeland. Naukratis thus resembles other ‘international’ religious sites such as Delos,
where religious monumentalisation was driven by competition between diverse communities
with a stake in the island (Constantakopoulou 2017, 41–50), even if at Naukratis economic
significance preceded, rather than followed, religious reputation. At the same time, these were
not mere vanity projects: investment in the sacred also made economic sense, generating ‘social
capital’ by creating a sacred landscape of monumental architecture and built-up sacred spaces
full of offerings that fostered a sense of security and trust and encouraged cooperation and
good dealing, thus lowering risk and transaction cost (Padilla Peralta 2013). This also fits in
with the fact that the Greek sanctuaries of Naukratis were inclusive, rather than exclusive: votive
dedications show that, despite their links with particular poleis, access to any given sanctuary
was not similarly restricted and could include even non-Greeks such as Carians, Cypriots and
Phoenicians.22
Dioskouroi and Aphrodite
One of the more surprising observations about Naukratis as port town is the fact that only a few
votives make explicit references to sailing, either in imagery and in dedications. One example is a
graffito on a Chian chalice of unknown find-spot, which probably is an aorist participle of ἐκπλέω
and thus a reference to a departure from a port (Johnston 2014, 35, fig. 38).23 Two of Naukratis’
Greek sanctuaries, however, were dedicated to gods linked with seafaring, the Dioskouroi and
Aphrodite; though not mentioned by Herodotus they were excavated by Petrie and Gardner.
At the northern edge of the run of Greek sanctuaries flanking the river stood the sanctuary
dedicated to the East Greek sailors’ patron deities par excellence, the Dioskouroi (Fig. 15). From
the late 7th century BC onwards, the sacred twins provided guidance for sailors from the skies,
as immortalised by Alkaios of Mytilene (hymn 34 West, tr. West): ‘Castor and Pollux, who go on
swift horses over the broad earth and all the sea, and easily rescue men from chilling earth…
bringing light to the black ship in the night of trouble’. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Dioskouroi
also had an early (6th-century BC) sanctuary on Delos, with a pottery profile (including much
Chian and North Ionian, but also Laconian, Corinthian, Melian and Attic) suggesting a clientele
that largely, though not entirely, overlapped with that of Naukratis (Robert 1952, 5–50; Johnston
and Villing forthcoming). It appears that the Naukratite Dioskoureion was (originally) much
larger than marked on Petrie’s and Gardner’s maps, as our own new excavations have revealed a
deposit with 6th-century BC votives, including locally made pottery with dedicatory inscriptions,
directly adjacent to what seems to be the Hellenion enclosure’s western edge (Thomas and
Villing forthcoming a, b, c and in preparation; on the early excavations in the sanctuary of the
22 See Johnston 2014. One likely Carian inscription has an assured provenance of Naukratis; in addition, a bronze lion
with a Carian inscription and a Greek-style oinochoe made from Nile silt with a Carian inscription have been attributed to
Naukratis by Herda and Sauter 2009, 96–99 with n. 272. Cf. also Villing and Williams 2006 for Carians and Bonadies 2017
for Phoenicians at Naukratis.
23 A limestone bowl, perhaps a perirrhanterion (the piece has not yet been located) found just west of the sanctuary of
Aphrodite bore a dedication on it rim reading .]ην |ς Νακρατιν |....]... |.και Κο̣[, which has been taken to refer to an arrival
at Naukratis (Gardner 1888, 66 no. 795, pl. 21 no. 795); Scholtz (2002–03, 239) incorrectly identifies the piece as a statuette.

Dioskouroi, see Gardner 1888, 30–31). The reference in Alkaios as well as Archaic dedications
on otherwise little-exported Lesbian grey ware pottery (though such pottery was found also in
other Naukratite sanctuaries) confirm a particular Lesbian interest in the Dioskouroi and may
hint at a possible Lesbian role in its establishment at Naukratis; at the very least this prominent
East Greek picture, free (as far as we can tell) from Laconian elements, is a pertinent reminder
that the cult of the Dioskouroi is far from a purely Spartan phenomenon.
Fig. 15: North Ionian (Clazomenian) black-figure fragment of a krater or dinos, perhaps Odysseus and the
sirens, c. 560 BC, from the sanctuary of the Dioskouroi at Naukratis. British Museum 1888,0601.586. © Trustees
of the British Museum.
The Greek sanctuary that stands farthest apart from the others physically is that of Aphrodite,
located within the built-up area of the southern part of the settlement, closer to the Egyptian
temple; its precinct also appears to have been much smaller (Gardner 1888, 33–59). Aphrodite’s
role at Naukratis was diverse and she was venerated at more than one site in town; I will address
her role as Pandemos in connection with the Hellenion in the north later on. Her southern
sanctuary, featuring a built stepped altar and a small temple twice rebuilt, was heavily frequented
in the early days of the site. Partly on account of its location and relatively small size it has
been suggested (Bowden 1996, 28–29) that this was the main sanctuary of the city’s permanent
population (versus the filiations thought to have been established more for passing traders), but
there are no further indications for such a distinction between the sanctuaries. What is evident,
however, is a strong North Ionian/Chian involvement. The pattern is significant notably among
the specially commissioned votive inscriptions: not only are well over 90 percent of dipinti on
Chian pottery to Aphrodite (the rest are to the Dioskouroi and Gods of the Greeks: Johnston
2014, 14), but we also find a dipinto to ‘Aphrodite at Naukratis’ on an early 6th-century BC
North Ionian (probably Tean) oversize bowl, the only occurrence of such a formula apart from
a likely similar graffito on a large Chian chalice of c.600 BC (Fig. 16a and b; Johnston 2014,
32). While it is debatable whether this gives sufficient grounds to suggest Chian involvement in

the cult’s foundation, the pattern in votive inscriptions (which were diligently collected by the
early excavators and therefore are more representative than overall pottery ratios: see Villing
forthcoming) at the very least attests to the sanctuary’s role in extensive direct trade between
Naukratis and the Chian/North Ionian region in the emporion’s earliest days.
a)
b)
Fig. 16: Votive inscriptions to ‘Aphrodite at Naukratis’: a) dipinto on a North Ionian, probably Tean, oversize
bowl, early 6th century BC. British Museum 1888,0601.531; b) graffito on an a large Chian chalice, c. 600 BC.
British Museum 1888,0601.182 + 1924,1201.15. © Trustees of the British Museum.
As goddess of love, Aphrodite appears to have been patroness of the port’s hetairai, who
left dedications in her sanctuary. Yet she was also a patron of seafaring. Though this aspect is
attested more explicitly only in the Hellenistic period, finds such as an early 5th-century BC
votive anchor dedicated to Aphrodite Epilimenia (‘on the harbour’) from Aigina suggests the
role goes back earlier (Polinskaya 2013, 197–201); it has been suggested for Aphrodite at Archaic
Miletos and probably also played a role at Naukratis (Senff 2003; Demetriou 2010; 2017, 57–58;
cf. also Eckert 2016; Trippé 2010, for maritime Aphrodite in Ionian Black Sea settlements). The
extent to which Naukratite Aphrodite was also an agent in cross-cultural exchange remains
unclear. The role is well attested at other emporia such as at Etruscan Pyrgi (Parker 2002, 149–50;
Demetriou 2012), where the same goddess – as Aphrodite, Astarte and Uni – was worshipped
by Greek, Phoenician and Etruscan traders, yet while Astarte was worshipped by Phoenicians
and Syrians in Egyptian Memphis and equated there with Greek Aphrodite Egyptian Hathor

(Schmitz 2010, 328 with n. 42), there is no evidence (as yet) for such a worship in Naukratis.
Instead, the presence of numerous Cypriot votive figurines has given rise to suggestions that
the sanctuary might have been a Cypriot foundation (E. M. Smith 1926, 145). However, the
suggestion stands on shaky ground: in the period around 600 BC Cypriot figurines are common
also in other Naukratite sanctuaries (except the Hellenion, which has yielded few dedications
of this early period), and there is little concrete evidence for a physical presence of Cypriots at
Naukratis before the late 5th century BC, when Cypro-syllabic inscriptions, at least one of them
found in the Hellenion, are first attested (Johnston 2014, 12–13; cf. Höckmann and Möller 2006,
13). The only two votive inscriptions on Cypriot figurines are Greek (Johnston 2015, 5 nos
1–2), mirroring the popularity of Cypriot figurines as votive offerings in numerous East Greek
sanctuaries (Henke, this volume); it has been argued that also the usage of the figures there, as in
Naukratis, corresponds more closely to Greek than to Cypriot practice (Höckmann 2009). The
evidence to hand is thus largely consistent with the famous anecdote, preserved in Athenaeus
(15.675f–676c), of the Naukratite trader Herostratos, who after being saved from shipwreck by
Aphrodite ‘invited his relations and closest friends to a feast in the goddess’s temple at Naukratis’
and dedicated to her a statuette he had bought in Cypriot Paphos. Nonetheless, unlike in East
Greek sanctuaries, Cypriot figurines at Naukratis overall are of a wider typological range and
provenance and, in Aphrodite’s sanctuary, continue until around 300 BC (Thomas 2015b). As
the frequency of imported Cypriot amphorae and mortaria from the earliest levels of Naukratis
also confirms (see Villing 2006), (trade) links with Cyprus were more prominent and longer
lasting at Naukratis than in the East Greek world and it is likely that, independent of debates
about the ethnicity of dedicants, it was the geographical proximity to and unbroken exchange
between Egypt and Cyprus that was carried by diverse groups of traders across the centuries,
that fostered a distinctive pattern of Cypriot dedications at Naukratis.
Hellenion, sanctuary of Amun-Ra and other cults
Sanctuaries provided a space to honour and thank the gods, but also a forum where the
mobile merchant community could place business under divine protection. It is likely that
the port’s largest and (according to Herodotus, Histories 2.178) most frequented sanctuary, the
Hellenion, had an important role in this respect. According to Herodotus, the Hellenion was
the administrative heart of the (Greek) port, through which most of the Greek cities named by
Herodotus (cf. Polinskaya 2013, 331–34) as based at Naukratis provided the port’s Greek prostatai,
‘representatives’ or ‘champions’. Hogarth (Hogarth, Edgar and Gutch 1898–99; Hogarth, Lorimer
and Edgar 1905) identified the sanctuary in a partially excavated, enigmatic multi-chambered
structure in the northern part of the site, an identification that, though disputed (Bowden 1996),
still remains our best bet. It seems to be supported by dedications found here (Fig. 17a) that,
from perhaps as early as the first quarter of the 6th century BC onwards, attest a cult of the ‘gods
of the Hellenes’ indicative of the sanctuary’s role as a communal space (Höckmann and Möller
2006; Malkin 2011; Demetriou 2012; Johnston 2014, 37–38; Yue 2016; critical: Bowden 1996;
Polinskaya 2010, 53–57). Even if significant post-depositional displacement makes it difficult
to identify particular cultic areas, it seems that Aphrodite Pandemos, ‘of all citizens’ (Fig. 17b),
was also worshipped here no later than the later 6th century BC; she may have had a similar

role, promoting cohesion among the plural community.24 As her epithet suggests, this role was,
however, linked to the demos, attesting the notion of a ‘citizenry’ of Naukratis even for this early
period.25 Yet she may also have had other roles, some perhaps involving women, as suggested
by a group of Late Archaic and Classical female protomes of predominantly Rhodian (and some
South Ionian) production found in the Hellenion in the same area as groups of inscribed sherds
with dedications to Aphrodite, a votive pattern that is clearly distinct from that of the goddess’s
sanctuary to the south.
a) b)
Fig. 17: a) Votive graffito to the ‘gods of the Hellenes’ (]εληνων : θοις μ̣[.].[) on an Attic cup, fragment, c. 530–
500 BC. British Museum 1900,0214.8. © Trustees of the British Museum; b) votive inscription to Aphrodite
Pandemos on rim of Attic red-figure krater, c. 510–490 BC. British Museum 1900,0214.6. © Trustees of the
British Museum.
Intriguingly, these were not the only cults housed in the area of the sanctuary, as Hogarth
reports dedications to a range of further deities, including Herakles (Höckmann 2010; 2013),
whose cults, as noted earlier, are known to have played a role in trading networks elsewhere
and who may have had a similar role here too, and the Dioskouroi. While we cannot exclude
the possibility that some of these might have been displaced post-deposition from adjacent
sanctuaries, or that some of the areas attributed by Hogarth to the Hellenion were in fact outside
its walls, it seems that the Hellenion represents a ‘microcosm’ of Naukratite Greek cults that to
24 Höckmann and Möller 2006, 16–17; cf. Parker 2002, 154–55; Scholtz 2002–03; Williams 2015; Demetriou 2017, 59;
Johnston 2017. The exceptional votive inscription to Aphrodite Pandemos on an Athenian krater rim (Johnston 2014,
15–16; Williams 2015, 179–84, figs 2–7), though carved with minute accuracy much like a stone inscription, was not added
pre-firing (pace Williams 2015, 183); thin scratches and breaks as visible here in Fig. 17b can only be explained by incision
on a well-fired pot, albeit with great care and a very fine instrument.
25 Whether this could mean that Naukratis was a fully fledged Greek ‘polis’ already at this stage, or gained this status only
much later, remains a much-discussed question (e.g. Bresson 2000; 2005; Möller 2000; Herda 2008; Demetriou 2017).

some extent replicated or mirrored the town’s wider religious landscape, while at the same time
displaying some striking differences in character and provenance of votives – at least as far as our
limited evidence goes. Precisely how these cults interrelated in the Hellenion precinct, and what
else the structure housed, remains unclear. Hogarth had noted a massive mud-brick enclosure
wall, similar to that of the Egyptian sanctuary of Amun-Ra, but only preserved in places, with
a series of chambers primarily along the walls (see the discussion in Höckmann and Möller
2006, 18). Magnetometry has identified various further structures in alignment to the north,
suggesting the building might have extended well beyond the area Hogarth excavated, though
this has to remain conjectural (see Fig. 10). While unusual, sacred precincts centred around a
courtyard with shrines and dining rooms lining the perimeter are not entirely unparalleled in
Greek architecture, as the sanctuary of Apollo at Despotiko indicates (Ohnesorg and Papajanni
2018), perhaps also the Milesian Delphinion had a similar layout in the Archaic period. That
the Hellenion’s clientele (like that of other Naukratite sanctuaries) also included mercenaries
is suggested by the find of an Archaic (architectural?) relief depicting a hoplite (Koenigs 2007,
346–47 no. 45, pl. 32).
Other, still unlocated Greek cults at Naukratis include a sanctuary of Athena mentioned in
a 2nd-century BC inscription as well as other epigraphically attested cults of Demeter, Hermes
and Dionysos, while Hellenistic texts mention festivals of Dionysos, and Hestia Prytanitis and
Apollo (Pythios) Komaios (Hermeias apud Athenaios 4, 149d–150a). Similarly to Aphrodite
Pandemos, the latter appears to have had an important civic function, as his festival (as well as
those of Hestia Prytanitis and Dionysos) involved dining in the city’s prytaneion (Höckmann and
Möller 2006, 19; Herda 2008, 46–51; Ehrhardt, Höckmann and Schlotzhauer 2008, 170).
The Egyptian sanctuaries and cults of Naukratis, all omitted by Herodotus, are discussed
in detail in the present volume by Masson-Berghoff, which allows me to be brief here. I have
already mentioned the most significant of them, the monumental enclosure (the so-called ‘Great
Temenos’) located in the south of the site, dedicated to Amun-Ra of Baded and his consort
Mut, linked to a sacred quay on the river by a processional way. Saite in origins, the sanctuary
was elaborately rebuilt under Ptolemy I and II, with a monumental gateway (Spencer 2011;
Masson 2015) and extensively carved relief decoration on the walls of its main temple (von
Recklinghausen 2015; el-Kharadly, this volume). Within the enclosure, several chambers or
shrines located along the walls and a large building – perhaps a shena-wab, a building for sacred
preparation and storage (Leclère 2008, 134–37, 630–36) – on a casemate foundation had been
excavated by Petrie; our recent magnetometry adds to this the likely ground plan of the temple
itself as well as several other buildings, some probably shrines (see Fig. 10; Thomas and Villing
in preparation). Inscriptions and papyri further mention Min, Khonsu-Thoth, Hathor, Isis and
Serapis as well as (Bastet-)Boubastis, while votive figurines indicate the worship of gods such as
Osiris, Harpokrates or Hathor also beyond major enclosures (see Masson-Berghoff, this volume;
Thomas, this volume; and below).
The recent identification (Masson and Thomas 2018) of a miniature altar of Tanit (Fig. 18),
presumably brought (and fashioned?) by Punic sailors in the Late Classical or early Hellenistic
period, further adds to the picture of a diverse sacred landscape servicing the multi-ethnic
residents and visitors of Naukratis.

Fig. 18: Punic miniature limestone altar with relief

depicting a cruciform figure, probably a sign of
the goddess Tanit, 5th–3rd century BC. British
Museum, 1909,1201.5. © Trustees of the British
Museum.
Naukratis: integration and segregation in the plural community
The dual city: Sanctuaries and civic space
Four criteria defining a ‘cosmopolitan’ city have recently been formulated in relation to early
modern port cities (Gekas and Grenet 2011): a publicly visible diversity; an ability of individual or
collective agents to navigate between different coded spheres; an active practice of sociabilities
that cross community borders; and a belief and a policy of enhancing cohesion without a
monolithic base. Apart from raising the question of whether or not Naukratis overall could
be called ‘cosmopolitan’ – an interesting point which I side-step here – these criteria appear
singularly helpful when considering the lived experience of religion at Naukratis as plural space.
What frameworks – institutional and behavioural – existed to constitute and moderate distinction
and cohesion? To what extent and how were practices shared or transmitted?
These questions, of course, presuppose that we are able to recognise and distinguish such
practices at all, and this is where the crux of the matter lies: pinpointing ethnic or cultural
identities, as is well known, is a highly problematic undertaking, especially if the basis is material
culture with limited contextual information. Does the presence of an Egyptian offering spoon
or a Cypriot figurine in a Greek sanctuary denote a sacred space open to mixed groups of
worshippers? Does the absence of such finds exclude a multi-ethnic worshipping group, or can
we merely not detect them without the help of ‘ethnically’ eloquent markers? To what extent,
how and why did worshippers adopt ‘foreign’ material culture, religious praxis or foreign sacred
spaces, and how can we detect such practices in the archaeological (or textual) record? Recent
scholarship has extensively discussed such problems and related pitfalls (see e.g. the various
contributions in Raja and Rüpke 2015), but the nature of our evidence still often leaves us little
choice but to build tentative hypotheses on problematic data. In the following, my arguments
are based on the premise (informed by comparative data) that certain types of objects are more
indicative than others of culturally specific practice, which in turn may be suggestive of ‘ethnic
identity’, and that for some object groups practical experience or social prestige may have trumped
cultural or ethnic ‘meaning’. While undoubtedly debatable, this at least provides a starting point
for assessing extant data.
It is likely, first of all, that the sanctuaries of Naukratis were integral parts of an administrative

framework that to some extent mirrored the dual Greek–Egyptian nature of the port. This is
suggested, for example, by the way official documents were publicly displayed in the later 5th
and early 4th centuries BC: it is the Hellenion that housed the Greek proxeny for Damoxenos
(see Fig. 7), while the Egyptian ‘decree of Sais’, Nectanebo’s taxation arrangements, was set up
in the sanctuary of Amun-Ra (von Bomhard 2012, 5; see Fig. 2). The Hellenion was also the
(conceptual and probably actual) headquarters of the Naukratite ‘traders’ association’ that chose
the ‘champions of the port’, prostatai tou emporiou (Herodotus, Histories 2.178–79), housed cults
fostering (civic) cohesion, and might have been the location also of the city’s prytaneion.
In both Greece and Egypt temples also had economic roles, including as stores of wealth, and
at Naukratis this role may have extended to guarding precious trade goods: many precincts were
large, and the Hellenion and especially the sanctuary of Amun-Ra were also well-fortified, with
the latter housing several large buildings on casemate foundations, some of them, as noted earlier,
at least in part probably sacred storage buildings. Egyptian temples in particular were significant
economic entities, whose economic activities in Late Period Egypt to a significant degree were
extensions of Pharaonic economic policy (Agut-Labordère 2013; Moreno García 2015; Colburn
2018, 73–81; cf. Manning 2018, 128, 174–75). Among their common responsibilities in the Late
Period were the administration and renting out of land and the storage, distribution and trade
of natural resources and products, and they may also have had a role in tax collecting; it was
here that weight standards were kept and wealth, such as silver used as bullion, may have been
stored. Naukratis, it is likely, was no exception to this rule; by the early 3rd century BC the
temple’s economic activities included the production (and royal taxation) of wool from flocks
of sheep belonging to the temple of Amun-Ra (Agut-Labordère, this volume). Both religious
and economic functions were facilitated by a position on the river; as in other Egyptian towns,
Naukratis’ riverfront would have been its main harbour, the hub of commercial interaction
between private individuals and state and temple officials. Tomb paintings of earlier periods show
trading ships moored along river quays and the river bank full of market stalls and traders (Pino
2005; Zingarelli 2010, 33–50); one Dynasty 18 painting, in Kenamun’s tomb at Thebes, depicts
Syrian merchants arriving and offloading and selling their wares, and prices being determined
with the help of scales (Fig. 19).
Fig. 19: Syrian merchant ship and trading on the Theban harbour front: drawing of scenes in Kenamun’s tomb
at Thebes, TT 162, Dynasty 18. Drawing by Norman de G. Davies, after Davies and Faulkner 1947, pl. 8.

In a more indirect way, as noted earlier, sanctuaries helped reduce economic risk and
transaction costs through the sense of security and trust that was fostered by a shared recognition
of divine control and sanction of commercial transaction. At Naukratis, this would have been
further aided by a long-standing framework of equations between Egyptian and Greek (and
other foreign) gods (von Lieven 2016), such as that of Egyptian Amun-Ra with Greek Zeus
Thebaios, attested at Naukratis in the 4th century BC but going back to at least the mid-6th
century BC (Vittmann 2003, 230–31; Johnston 2015, 8 fig. 9). This did not necessarily, however,
entail a direct sharing of religious spaces. As discussed by Masson-Berghoff in the present
volume, only a few clear Egyptian-style votive offerings are known from early fieldwork in the
Greek sanctuaries of Naukratis. Though our own recent fieldwork in 6th-century BC levels
of the Dioskouroi sanctuary has revealed a rather different picture among pottery finds, with
Egyptian wares making up a substantial proportion and including vessels of a kind appropriate
also for Egyptian sanctuaries, this still does not constitute secure evidence for a participation of
Egyptians in Greek cult, as objects could have been used and offered by Greeks, mirroring the
presence of dedicated aeg yptiaca in Greece itself. Similarly, few Greek objects are known from
Egyptian sanctuaries, notably Greek pottery found in the Cache of bronzes and at the perimeter
of Amun-Ra’s sanctuary and the dedication to Zeus Thebaios from outside its pylon. Given how
limited our evidence is, especially from inside the Egyptian sanctuary, this picture may, of course,
be misleading.26 Nonetheless, the evidence known to us at present from the major sanctuaries at
Naukratis points less towards integration or the development of hybrid religious practices, and
more towards patterns of differentiation and the communication of visible difference; as focal
points for group identities, sanctuaries were thus able to provide a stable social and economic
framework for interaction between diverse communities.
At the same time, worship in Naukratis was certainly not strictly segregated. This is clear
especially for the Greek sanctuaries. First, as on Delos, they provided spaces for interaction
between Greeks of different origins, structuring traders into a more cohesive occupational group
(thus easing interaction with their Egyptian counterparts) as well as helping shape a new, civic
community of Naukratites. Second, as noted earlier, they were clearly open also to non-Greeks,
including Cypriots, Carians and Phoenicians, maximising the sanctuaries’ role in fostering good
trading. In addition, there may also be indications for a dialogue between Greek and Egyptian
cults. One example is the output of the so-called ‘scarab factory’, located in the immediate vicinity
of the sanctuary of Aphrodite27 and perhaps in some way associated with that sanctuary, as would
perhaps not be unusual in an Egyptian context (Webb, this volume). Together with workshops at
other sites (such as at nearby Sais, see Wilson, this volume), the ‘scarab factory’ produced small
faience scarabs, amulets and other objects that in the early part of the 6th century BC were widely
distributed in the (Greek) Mediterranean (Masson 2018; Webb, this volume) (Fig. 20). While
the workshop’s output was probably targeted in part at visitors keen to take back home some
cheap yet powerful Egyptian amulets, we would be wrong to dismiss it all as mere meaningless
‘souvenirs’: the majority of scarabs are bone fide Egyptian in type and were used also locally to
26 We cannot exclude the possibility that some of the unprovenanced Egyptian-style dedications by Greeks (and Carians?)
that reached the art market in the later 19th and early 20th century derive from Naukratis.
27 Our understanding of the site’s archaeology is hampered not least due to Petrie’s illness during the period when much of
this site was being excavated.

seal documents, or were included in Egyptian votive deposits (Masson 2018, 86–90; Masson-
Berghoff, this volume). Intriguingly, many scarabs carry inscriptions and symbols relating to
Naukratis’ main Egyptian god Amun-Ra, who, like Naukratite Aphrodite, could also function
as a patron of sailors (Drioton 1958; Masson 2018, 26–31) – one further example, perhaps, of
Naukratis’ role as an international port being echoed in the religious sphere.28
Fig. 20: Faience scarab naming Amun-Ra from Naukratis, c. 600–570 BC (left). British Museum, 1886,0401.1659.
© Trustees of the British Museum. Terracotta scarab mould from Naukratis, c. 600–570 BC (right). Oxford,
Ashmolean Museum AN1888.216.13. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Photograph by British
Museum staff
Cross-cultural interfaces: lived religion at Naukratis
It is beyond the major sanctuaries, however, in the cemeteries and houses and the wider sacred
landscape of Naukratis that we find some of the most striking instances of cultural and religious
dialogue. While funerary evidence is slim for the pre-Ptolemaic period, the ‘false door’ grave
28 Note also the stelae recording Nectanebo’s decree of 380 BC, in which the divine patron of Sais, Neith, recipient of a
share of the tax revenues raised at Naukratis and Thonis-Heracleion, appears as mistress of the sea: von Bomhard 2012, 29.

marker of Apollos of the late 6th–early 5th century BC shows a clear merging of Egyptian
and Anatolian traditions, centred on a shared symbolism of the door as the threshold to the
life beyond (Villing 2015, 234–35, fig. 12.5). In the town area and riverfront, as noted earlier,
terracotta and stone figurines of the 6th and especially the 5th–4th centuries BC testify to the
practising of traditional Egyptian popular religion concerned with fertility and protection and
notably the yearly inundation of the Nile (see Thomas, this volume); this is well paralleled in
contemporaneous Egyptian settlements and most likely reflects a substantial Egyptian element
in the town’s population, even if Greeks or other ‘foreigners’ may also have participated, sharing
a recognition of the river’s power and significance. Together with other archaeological data (see
Masson-Berghoff, this volume) this would further add to a picture of Naukratis as a settlement
with a plural character from its foundation, neither exclusively Egyptian nor exclusively Greek.
Precisely how Greek and Egyptian inhabitants at Naukratis interrelated in spatial terms and
in daily interaction is difficult to assess and will require more research in future, including the
further assessment of our own recent fieldwork results; the lack of detailed in situ data from
houses, however, will continue to limit our understanding of the matter. The early excavators
had noted that Egyptian evidence was concentrated in the southern part of the site, which they
considered the Egyptian quarter (cf. Möller 2000, 117), but the evidence may be skewed by the
massive sanctuary precinct of Amun-Ra in the south, while ideas of segregation may have been
unduly influenced by literary sources or comparisons with other historical trading ports, such
as Dejima in isolationist Edo-period Japan. Other contemporaneous sites in Egypt certainly do
not present a coherent picture with regard to segregation or integration: the ancient Egyptian
metropolis Memphis appears to have had separate quarters for Phoenicians, Greeks, Carians,
Syrians, Persians and Jews, complete with their own shrines (Kaplan 2003; Schmitz 2010, 327–29;
Thompson 2012, 76–98; Jakobeit 2016; Vittmann 2017). In the well-researched southern border
town of Elephantine, on the other hand, property contracts show that houses belonging to Jews
and Aramaeans, stationed here as mercenaries during the 6th to 4th centuries BC, were randomly
interspersed with those of Egyptians (Fig. 21); intermarriage, too, is attested in Elephantine (as
indeed at many other Egyptian sites), and in private letters Judaeans express greetings in the
names of both Jewish Yāhû and Egyptian Khnum (Kaplan 2003, 14; Nutkowicz 2008; Vittmann
2017). This picture of a close and peaceful coexistence or ‘convivence’29 that also extended to
religion is not necessarily contradicted by the violent events of 410 BC, when at the instigation of
the priests of Khnum the temple of Yāhû was destroyed by the Persian garrison commander, an
act that appears to have been motivated more by political and juridical strife than by xenophobia
or religious zeal (Vittmann 2017, 247–48). The picture presented by Elephantine thus strongly
recalls that of intercultural mixing in the Assyrian trade colony of Kanesh discussed above, even
if it also highlights how religious (and other) monuments could become instrumentalised as
ethnic symbols in conflict situations.

29 Human communal living together in a diverse society free from ethnic or religious hierarchy and superiority: Grundmann
2009.

Fig. 21: Map of part of the town of Elephantine, showing houses belonging to owners of different ethnicities;
after Vittmann 2017, 243 fig. 21.
Fig. 22: Colossal statue of Horemheb, priest of

Min, from Naukratis, late 4th–early 3rd century
BC. Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG1230 / GEM
2586. © Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Modern ethnographic research has shed much light on the role of religion in the everyday life
of such plural communities. Of particular interest is recent research on the Balkans, which has
highlighted the importance of ‘neighbourhood’ in such contexts (komşuluk or komşiluk; see Baskar
2012, 61–62; Valtchinova 2012, 77). It is the implicit behavioural norms, mutual obligations and
ritualised mechanisms of ‘neighbourhood’ that effectively regulate the shared lives of different
ethno-religious groups, also extending to and incorporating religious practices. The religious
elements that were found to be most effective in transcending divides in modern multi-faith
communities are a shared sacred geography, notably involving rural areas or patronal feasts
encouraging a communal patriotism (Albera 2012, 225–27; Mayeur-Jaouen 2012, 164); the
equation of saints, such as of Muslim Al-Khadir with Jewish St Elias and Christian St George
(Albera 2012, 230); and a sense of sacred spaces and divine powers believed to grant health
and prosperity and inspiring individual devotion (Albera and Fliche 2012; Valtchinova 2012,
83; Bowman 2012, 16). In such contexts, traditional gestures and embodied practices were
also occasionally adopted from one religion into another, such as Muslims taking shoes off
in Albanian churches or praying with hands raised to heaven (Albera 2012, 236). In contrast,
religious mixing proved most difficult in places where religious hierarchies were well embedded
or sustained by powerful religious or political institutions (Valtchinova 2012, 70).
Observations made at Naukratis fit in rather well with such comparative data, despite the
obvious differences in substance and context. If Naukratis had separate quarters for Egyptians
and foreigners (which remains to be ascertained), any ‘segregation’ is unlikely to have been strict;
indeed, even regulated ‘ghettos’ such at Dejima, which on the surface present a picture of ethnic
separation, have been found to be ‘leaky at the seams’ in day-to-day reality (Blake Willis 2008, 253–
54). Boundaries and the articulation of difference are most prominent in public institutional and
administrative contexts, where they serve to provide a framework for cross-cultural (economic)
exchange and support diasporic networks of trade; as a part of this, distinctions between various
resident Greek communities blur in the light of their Egyptian context, which fostered the
development of a communal ‘Hellenic’ identity, not least for commercial ends. Cultural and
religious borders appear permeable especially in ‘neighbourhood’ situations involving concerns
of health, well-being and the afterlife, such as fertility and funerary ritual. Intermarriage
undoubtedly played a part in such interaction, though from the scarce hints (including a 5th-
century BC graffito declaring the mutual love between Greek Gorgias and Egyptian Tamunis,
Villing 2015, 87 fig. 12b) it is difficult to gauge the extent of the practice at Naukratis. It is from
such mixed families, however, that by the early Hellenistic period prominent figures emerged,
such as Horemheb (Fig. 22; cf. Guermeur 2005, 135–37) a Naukratite trader born from a Greek
father and an Egyptian mother, whose monumental statue – erected in the sanctuary of Amun-
Ra – attests his social significance. As a priest of Min, he is, moreover, living proof that then, as
already earlier (Vittmann 2006), a mixed ethnic background was no barrier to holding religious
office.
The case of Naukratis highlights the multifaceted role played by religious beliefs and ritual
practices in human interaction. As an institutional and behavioural framework that supported
both distinction and cohesion, religion helped to regulate not just social but also economic
contact and exchange; as a platform for cultural translation, it played a vital role especially in the
historical contact zones of the ancient world.

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Villing - 24 Naukratis - Religion in A Cross-Cultural Context

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Naukratis: religion in a cross-cultural context

British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 24 (2019): 204–247

Economy, religion and cross-cultural encounters

Fig. 2: The ‘decree of Sais’ of Pharaoh Nectanebo

Sacred geographies and commercial networks

Table 1. Proxenies of Naukratis13

Date City of proxeny Name of Ethnic Find-spot Publication

Fig. 6: Map of proxenies of Naukratis, modified from base map of http://proxenies.csad.ox.ac.uk/.

Fig. 7: Lindian proxeny decree for Damoxenos,

The sanctuaries of Naukratis

Apollo, Hera and Zeus

Dioskouroi and Aphrodite

Hellenion, sanctuary of Amun-Ra and other cults

Fig. 18: Punic miniature limestone altar with relief

Naukratis: integration and segregation in the plural community

The dual city: Sanctuaries and civic space

Cross-cultural interfaces: lived religion at Naukratis

Fig. 22: Colossal statue of Horemheb, priest of

Agut-Labordère, D. 2012. Le statut égyptien de Naucratis. In Communautés locales et pouvoir central

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