Napoleon Bonaparte and the Napoleonic expedition
Born into a noble Corsican family, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) early showed an aptitude for mathematics, a fascination with warfare, and an interest in reading ancient history, particularly the Greek historian Plutarch and Julius Caesar, all of which is reflected in his later career. Trained at French military academies by favor of Louis XVI, Bonaparte nevertheless supported the revolution and with its victory made further advances in command. He won the heart of Josephine de Beauharnais at the same time (1796) that he received command of France’s army in Italy. His victories there allowed him to send large amounts of money back to the government in France, and many works of art to the museums of Paris. He wrested the Venetian fleet away from Austrian control, and this allowed him to pursue his plans for conquest beyond Europe. Finding role models in Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, the young general planned, like them, to conquer Egypt; and to make it a province of France. His justification was to lift Egypt into the modern age and restore it to prosperity after freeing it from the rule of exploitative tyrants, the Mamelukes. However, he also was retaliating for the treatment of French traders there, and he was planning to sever the British hold on India and the East by dominating the Eastern Mediterranean and cutting a canal through the Suez.
Already voted a Member of the Academy of Sciences, as he liked to surround himself with men of science, Napoleon conceived of a scientific and artistic purpose to his great military venture. Along with the army of 25,000 went an impressive company of 165 French scholars, scientists, engineers and students. Commissioned with exploring, studying and publishing as much of the natural and ancient history of Egypt as possible, they landed near Alexandria at the beginning of July, 1798. Among them were the artist Vivant Denon, the mineralogist Deodat Dolomieu and the mathematician Jean-Joseph Fourier, plus zoologists, paleontologists, chemists and engineers. Together they composed the French Commission of Arts and Sciences, and with them they brought a printing press, a library of every work published thus far on Egypt, and crates of scientific instruments. A research center—the Institute of Egypt—was founded in Cairo, and staffed by the most eminent of this band of scholars, but many of them also toured the country, accompanying the army.
Napoleon ordered the exploration of Upper Egypt, and as well as Denon, who followed the French General Desaix for ten months as he pursued the Mamelukes throughout Egypt, three commissions of engineers and scientists also braved enemy fire to carry out their research. A year after landing, many had reached Aswan at the southern border believing that they had measured and drawn every notable monument encountered. The month spent at Luxor by the young engineers Prosper Jollois and Edouard de Villiers du Terrage allowed them to discover the tomb of Amenhotep III in the western Valley of the Kings and make an extensive artistic and architectural record of the ancient temples, which later comprised many of the plates in the monumental work of the Napoleonic expedition, the Description de I’Egypte (Description of Egypt). At the temple at Dendera, which dazzled all who saw it, they executed a careful drawing of the zodiac, which had been discovered by Denon on the ceiling of a small room.
As well as producing the first scientific maps of Egypt and collecting and drawing numerous plants, animals and minerals, the expedition collected antiquities, the most notable being the trilingual Rosetta Stone, which would prove to be the key in deciphering the hieroglyphs. The British confiscated this trophy as a result of their successful naval blockade of Egypt, which had trapped the French shortly after their arrival.
Napoleon, taking the senior scientist Gaspard Monge and artist Denon with him, escaped back to a France unaware of his defeat and was made First Consul. Months later the British finally allowed the other hapless French scholars to leave, along with their specimens, drawings and notes. These eventually resulted in the remarkable twenty-four-volume Description de I’Egypte, including ten folio volumes with over 3,000 illustrations, five volumes of which were devoted to antiquities and ancient monuments. Due to the magnitude of the writing, editing and printing effort, the massive publication did not begin to appear until 1809 and was not concluded until 1828, long after the Emperor of the French had been defeated and exiled to St Helena, where he died at the age of fifty two.
Through his enlightened interests, Napoleon opened Egypt to the West and started her toward modernity, while he caused Europe to become aware of Egypt’s great and rich antiquity and cultural legacy. In this way, he became one of the founders of Egyptology.
Natural resources
The Nile
Ancient Egypt’s greatest natural resource was the Nile River, and the unified kingdom was a navigable stretch of river and floodplain from the First Cataract at Aswan to the Mediterranean shore of the Delta. Without it, large-scale cereal agriculture on the broad fertile floodplains, which was the economic base of the pharaonic state, would not have been possible. The Nile was also the major channel of communication and transportation for this kingdom, facilitating control of a large kingdom and the transport of goods and materials controlled by the state. Not only was transport relatively easy downstream, but prevailing winds from the north also facilitated sailing upstream. Unlike in Nubia, where the Nile is impeded by six cataracts and the floodplain is narrow, the Egyptian Nile was a cohesive and fertile geographic feature.
Most of the waters of the Nile originate in highland Ethiopia, and the floodplain in Egypt was replenished by annual flooding, which deposited new silts and flushed out salts in the soil. In prehistoric times the marshes of the Nile attracted many large mammals which were hunted, as were migratory waterfowl. Papyrus, reeds and lotus pads grew in these marshes. Papyrus was used to make small boats and as a material for writing. Reeds and rushes were used to make matting, and lotus flowers were enjoyed by ancient Egyptians for their beauty and fragrance.
As domesticated animals were introduced into the Nile Valley and as the region became more arid in later prehistoric times, a number of wild animals which had been hunted became scarce or extinct. Cattle, sheep and goats grazed along the margins of the floodplain and, along with fish from the Nile, were the major sources of protein in pharaonic Egypt.
Ceramics
The floodplain in Egypt was also the source of another basic material: clay for ceramics. The brown and black clay which is found in the Nile Valley and the Delta contains much organic matter and iron, and some sand. Some Egyptian pottery was also made of calcareous clay or marl, which is only found in a few locations, notably at Qena and Ballas in Upper Egypt. Marl clay consists mainly of calcium carbonate, and is a light buff color when fired.
Wood
Because Egypt is so arid, many useful species of trees cannot grow there. From early times a species of ebony (Dalbergia melanoxylon) was imported for luxury craft goods from regions to the south and southeast. Large timbers were not available, and cedar (Cedrus Libani) was imported from Syria by Early Dynastic times. Cedar was used to make coffins, but, perhaps more importantly, it was used to make large ships. Probably the most well-known example of a cedar ship is the (reconstructed) solar bark of Khufu, found in a large pit next to his pyramid at Giza.
The acacia was probably the most common tree that grew in ancient Egypt, and many varieties are found there today. Another common tree was the tamarisk, and again many species are known. Beginning in Predynastic times, two different palm trees, the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) and the dom palm (Hyphoene rhebaica), were cultivated in Egypt for their wood (domestic uses) and fruit. Leaves of both palms were used for fibers to make baskets and rope. Wood of the persea tree (Mimusops Schimperi) was used for making craft goods, and it has an edible fruit. Fruit from the sidder tree (Zizyphus spina Christi) has been found in Egyptian tombs, and its hardwood was used by carpenters for dowels.
Two other species of trees found in ancient Egypt were the sycamore fig (Ficus sycomorus) and the willow (Salix safsaf). The wood of these trees was used for various purposes, and their leaves have been found in funeral garlands. The fruit of the sycamore fig was also eaten.
Because trees were not plentiful in ancient Egypt, animal dung was a major source of fuel, as it is today in farming villages.
Building materials
Much more plentiful in Egypt than wood was the material used to make sun-dried mudbrick. The Nile floodplain provided alluvium for the basic building material for domestic architecture, including royal palaces, and mudbricks were also used for the construction of many cult centers until the New Kingdom. Fired bricks were rare in Egypt until the Roman period. As many species of large trees were not found in Egypt, mudbrick houses were roofed with rafters of palm logs covered with palm branches.
Various stones for monuments were available throughout the Nile Valley and the earliest building in the world built entirely of stone (limestone) is the 3rd Dynasty Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Limestone is found beyond the floodplain from Cairo to Esna in Upper Egypt, south of which the Nubian Sandstone Formation begins, but the quality of this limestone greatly varies. Limestone was quarried locally at pyramid sites, but a finer quality of limestone from Tura on the east bank was used for casing stones. In the north, tomb superstructures constructed in mudbrick and/or limestone were lined with limestone which provided a surface for scenes of the mortuary cult. In other parts of Egypt, limestone cliffs provided the medium for rock-cut tombs. Temple construction in sandstone did not begin until the New Kingdom, and many of the temples in Upper Egypt are built with this material. Granite was used for special constructions, such as obelisks, and the huge blocks that line the King’s [burial] Chamber in the Great Pyramid and the five "relieving" chambers above it. Granite was quarried at Aswan and transported by ship downriver.
Alabaster and basalt were used less frequently in the construction of cult centers. Alabaster was quarried in the Wadi Gerawi in Lower Egypt near Helwan, but there are a number of quarry sites in Middle Egypt, especially at Hatnub, about 25km east of Tell el-Amarna. Most of the basalt used during the Old Kingdom came from the Fayum region. Gypsum, which was used to make plaster and mortar for stone monuments in the Old Kingdom, was also quarried in the Fayum.
Stone (sculpture and vessels)
Stones used in the construction of monuments were also carved into stelae and sculpture found in cult centers and tombs: limestone, sandstone, granite, alabaster and basalt. Granite was also used for royal sarcophagi and, infrequently, for early stone vessels.
While limestone, sandstone and granite came from quarries near the Nile Valley, other stones used less frequently were found in the Eastern or Western Deserts. According to Lucas, the "diorite-gneiss" used for 4th Dynasty royal statues came from a quarry in Nubia, about 60km northwest of Abu Simbel. Marble used for stone vessels and statues was found at sites in the Eastern Desert. Quartzite, which was mainly used for royal sarcophagi and statues, was probably quarried in the Gebel Ahmar northeast of Cairo, or north of Aswan.
Red and white breccia used for Predynastic and Early Dynastic stone vessels can be7 found at several sites in Middle and Upper Egypt. Green breccia was quarried in the Wadi Hammamat (Eastern Desert) and exported by the Romans. "Imperial" porphyry, which is purple in color, was also exported by the Romans, and came from quarries in the Eastern Desert, as did other varieties of porphyry used for early stone vessels. Diorite, probably from a quarry near Aswan, and dolomite from the Eastern Desert were also used for these vessels. Graywacke (sometimes called schist) and slate from the Wadi Hammamat were used for various artifacts, such as palettes, bracelets and stone vessels in the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, and later for statues. Serpentine, which is green to black in color, came from sites in the Eastern Desert.
With the exception of flint, stone quarrying in Egypt and the (state organized) quarrying at sites in the Sinai and Eastern and Western Deserts were conducted to obtain materials used for luxury craft goods of elites and monuments constructed by the crown.
Stone (tools)
Flint is found in many parts of Egypt, in limestone deposits and as nodules on the surface of the desert. Not only was it used for stone tools in prehistoric times but, because copper was rare in Egypt, flint was a locally available material used for tools in Dynastic times as well.
Obsidian is not found in Egypt, and the obsidian used for tools, beads and eye inlays in statues was imported from Ethiopia or southern Arabia.
Stone (jewelry)
Various stones used for beads, such as agate, carnelian and chalcedony, were plentiful in Egypt where they were found as pebbles. Amethyst and garnet are found at mines in the Eastern and Western Deserts. Beryl, green feldspar, red and yellow jasper come from mines in the Eastern Desert. Quartz of different colors and rock crystal are found in veins of rock in the Eastern Desert and near Aswan.
The most common kind of scarab was made of glazed steatite from the Eastern Desert, near Aswan. Beads were also made of (glazed) steatite.
Although lapis lazuli was used for jewelry and small objects beginning in the Predynastic period, it was not found in Egypt and was imported from Afghanistan. Turquoise came from two mines in the Sinai which were worked in Dynastic times.
Metals
Cast metal artifacts in ancient Egypt could be considered luxury goods, as metals had to be brought into the Nile Valley from elsewhere. Copper ore was found in small mines in the Eastern Desert, and it was mined in the Sinai in the Wadi Maghara and in the vicinity of Serabit el-Khadim. In the New Kingdom, copper ingots were imported from Cyprus and Syria. Bronze, an alloy of copper and a small proportion of tin which is much harder and stronger than pure copper, was not found in Egypt in any great quantity until the New Kingdom, when tin would have been imported from southwest Asia.
Malachite, a copper ore which occurs in the Eastern Desert and Sinai, was ground to make pigment for eye paint. Galena, the ore of lead, was also used for eye paint, and came from mines in the Eastern Desert near the Red Sea.
Iron minerals occur in Egypt, and hematite was made into beads as early as the Predynastic period. Red and yellow ochers, compounds of iron used as pigments, are found in the Eastern Desert and Sinai, and in the oases of the Western Desert. Although a few iron artifacts were found in Tutankhamen’s tomb and isolated iron artifacts are known earlier, iron working and tool production did not develop on any large scale in Egypt until the first millennium BC, during the 25th-26th Dynasties.
Ancient Egypt was best known for its gold, and in the New Kingdom it may have been the major supplier of gold to other states in the Near East. The main gold deposits are in the Eastern Desert, from the Qena region south. The Eastern Desert was even richer in gold deposits in Nubia than in Egypt, and this was a major reason for Egypt’s motivation to control parts of Nubia during the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms.
Egyptian gold contains varying proportions of silver, but high grade silver ores do not occur in Egypt. The light-colored gold found in some Egyptian artifacts was a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, called electrum by the Romans. Silver was rare in Egypt, and most silver in artifacts is thought to have been imported from countries in southwest Asia.
Naukratis
The ancient city of Naukratis (modern Kom Ge’if) is located in the Behera province about 80km southeast of Alexandria and about 5km west of the modern junction town of Ityai el-Barud (30°54′ N, 30°35′ E). In antiquity, this important Graeco-Egyptian trading post lay to the west of the Canopic branch of the Nile, connected to it by a canal. It was Pharaoh Amasis of the 26th Dynasty, according to Herodotus (II. 178-9), who first allowed Greek merchants to settle and trade at the site, and who granted land so that they could erect altars and temples to their gods. However, earlier Greek imports (Early Corinthian aryballoi, East Greek bird-bowls and Middle Wild Goat style pottery) indicate a Hellenic presence at the site in the second half of the seventh century BC, perhaps during the reign of Psamtik I, who had utilized the services of Greek mercenaries ("men of bronze from the sea") in his struggles to consolidate his newly reunified Egypt. This early group of Greek settlers may have come from Miletus, as Strabo (17.I.18) believed.
In his Life of Solon, Plutarch (26.1) records that when the famous Greek lawmaker left Athens after instituting his reforms, he stopped first in Egypt and spent time "where the Nile pours forth its waters by the shore of Canopus." Given the political situation at the time, and the mercantile nature of Solon’s mind, this description must refer to Naukratis. Further evidence that Naukratis was a thriving entrepot in the early sixth century BC is the fact that Sappho’s brother Charaxus, a wine dealer, made frequent visits to the site where he tempered the rigors of his business with the pleasures of the courtesan Rhodopis, against whom his sister reviled (see also Herodotus II.135, Strabo XVII.I.33, and Athenaeus Deipnosophistae, XIII: 596b). Perhaps Amasis had simply codified a de facto situation, for it was he who made Naukratis the only legal outlet for Greek wares in all of Egypt, an exclusivity that was strickly enforced by local Egyptian regulations (Herodotus II. 179). Throughout his long reign the city flourished, and the famous Hellenion was built, the product of a combined effort of nine East Greek cities (the Ionian cities of Chios, Teos, Phocaea and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene). This building was said by Herodotus (II.178) to have been the "best known…most used… and…largest of all of the temene at Naukratis."
It is difficult to determine the degree to which the merchants of Naukratis were affected by the politics of the 27th Dynasty. Excavation has shown that a significant quantity of imported goods continued to arrive at the site during this period. The loss of access to Black Sea markets through Persian control of the Hellespont, however, as well as the growing size and importance of both the Athenian and Phoenician fleets, must have caused the merchants of Naukratis some financial hardship. The threat to Naukratite exclusivity that was posed by a decade of Athenian military intervention in local Delta affairs (Papremis, Memphis, Amyrtaeus) was brought to an end by the "Peace of Callias" (449/8 BC) between Athens and Persia. It was not long after this event that Herodotus was supposed to have visited Egypt; his description of Naukratis as a town dotted with temples hardly conjures up the image of a cultural backwater.
Although little material at Naukratis can be assigned with any certainty to the local rulers of the 28th and 29th Dynasties, Naukratis continued to be an important manufacturing center. It was the foremost commercial city in the Delta throughout the 30th Dynasty. In the first year of his reign, Nectanebo I built a temple to the goddess Neith in the local Egyptian section (Piemro) of Naukratis. In the precinct of this temple he erected a black granite stela that decreed that 10 percent of the existing levies on "gold, silver, timber, worked wood, and everything coming from the Sea of the Greeks" as well as 10 percent of the existing tax on similar luxury goods manufactured "at Piemro called Naukratis" would be used to provide for its upkeep.
The brief reimposition of Persian rule (31st Dynasty) was brought to an end by Alexander the Great when he conquered Egypt in 332/1 BC. Although victory celebrations at Memphis were made more festive by entertainers brought from Naukratis, Alexander did not visit the site. Situated on the coast with the Mediterraean world before it, Alexandria rapidly eclipsed the centuries-old emporium at Naukratis, but the transition could not have occurred so quickly if it were not for native sons such as Cleomenes and the rich pool of trained administrators and bureaucrats that were available at Naukratis, just a few kilometers south of Alexandria.
Naukratis did not wither and fade after the foundation of Alexandria. To the contrary, the old city seems to have witnessed a period of rebirth functioning as a trans-shipment depot for goods coming from the Mediterranean to the capital at Memphis, or eastward to Pelusium and beyond. Pottery and other artifacts excavated at Naukratis indicate that life and business continued as usual under the Ptolemies. Although it could no longer boast of its status as the sole gateway to Egypt for foreign products, it did remain (with Alexandria and Ptolemais) one of the three major Greek cities in Egypt. Perhaps the most significant indication of its importance was the program of restoration carried out in the city by Ptolemy II, for example, his addition of a monumental entryway to the massive structure referred to by Petrie as the "Great Temenos." The picture is less clear during the later Ptolemaic period as Egypt fell steadily under Roman control, culminating in the installation of a Roman governor in 30 BC.
The events that surrounded the final incorporation of Egypt into the Roman Empire by Octavian do not seem to have left their mark on Naukratis. The old trading center continued as it had for centuries, governing itself through the elected members of its own council (boule), a privilege that was not restored to the residents of Alexandria for over 200 years. That the laws of Naukratis were well known and well respected is evident in the fact that the emperor Hadrian chose them as a model for those to be used in the city of Antinoopolis, founded in AD 130. Naukratis continued to be a place of learning and culture, and was still able to inspire the sophist and grammarian Julius Pollux (who wrote the Onomastikon) as well as to stimulate the many and varied interests of the young Athenaeus (who wrote the Deipnosophistae) as he came of age there early in the third century AD. Subsequent documentation for Naukratis is slight; the date and cause of the city’s final demise is unknown. Coptic records sporadically mention bishops from Naukratis at least through the fourteenth century AD, but by that time the name Naukratis may have been transferred to the neighboring village of Neqrash, where some late artifacts have been recovered.
In 1884, Flinders Petrie identifed the ancient city of Naukratis with the group of mounds near the village of Kom Ge’if. Even in the nineteenth century, almost one-third of the 950x580m area represented by the "mounds" had been dug away by local farmers for use as a high-phosphate fertilizer (sebbakh) in their fields. His excavations there in 1884-5 were continued by E.A.Gardner in 1886 and by D.H.Hogarth in 1899 and 1903. Their work combined to uncover the remains of sanctuaries dedicated to Apollo and Aphrodite (each probably founded in the seventh century BC), and the slightly later buildings dedicated to the Dioskouroi and to Hera (sixth century BC).
These early excavators concentrated almost exclusively on religious structures and materials that were contemporary with the Archaic period in Greece (sixth century BC); they had paid very little attention to the domestic and mercantile character of the ancient city. In addition, the Hellenistic and Roman periods were almost completely ignored. In an attempt to rectify this situation, renewed investigation of ancient Naukratis was begun in 1978 by W.D.E.Coulson and Albert Leonard, Jr. The high water table in the Delta had transformed the entire area of the early excavations into a lake, thus precluding any reinvestigation of the structures unearthed in the early part of the century. However, to the south of the lake, a small (circa 100x50m) mound in the area of Petrie’s "Great Temenos" remained. This "South Mound" offered the only opportunity for recovering what remained of the original stratigraphy. Between 1980 and 1983, excavation in the South Mound (directed by Leonard) uncovered 6m of vertical stratigraphy that indicated ten phases of (apparently domestic) occupation, all of which dated to the Ptolemaic period. Excavation was also conducted at neighboring Kom Hadid, originally part of the Naukratis mounds, where Petrie had recorded "slag heaps" and "large structures of red baked Roman brick [and] painted frescoes." This area had been severely damaged by the sebbakhin, and contiguous architecture was rare. The artifactual material (almost all from secondary deposits) ranged from Ptolemaic times into the Roman period.
Pedestrian survey of the fields surrounding the modern lake (directed by Coulson) recorded an artifact scatter that extended 2km to the north and to the south of the area of the early excavations. Although this material dated from the fourth century BC to the seventh century AD, the greatest amount of pottery dated to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The distribution of the finds suggests that, between the fourth and first centuries BC, the city expanded to the north and east while, during the Roman period, expansion and growth was to the west.
The regional survey in the vicinity of Naukratis/Kom Ge’if produced a gazeteer of twenty-nine ancient sites. Extensive mapping, sherding and soundings conducted at four sites (Kom Firin, Kom Dahab, Kom Barud and Kom Kortas) demonstrated that the area was widely settled during the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods. At all of these sites, excavation was hampered by the high water table. The Naukratis Project also included an epigraphic survey which concentrated on the recording of the Egyptian material, especially the tomb of Khesu-wer at Kom el-Hisn (conducted by David Silverman), as well as hieroglyphic inscriptions from other sites in the survey area.
