The town of Naukratis, where Apries established himself, had been granted to the Greek traders by Psametik I a century or more before.  Mr. D. G. Hogarth’s recent exploration of the site has led to a considerable modification of our first ideas of the place, which were obtained from Prof.  Petrie ’s excavations.  Prof.  Petrie was the discoverer of Naukratis, and his diggings told us what Naukratis was like in the first instance, but Mr. Hogarth has shown that several of his identifications were erroneous and that the map of the place must be redrawn.  The chief error was in the placing of the Hellenion (the great meeting-place of the Greeks), which is now known to be in quite a different position from that assigned to it by Prof.  Petrie.  The “Great Temenos” of Prof.  Petrie has now been shown to be non-existent.  Mr. Hogarth has also pointed out that an old Egyptian town existed at Nau-kratis long before the Greeks came there.  This town is mentioned on a very interesting stele of black basalt (discovered at Tell Gaif, the site of Naukratis, and now in the Cairo Museum), under the name of “Permerti, which is called Nukrate.”  The first is the old Egyptian name, the second the Greek name adapted to Egyptian hieroglyphs.  The stele was erected by Tekhtnebf, the last native king of Egypt, to commemorate his gifts to the temples of Neith on the occasion of his accession at Sais.  It is beautifully cut, and the inscription is written in a curious manner, with alphabetic spellings instead of ideographs, and ideographs instead of alphabetic spellings, which savours fully of the affectation of the learned pedant who drafted it; for now, of course, in the fourth century before Christ, nobody but a priestly antiquarian could read hieroglyphics.  Demotic was the only writing for practical purposes.

We see this fact well illustrated in the inscriptions of the Ptolemaic temples.  The accession of the Ptolemies marked a great increase in the material wealth of Egypt, and foreign conquest again came in fashion.  Ptolemy Euergetes marched into Asia in the grand style of a Ramses and brought back the images of gods which had been carried off by Esarhaddon or Nebuchadnezzar II centuries before.  He was received on his return to Egypt with acclamations as a true successor of the Pharaohs.  The imperial spirit was again in vogue, and the archaistic simplicity and independence of the Saites gave place to an archaistic imperialism, the first-fruits of which were the repair and building of temples in the great Pharaonic style.  On these we see the Ptolemies masquerading as Pharaohs, and the climax of absurdity is reached when Ptolemy Auletes (the Piper) is seen striking down Asiatic enemies in the manner of Amen-hetep or Ramses!  This scene is directly copied from a Ramesside temple, and we find imitations of reliefs of Ramses II so slavish that the name of the earlier king is actually copied, as well as the relief, and appears above the figure of a Ptolemy.  The names of the nations who were