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Heracleion - The Decree of Nektanebo I.
The doublet of the so-called stele of Naukratis.
by Jean Yoyotte, Prof. at the Coll�ge de France Paris, June 7, 2001
A perfectly intact stele unearthed on the site of Nokratj (Naukratis in Greek), a little over a century ago (1899), revealed the contents of a decree which Nektanebos I, founder of the 30th dynasty, had published during his visit to Sais shortly after his accession to the throne (~ November 380 BC). The text, which is written in classic Egyptian and engraved in hieroglyphs using a particularly astute procedure, begins with a preamble relating the royal entry, followed by an emphatic praise of the sovereign. It then notes briefly his decision in favour of the goddess Neith, patroness of Sais and of the two preceding dynasties. This decision favouring the treasury of the goddess� temple, through a tax on the activities of the Greeks installed in the nearby trading post of Naukratis, on their imports via the canopic branch of the Nile on the one hand, and the products manufactured in Naukratis on the other.
 From the volume of the tax regularly levied by the King�s House, i.e. the state, on these two chapters, a dime was henceforth to be attributed to the temple of the goddess in order to create an additional offering, i.e. a benefit in kind for the local clergy which the newly arrived king wished to rally to his person.
Nectanebo�s decision is presented as follows:
"Then His Majesty said: "Let one tenth of the gold, silver, wood and joinery and all thing coming from the Greek Sea, be taxed for the King�s House in the place called Hon�, as well as the tenth of gold, silver and all things existing in the domain of the harbour named Kratj on the bank of the Anu canal.."
Follows the order of the imposing posting of Nectanebos� decision in Naukratis itself:
"Then His Majesty said: "Let this be set on this stele erected in Nokratj on the bank of the Anu canal�"
On the upper part of the stele, above the 14 columns of learned hieroglyphs which metaphysically consecrated the perpetual donation, is engraved a picture showing the king offering to Neith a plate of food on the one side and a great golden necklace on the other. The Greeks knew well the Egyptian image of the goddess � which they had long since assimilated to Athena � and the message contained in the imagery, must have been as clear to them as to the Egyptians.
 Both from the historical and the geographical point of view, the recent search and discoveries of Franck Goddio�s mission allow definite conclusions as to important questions concerning the site of strategic and economic importance through which the Greeks were allowed � under surveillance - to penetrate the pharaonic kingdom.
It has been established in 1958 that the classic Egyptian word Hon� � in the spoken language normally preceded by the female article T � was the place name transcribed into Greek as Thonis; the hon� was a special term in the oldest Egyptian vocabulary designing the various outlets of the Nile�s branches, which were in fact as many small deltas of several branches ending in the lakes along the coastline.
Herodot, on the other hand, tells us that the guardian policing the entry to the Nile�s canopic branch was called Thonis. Diodor of Sicily would learn later on that Thonis had once been the name of the emporium, the place of commercial exchange, of the Egyptians. The trilingual Decree of Canopus indicates that the locality, which the Greeks called Heracleion, after a temple which legend attributed to Herakles, was situated precisely "at the entrance of the hon�" in question.
In 2000, Franck Goddio�s underwater mission succeeded in establishing the site of all of Heracleion, its harbour installations and the city itself, and more specifically a most important temple in the pharaonic style. The readable remnants of inscriptions on a huge ptolemaic naos which is part of this temple have further confirmed � if such was needed � that this building was indeed the sanctuary of Amun and Khonsu, alias Herakles, mentioned in the Canopic Decree. Bathymetric surveys indicate, on the other hand, that the hydrographic configuration of the site does indeed correspond to the type of river outlet called hon� in the Egyptian language.
In May 2001, during an inventory of the monuments of Heracleion, Franck Goddio discovered a stele of Nektanebos I. which is a perfect replica of the Naukratis stele: material and dimensions are the same, as is the double image even in detail, and here, too, are 14 columns of vertical text.
 In all logic, this discovery is not surprising, since part of the tax measures contained in the decree concerned the very customs of Thonis-Heracleion. Nevertheless, it is an extraordinary discovery: here are two versions of one and the same document, concerning two distant townships, preserved intact on the sites where they had been exposed in antiquity, and surely at little distance from the very spots where they had been erected. This might well be called a miracle when considering the destruction which nature and men have inflicted on the monuments of the two sites, and the disconcerting collection of dispersed and dismembered stones which are the normal picture in the region of Alexandria and most of Lower Egypt.
The Naucratis and Thonis versions provide texts which are word for word alike all along the first 12 columns and the 14th; the only differences concern small variations in the graphism of two words. Column 13 of the Thonis version is resolutely and most logically different from column 13 of the Naukratis stele: "Then His Majesty said: "Let this be set on this stele erected at the entrance of the Sea of the Greeks�"
This twinfold display is a further illustration of the refined art of communication mastered by the services of the pharaohs: communication between the state and its subjects, between Egypt and its foreign partners, as well as between the world of men and that of the gods. Sacred scripture ideally integrated politics and economy into a concept of the cosmos, which we call religious.
The two twin steles are both splendid examples of the art of engraving on hard stone in which the artists around the 4th century provide a rich collection of information for historians. The way in which the Sais workshops managed to manually produce two practically identical monuments is truly surprising.
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For further information on this project please contact
Iris Weissen, Salaction
Pictures by Christoph Gerigk
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