Naukratis, a Greek emporion in Egypt. The new Cypriot and Phoenician graffiti
Lewis-Gibson Visiting Fellowship Research
Dr Giorgos Bourogiannis
Lewis-Gibson Visiting Fellow, University College, Dublin
Dr Giorgos Bourogiannis is an archaeologist and Adjunct Lecturer at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Open University of Cyprus. His research focuses on the Early Iron Age Aegean, Cyprus and Phoenicia, particularly trade and cultural interaction, ancient writing systems and the movement of people, objects and ideas across the eastern Mediterranean. A former curator on the British Museum’s Naukratis Project, he has also held fellowships at Cambridge, the Getty Research Institute and Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies. His recent monograph, The Sanctuary of Ayia Irini Reconsidered: A Quest for Gods and Territories (2025), examines cult, territory and political change in ancient Cyprus.
About the project
Dr Bourogiannis’ project, Naukratis, a Greek emporion in Egypt: The New Cypriot and Phoenician Graffiti, investigates multilingualism and writing practices at one of the most important trading centres of the ancient Mediterranean. Established in the Nile Delta and flourishing particularly between the seventh and fourth centuries BCE, Naukratis brought Greeks into sustained contact with Egyptian, Cypriot, Phoenician and other communities.
The site has produced an exceptionally rich body of inscriptions and graffiti. Greek writing predominates, but excavations by the British Museum between 2014 and 2019 also uncovered previously unpublished graffiti written in the Cypriot syllabary and the Phoenician alphabet. During his Lewis-Gibson Visiting Fellowship, Dr Bourogiannis will study this material linguistically, epigraphically and archaeologically, setting the inscriptions within their chronological and material contexts.
The project asks what these different writing systems reveal about the people who used them and about the ways multilingual communities interacted at Naukratis. How closely did Cypriot writing practices resemble those found on Cyprus itself? What can Phoenician inscriptions tell us about the identities and literacy of their users? And how did Cypriot and Phoenician writing coexist with the much more extensive use of alphabetic Greek?
By considering inscriptions alongside other archaeological evidence, including pottery and votive objects, the research seeks to reconstruct a more complex picture of Cypriot and Phoenician presence and activity at the port. It will also contribute to wider questions about multilingualism, literacy and the visible coexistence of different scripts in the ancient Mediterranean.
At Cambridge, the project will connect with the VIEWS research programme on ancient writing systems and build on Dr Bourogiannis’ earlier work with the CREWS project. The resulting study will contribute to the British Museum’s forthcoming publication of the recent Naukratis excavations.