Hi Sosius and friends,
After reading your comments, I checked further and there are several authorities who equate the ancient
Egyptian god
Min with the ancient Greek god
Pan, who played the "
Pan pipes". The ancient
Greeks equated
Min with
Pan as they did
Shu with
Atlas, holding up the world.
So, I checked
Gardner and Griffith Naukratis II,
London, 1888, page 57 reads in
part "Sometimes we find a musician with harp (XIV,14); we may compare this with the primitive figures of flute players that have been found in
abundance, made either of glazed ware (Pl. XVII. 4;
cf. Nauk. I. Pl. II. 7) or of alabaster."
Just a note about Naukratis... first, if you want to create a hornet's nest among archaeologists just mention chronology, especially the chronology of Naukratis. This being said, here goes...
Egypt was a "closed" country and for years Mediterranean sailors were itching to trade with
Egypt. Around the time of the XXVIth Dynasty, circa the reign of Psammeticus II the
Greeks, Phoenicians, etc. were allowed to settle on a small piece of land in
Egypt, which they called Naukratis. (It was similar to the
Chinese allowing westerners to settle on Kong Island and build warehouses which were called hongs, thus Hong Kong.) The Mediterranean sailors built temples, houses, ware houses and factories which produced
scarabs,
amulets, etc. These Mediterranean sailors carried their goods all over the Mediterranean world. The Phoenicians, sailing beyond the Pillars of
Hercules, stopped off at the caves at the base of the rock of Gibraltar and left
votive offerings of
scarabs, etc. there.
Egyptian culture became all the rage, the Phoenicians and
Greeks began to surpass the Egyptians in the high
quality hard
stone scarabs they produced. Generally, mold made
faience scarabs and
amulets from Naukratis were of low
quality and these were brought to ancient sanctuaries as
votive offerings, for examples see Payne, H., Dunbabin, T.J.,
et al. Perachora II Vo. 2. The Sanctuaries of
Hera Akraia and Limenia.
Oxford, 1962.
It's fascinating to see how ancient cultures were put into a blender and given a whirl - thousands of years ago.
I just checked
Petrie,
Gardner and
Head. Naukratis I, 1884-85.
London, 1886. Page 14 - back then, they thought these figures
had something to do with
Apollo. Sorry, I have not been allowed to "cut and paste". The text reads "The later class of
votive figures, belonging to about the middle of the sixth century, were of the light friable sandy-ware, glazed, in imitation of
Egyptian work. The subjects, however, are seldom
Egyptian, a figure of Ptah being all that could be mistaken for native art. The motive generally has reference to
Apollo (pl. ii.), such as figures playing on the double pipes, or playing on the
lyre, and especially the hawk figures...". See Plate II, Numbers 7 an 13.
Russ
