Naucratis or Naukratis (Ancient Greek: Ναύκρατις, "Naval Command";[1] Egyptian: njwt-kꜣrṯ, nskꜣrṯ, pr-mryt,[2] Coptic: Ⲡⲓⲉⲙⲣⲱ Piemro[citation needed]) was a city and trading-post in ancient Egypt, located on the Canopic (western-most) branch of the Nile river, south-east of the Mediterranean sea and the city of Alexandria.

The first report of Greeks in 7th century BC Egypt is a story in the Histories of Herodotus of Ionian and Carian pirates forced by storm to land on or near the Nile Delta.

It relates the plight of the Saite Pharaoh Psammetichus I (Psamtik) (c. 664–610) of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt overthrown and in desperation seeking the advice of the Oracle of Leto at Buto, who cryptically advises him to enlist the aid of the "bronze men" who would "come from the sea."

Upon the success of this endeavor, he makes good on his word and bestows on the mercenaries two parcels of land (or "camps," στρατόπεδα) on either side of the Pelusian branch of the Nile.

"[6] Herodotus stated that "Amasis was partial to the Greeks, and among other favors which he granted them, gave to such as liked to settle in Egypt the city of Naucratis for their residence."

[9] Naucratis later became an important center of Greek culture under the Roman Empire, producing several celebrated orators of the Second Sophistic in the second and early third centuries AD.

In the Deipnosophistae, he writes that in Naucratis the people dine in the Prytaneion on the natal day of the Hestia Prytanitis (Ancient Greek: Ἑστίας Πρυτανίτιδος).

Found farthest south was a large Egyptian storehouse or treasury (A on sketch at right—originally identified by Petrie as the "great temenos") and just north of that a Greek mud-brick Temple of Aphrodite roughly 14 m × 8 m (curiously not mentioned in Herodotus' list.)

Unfortunately they found the original northern sanctuary section submerged under a lake formed by the risen water table and roughly 15 m deep.

"Already in Petrie's day about a third of the half-mile by quarter-mile site of Naukratis had been dug away by the local farmers for use as high-phosphate fertilizer (sebakh) in their fields....

They agreed with Hogarth that the "great temenos" of Petrie was actually an Egyptian building and that indeed the entire south section of the town appeared to be non-Greek.

[17] Overall most of the finds were vases (some whole, most fragmentary) used as votives in the temples, but also perfume flasks (several in the form of a hedgehog)[18] and stone statuettes and scarab seals.

Naucratis soon became a profound source of inspiration to the Greeks by re-exposing them to the wonders of Egyptian architecture and sculpture lost to them since the Bronze Age.

Although Greek art and ideas in turn came back the other way their absorption into a largely xenophobic Egyptian culture was strictly minimal.