and domestic quarters. Consequently our knowledge of the mercantile character of ancient Naukratis—the very facet of its early history that made it so exceptional—has suffered greatly. Furthermore, the later historical sequences, such as the Hellenistic and Roman periods, were almost totally neglected." Also discouraging to them was the destruction wrought by the local populace on the site. "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.... In the intervening 100 years or so, the sebakhin have totally destroyed this eastern portion of the site." The barrier of the high water table made it impossible for them to find anything older than the Ptolmaic era. 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. Overall most of the finds were vases (some whole, most fragmentary) used as votives in the temples, but also stone statuettes and scarab seals. These are scattered to museums and collections around the world, the earlier material largely brought to Britain (mostly in the British Museum) and the latter to the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria. Impact The Egyptians supplied the Greeks with mostly grain but also linen and papyrus while the Greeks bartered mostly silver but also timber, olive oil and wine. Naukratis, and the associated Greek "forts" in the general delta area, as demonstrated by accounts given above, became a ready source of mercenary fighting men for the Saite pharaohs, men with superior hoplite armor and tactics, also possessing invaluable naval expertise. 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. Egyptian artifacts soon began their flow along the Greek trade routes finding their way into the homes and workshops of the Ionian Greek world and, via Aegina, the city-states of mainland Greece. Although Greek art and ideas in turn came back the other way their absorption into a largely xenophobic Egyptian culture was strictly minimal. Although Herodotus claimed that geometry () was first known in Egypt and then passed into Greece, it is now generally accepted by scholars that what the Greeks learned were more like "surveying techniques" and hardly deserve the