In conclusion, I must positively deny Mr. Calvert’s assertion that stone implements, although met with in the same stratum with articles made of different metals and with splendid earthenware, argue a primeval and pre-historic age. Small knives and saws of silex are, for instance, found in numbers in the Acropolis of Athens, and they appear to have been used up to a very late period. A rude pre-historic people could by no means have made the beautiful terra-cottas which are found here immediately below the ruins of the Greek colony, and still less could they have manufactured the splendid pottery which shows such a high degree of artistic taste, and which I meet with here at a great depth.
The life in this wilderness is not without danger, and last night, for instance, my wife and I and the foreman Photidas had the narrowest escape of being burnt alive. In the bedroom on the north side of the wooden house which we are inhabiting, we had had a small fireplace made, and, owing to the terrible cold which has again set in during the last six days, we have lighted a fire in it daily. But the stones of the fireplace rest merely upon the boards of the floor, and, whether it was owing to a crevice in the cement joining the stones, or by some other means, the floor took fire, and when I accidentally awoke this morning at 3 o’clock, it was burning over a space of two yards long by a yard broad. The room was filled with dense smoke, and the north wall was just beginning to catch fire; a few seconds would have sufficed to burn a hole into it, and the whole house would then have been in flames in less than a minute, for a fearful north wind was blowing from that side. In my fright I did not lose my presence of mind. I poured the contents of a bath upon the burning north wall, and thus in a moment stopped the fire in that direction. Our cries awoke Photidas, who was asleep in the adjoining room, and he called the other foremen from the stone house to our assistance. In the greatest haste they fetched hammers, iron levers and pickaxes; the floor was broken up, torn to pieces, and quantities of damp earth thrown upon it, for we had no water. But, as the lower beams were burning in many places, a quarter of an hour elapsed before we got the fire under and all danger was at an end.
CHAPTER XX.
Discovery of a large house upon the Tower—Marks of a great conflagration—Primitive Altar: its very remarkable position—Ruins of the Temple of Athena—A small cellar—Skeletons of warriors with copper helmets and a lance—Structure of the helmet-crests—Terra-cottas—A crucible with copper still in it—Other objects—Extreme fineness of the engravings on the whorls—Pottery—Stone implements—Copper pins and other objects.
Pergamus of Troy, April 5th, 1873.
AMIDST cold but glorious spring weather most favourable for the workmen, who now number 150 on the average, I have this week continued the excavations with the greatest energy and with good results.
The most interesting object that I have discovered here in these three years is certainly a house which I brought to light this week, and of which eight rooms have already been laid open; it stands upon the Great Tower, at a depth of 7 and 8 meters (23 to 26 feet), directly below the Greek Temple of Athena. Its walls consist of small stones cemented with earth, and they appear to belong to different epochs; for, while some of them rest directly upon the stones of the Tower, others were not built till the Tower was covered with 8 inches, and in several cases even with 3¼ feet, of débris. These walls also show differences in thickness; one of them is 4¼ feet, others are only 25½ inches, and others again not more than 19-2/3 inches thick. Several of these walls are 10 feet high, and on some of them may be seen large remnants of the coatings of clay, painted yellow or white. Only in one large room, the dimensions of which, however, cannot be exactly ascertained, have I as yet found an actual floor of unhewn slabs of limestone, the smooth sides of which are turned outside. Black marks, the result of fire, upon the lower portion of the walls of the other rooms which have as yet been excavated, leave no doubt that their floors were of wood, and were destroyed by fire. In one room there is a wall in the form of a semicircle, which has been burnt as black as coal. All the rooms as yet laid open, and not resting directly upon the Tower, have been excavated down to the same level; and I find, without exception, that the débris below them consists of red or yellow ashes and burnt ruins. Above these, even in the rooms themselves, I found nothing but either red or yellow wood-ashes, mixed with bricks that had been dried in the sun and subsequently burnt by the conflagration, or black débris, the remains of furniture, mixed with masses of small shells: in proof of this there are the many remains which are still hanging on the walls. In several rooms I found red jars (πίθοι) from 7 to 8 feet high, some of which I leave in situ. Above the house, and as far as the foundations of the temple, I found nothing but red and yellow wood-ashes. (See [Plate X]., opposite p. 287.)
To the east side of the house is a sacrificial Altar of a very primitive description, which is turned to the north-west by west, and consists of a slab of slate granite about 5¼ feet long, and 5½ feet broad. The upper part of the stone is cut into the form of a crescent, probably for killing upon it the animal which was intended for sacrifice. About 4 feet below the sacrificial altar I found a channel made of slabs of green slate, which probably served to carry off the blood. Strangely enough this Altar does not stand on the Tower itself, but 3¼ feet above it, upon bricks or lumps of earth which had been dried in the sun, and which have been actually burnt by the conflagration, but nevertheless have no stability. The altar was surrounded by an enormous quantity of the remains of bricks of this description, as well as by red and yellow wood-ashes, to a height of 10 feet. Of course I leave the altar in situ, so that visitors to the Troad may convince themselves by the nature of its pedestal and of the débris of the earthen wall, beside which it stands, of the correctness of all these statements, which might otherwise appear too incredible. The remarkable sub-structure of this sacrificial altar, the curious débris in which it was buried, the preservation of the great house, which has evidently been burnt, and the walls of which were built at different epochs, and lastly, the fact that its spaces were filled with heterogeneous débris and with colossal jars—all this is a puzzle to me. I confine myself, therefore, to stating the facts merely, and refrain from expressing any kind of conjecture.