Upon the great platform, at a depth of 4 meters (13 feet), we found a very remarkable cup, which has a handle, and in its hollow foot four oval holes, pierced opposite to one another. Last year I repeatedly found the feet of cups of this sort at a depth of from 46 to 52½ feet, but hitherto I have never met with an entire goblet of this form.
As I no longer require the surface of the Tower for removing the débris, I have had it quite cleared, and I find in the centre of it a depression, 45¼ feet long, from 8¼ to 14¾ feet broad, and barely 3 feet deep, which may have been used for the archers.[273] It has now become evident to me that what I last year considered to be the ruins of a second storey of the Great Tower are only benches made of stones joined with earth, three of which may be seen rising behind one another like steps.[274] From this, as well as from the walls of the Tower and those of the Scæan Gate, I perceive that the Tower never can have been higher than it now is.
The excavations of the north side of the field belonging to Mr. Calvert, which I opened to discover other sculptures, have been stopped for some time, as I can no longer come to terms with him. At present, I have only two foremen, for I was obliged to dismiss Georgios Photidas, three weeks ago, for urgent reasons.
In conclusion, I have to mention that, during the Greek Easter festival, accompanied by my esteemed friend, Judge Schells of Ratisbon, and my wife, I visited Bunarbashi and the neighbouring heights. In their presence, I made some small excavations, and I have proved that even in the village the accumulation of débris amounts only to 1¾ foot in the court-yards of the buildings, and that upon and beside the street there is nothing but the virgin earth; further, that upon the small site of Gergis, at the end of the heights, which was formerly regarded as identical with Troy, the naked rock projects everywhere; and besides, in the accumulation of débris, which nowhere amounts to 1¾ foot in the town itself, and to only a little more in the Acropolis, I found nothing but fragments of pottery from the Hellenic period, that is, from the third and fifth centuries B.C.
I must also add that I now positively retract my former opinion, that Ilium was inhabited up to the ninth century after Christ, and I must distinctly maintain that its site has been desolate and uninhabited since the end of the fourth century. I had allowed myself to be deceived by the statements of my esteemed friend, Mr. Frank Calvert, of the Dardanelles, who maintained that there were documents to prove that the place had been inhabited up to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries after Christ. Such documents, if they really do exist, must necessarily refer to Alexandria Troas, which is always, as for instance in the New Testament, simply called Troas; for on its site quantities of Byzantine antiquities are found even on the surface, which seem to prove that the city was inhabited up to the fourteenth century, or still longer. Here in Ilium, on the other hand, there is no trace of Byzantine architecture, of Byzantine sculpture, of Byzantine pottery, or of Byzantine coins. Altogether I found only two copper medals of Byzantine monasteries, which may have been lost by shepherds. I found hundreds of coins belonging to the time of Constantine the Great, Constans II., but no medals whatever of the later emperors.
As hitherto it was in the Pergamus alone that I found no trace of the Byzantine period, I thought that it was only the fortress that was uninhabited during that period, but that the region of the city had been occupied. But my fifteen shafts, which I am having made on the most various points of the site of Ilium, as well as the two shafts made upon the primary soil, prove, as anyone may convince himself, that below the surface there is no trace of the Byzantine period, nay that, beyond a very thin layer of earth, which however only exists in some parts, the ruins of the Greek period extend up to the very surface, and that in several of the shafts I came upon the walls of Greek houses even on the surface.
It is impossible that a Byzantine town or a Byzantine village, nay, that even a single Byzantine house, can have stood upon this hilly and stone-hard ground, which covers the ruins of a primeval city, without leaving the most distinct traces of its existence, for here, where for nine or ten months of the year it never rains, except during rare thunderstorms, the productions of human industry do not become weather-beaten and destroyed, as in other countries where there is frequent rain. The very fragments of sculptures and inscriptions, which I find here in the Pergamus and in the other districts of the city, upon the surface, and which have lain exposed to the open air for at least 1500 years, are still almost as fresh as if they had been made yesterday.