On the photographic plates of the Atlas I have carefully stated the depth at which every object was found, so that it is very easy to find out which of them belong to this people.[47] Their pottery resembles that of the Trojans, but it is worse and coarser, and we meet with many new types. Almost all their vases have a tube on either side for hanging them up by cords. I here found, at a depth of 16½ feet, part of a lyre made of stone, with six strings; and at a depth of 13 feet the beautifully ornamented ivory piece of another lyre, with seven strings, here shown.
The architecture of this people, as may be seen from the many house-walls which I have uncovered, was always of small stones joined with earth. Yet in two places in the depths of the temple of Athena there is a wall of sun-dried bricks, which appears to belong to this nation. Their houses were smaller, and less wood was employed in their construction than in those of the Trojans; for, although the ruins of houses lying one upon another show that several great convulsions have taken place, still we find here far fewer charred ruins than among those of the preceding people; nay, these layers of débris have in the majority of cases a grey or black appearance, and they contain millions of small mussel-shells, bones, fish-bones, and so forth. It is curious that in these strata certain types of terra-cottas are only found exactly at the same depth, and that, for instance, the splendid black cups in the form of an hourglass, and with two large handles, are confined to a depth of 6 meters (nearly 20 feet).
During the first two years of my excavations, at the depth of from 4 to 7 meters (13 to 23 feet), I found scarcely any copper, and consequently I believed that the metal was but rarely, if at all, known to this people. This year, however, I found a number of copper nails in this stratum, as well as some knives and battle-axes, together with moulds of mica-schist for casting them, besides other weapons and implements.[48] Yet copper must have been rare with them; for stone implements, such as knives of silex, hammers and axes of diorite, and so forth, are found by thousands.
This people also seem to have disappeared simultaneously with the destruction of their town; for not only do I find, at a depth of from 4 meters up to 2 meters (13 to 6½ feet), many new types of terra-cotta vessels, but I no longer find any remains of house-walls; nay, even single stones are scarcely ever met with. At all events, directly after its destruction, the town was rebuilt of wood by another tribe of the Aryan race; for the small terra-cottas, adorned with Aryan religious symbols, although frequently of new types, occur in numbers in these layers of débris. Walls of fortification are indeed met with in these depths, but they had been built by the preceding people; as, for instance, the wall 19½ feet in height, whose base is at a depth of 5 to 6½ feet above the treasure, and which reached to within 1¼ ft. of the surface. This wooden Ilium was, to all appearance, still less fortunate than the stone town of its predecessors; for, as is proved by the numerous calcined layers of débris, it was frequently desolated by fire. Whether these fires broke out accidentally, or were kindled by the hands of enemies, must for ever remain a riddle to us; but thus much is certain and evident from the terra-cottas found at these depths, that the civilization of the people, which had been but slight from the beginning, continued to decrease during the perpetual misfortunes of their town. I find, among the ruins of this nation, lances, battle-axes, and implements, of pure copper, and moulds for casting them; likewise a number of copper nails, which, however—as in the case of the preceding peoples who have inhabited this hill—are too long and thin to have been employed for fastening wood together, and must in all probability have been used as brooches: this seems to be proved by two nails of this kind on the top of which I found rows of perforated beads of gold or electrum soldered upon them. These two copper nails were, it is true, found immediately below the surface, but they must in any case belong to the pre-Hellenic time.
In the ruins of this people, at a depth of from 13 to 6½ feet, we also meet with stone implements, such as hammers, splendidly polished axes and battle-axes of diorite, but considerably fewer than in the preceding stratum.
When the surface of the hill was about 2 meters (6½ feet) lower than it is now, Ilium was built by a Greek colony; and we have already endeavoured to prove that this settlement must have been founded about the year 700 B.C. From that time we find the remains of Hellenic house-walls of large hewn stones joined without cement. From about 1 meter (3¼ feet) below the surface, and upwards, there are also ruins of buildings, the stones of which are joined with cement or lime. We also meet with great numbers of copper coins of Ilium of the time of the Roman empire, from Augustus to Constans II. and Constantine II.; likewise older Ilian coins with the image of Athena, and medals of Alexandria Troas; also with some coins of Tenedos, Ophrynium and Sigeum, in some few cases at 3¼ feet, but generally at less than 20 inches below the surface. I once remarked erroneously that Byzantine coins were also met with here near the surface. But in my three years’ excavations I have not found a single medal of a later date than Constans II. and Constantine II., except two bad coins belonging to a Byzantine monastery, which may have been lost by shepherds; and, as there is here not the remotest trace of Byzantine masonry or of Byzantine pottery, it may be regarded as certain that the Ilium of the Greek colony was destroyed towards the middle of the fourth century after Christ, and that no village, much less a town, has ever again been built upon its site. The wall I mentioned in my memoir of the 1st of March, 1873,[49] as consisting of Corinthian pillars joined with cement, and which I believed to have belonged to the Middle Ages, must be referred to the time of Constantine I. or to Constans II., when the temple of Athena was destroyed by the pious zeal of the first Christians.
Of the walls and fortifications of the Greek colony, almost the only portions that have been preserved are those which were apparently built by Lysimachus. The lower and prominent portion of the wall of the Tower belongs to more ancient times, probably to the beginning of the Greek colony. Of great political convulsions or catastrophes there seem now to have been but few or none at all; for the accumulation of débris during the long duration of the Greek colony, about 10½ centuries, amounts only to 2 meters (6½ feet).