CHAPTER XIII.
Intended cessation of the work—Further excavation of the Tower—Layers of red ashes and calcined stones—Objects found on the Tower—Weapons, implements, and ornaments of stone, copper, and silver—Bones—Pottery and vases of remarkable forms—Objects found on each side of the Tower—First rain for four months—Thanks for escape from the constant dangers—Results of the excavations—The site of Homer’s Troy identified with that of Greek Ilium—Error of the Bunarbashi theory—Area of the Greek city—Depth of the accumulated débris unexampled in the world—Multitude of interesting objects brought to light—Care in making drawings of them all.
Pergamus of Troy, August 14th, 1872.
SINCE my report of the 4th of this month I have continued the excavations with the utmost energy, but I am now compelled to stop the works this evening, for my three foremen and my servant, who is also my cashier, have been seized by the malignant marsh-fever, and my wife and I are so unwell that we are quite unable to undertake the sole direction throughout the day in the terrible heat of the sun. We shall therefore leave our two wooden houses and all our machines and implements in charge of a watchman, and to-morrow we shall return to Athens.
The admirers of Homer, on visiting the Pergamus of Troy, will find that I have not only laid bare the Tower on the south side, along the whole breadth of my trench, down to the rock upon which it stands, at a depth of 14 meters or 46½ feet, but that by my excavations on the east and west I have uncovered it considerably further, without having found its end. On the contrary, upon the east side, where it is 40 feet broad, and seems even to be broader still, I found the ruins of a second storey, of which, however, as far as I can at present judge, four broad steps have been preserved.[207] On the western side it is only 9 meters or 30 feet in breadth, and on this side there extends to the north an enormous wall, the thickness of which I have not been able to ascertain. The fact of my not having been able to carry these new excavations down to the primary soil, but only to a depth of 11 meters (36½ feet) is owing to the brittle nature of the walls of rubbish and ruins round about the Tower, which, as anyone may convince himself, consist of red ashes and of stones calcined by the heat, and which threatened at any moment to fall in and bury my workmen.