Figure 100.
Gold and silver objects from the treasure of Priam.
Figure 101.
Gold ear-rings, head-dress, and necklace of golden beads from the treasure of Priam.
At the foot of the palace, the ruins of which rise from the Acropolis at a depth of 27½ feet, the pick-axes of the explorers brought to light metal shields, vases ([Fig. 98]), and dishes mixed together in the greatest confusion, often soldered together by the intense heat to which they had been subjected. They had probably been enclosed in a wooden chest that was destroyed in the conflagration.[55] We are astonished at the wealth revealed to us. Cups, goblets, and bottles of gold (Figs. [99] and [100]) lay side by side with golden necklaces[56] and ear-rings of electrum.[57] The ornaments that had belonged to women are especially curious. At one place alone several diadems ([Fig. 101]) were picked up, with fifty-six ear-rings, six bracelets, and nine thousand minor objects, such as rings, buckles, buttons, dice, pins, beads, and ornaments of a great variety.[58] All these treasures were piled up in a great silver vase, into which they had doubtless been hastily thrown in the confusion of a precipitate flight. They are all of characteristic forms, quite unlike anything in Assyrian or Egyptian art. Were they made in Troy itself? Dr. Schliemann doubts it; he thinks that the makers of such clumsy pottery are not likely to have been able to produce jewelry of such delicate and remarkable workmanship. I should not like to be so positive, for even amongst the most advanced peoples we find very common objects mixed with others showing artistic skill. Why should it not have been the same at Troy? I think that in future Trojan art must take its place in the history of the progress of humanity. The nineteenth century has brought that art to light, and by a strange caprice of chance the treasures of Priam adorn the museum of Berlin, and we have seen the diadem of fair Helen exhibited in the South Kensington Museum of London.[59]
Treasures nearly as valuable as those we have been describing were found in earthenware vases in several other parts of the ruins. Unfortunately, many of the objects found were stolen and melted down by the workmen, whilst others were taken to the Imperial Palace at Constantinople, whence they are doomed to be dispersed. In 1873, however, Dr. Schliemann was fortunate enough to hit upon a deposit containing twenty gold ear-rings, and four golden ornaments which had formed part of a necklace.[60] Similar ornaments were found at Mykenæ, near Bologna, in the Caucasus, in the Lake dwellings, and, stranger still, on the banks of the Rio Suarez in Colombia.[61]
I will not add more to what I have already said about the towns which succeeded each other on the ruins of Troy, and of which the successive stages of rubbish on the hill of Hissarlik are the only witnesses left. The flames spared none who settled on that doomed spot, and new arrivals disappeared as rapidly as they came. The Ilium of the Greeks and Romans alone enjoyed any prosperity, but it too was in its turn swept away; and at the present day a few wandering shepherds and their flocks are the sole dwellers upon the hill immortalized by Homer.
Before concluding this chapter I must refer once more to a, fact of considerable interest. In that part of the deposits of Hissarlik which represents Troy, Dr. Schliemann picked up the perforated whorls to which the name of fusaïoles has been given ([Fig. 102]), and of which we spoke in our account of the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland. These fusaïoles are generally of common clay mixed with bits of mica, quartz, or silica, though some few have been found at Mykenæ and Tiryns of steatite. The clay whorls before being baked were plunged into a bath of a very fine clay of gray, yellow, or black color, and then carefully polished. They nearly all bear ornaments of very primitive execution, such as stars, the sun, flowers, or animals, and more rarely representations of the human figure.