HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN
Troy and Its Remains
Heinrich Schliemann was born at Kalkhorst, a village in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, on January 6, 1822, and died on December 27, 1890. During his early childhood an old scholar, who had fallen upon evil days, delighted him with stories of the great deeds of Homeric heroes. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed in a warehouse, but never lost his love for antiquity, and unceasingly prayed to God that he might yet have the happiness to learn Greek. An accident released him from his low position, and he went to Holland and found a situation in an office. He now began to study languages, suffering extraordinary denials so as to be able to afford money for his studies. In 1846 he was sent by his firm to Russia, learning Swedish and Polish, and next acquired Greek. Later, he travelled in Europe and the East, making a voyage round the world. At last he realised the dream of his life. Inaugurating a series of explorations in Greece and Asia Minor, Dr. Schliemann gained fame by his discoveries at Tiryus, Mycenæ, and Troy, largely solving the problems of antiquity and archæology associated with these localities. "Troy and Its Remains" is published here in order that, having read in the classical histories, we may see how the ancient world is reconstructed for modern readers, by the records of one of the most famous of archæologists.
I.--Searching for the Site of Troy
Hissarlik, Plain of Troy, October 18, 1871. In my work, "Ithaca, the Peloponnesus, and Troy," published in 1869, I endeavored to prove, both by my own excavations and by the statement of the Iliad, that the Homeric Troy cannot possibly have been situated on the heights of Bunarbashi, to which place most archæologists assign it. At the same time I endeavoured to explain that the site of Troy must necessarily be identical with the site of that town which, throughout all antiquity and down to its Complete destruction at the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century A.D., was called Ilium, and not until 1,000 years, after its disappearance--that is, in 1788 A.D.--was christened Ilium Novum by Lechevalier, who, as his work proves, can never have visited his Ilium Novum.
The site of Ilium is on a plateau 80 feet above the plain. Its north-western corner is formed by a hill about 26 feet higher still, which is about 705 feet in breadth and about 984 feet in length, and from its imposing situation and natural fortifications, this hill of Hissarlik seems specially suited to the acropolis of the town. Ever since my first visit I never doubted that I should find the Pergamus of Priam in the depths of this hill.
On October 10, 1871, I started with my wife from the Dardanelles for the Plain of Troy, a journey of eight hours, and next day commenced my excavations where I had, a year previously, made some preliminary explorations, and had found, among other things, at a depth of 16 feet, walls about 6-1/2 feet thick, which belong to a bastion of the time of Lysimachus.
Hissarlik, the Turkish name of this imposing hill at the north-western end of the site of Ilium, means "fortress," or "acropolis," and seems to prove that this is the Pergamus of Priam; that here Xerxes in 480 B.C. offered up 1,000 oxen to the Ilian Athena; that here Alexander the Great hung up his armour in the temple of the goddess, and took away in its stead some of the weapons therein dedicated, belonging to the time of the Trojan war.
I conjectured that this temple, the pride of the Ilians, must have stood on the highest point of the hill, and I therefore decided to excavate this locality down to the native soil, and I made an immense cutting on the face of the steep northern slope, about 66 feet from my last year's work. Notwithstanding the difficulties due to coming on immense blocks of stone, the work advances rapidly. My dear wife, an Athenian lady, who is an enthusiastic admirer of Homer, and knows almost the whole of the Iliad by heart, is present at the excavations from morning to night. All of my workmen are Greeks from the neighbouring village of Renkoi; only on Sunday, a day on which the Greeks do not work, I employ Turks.