After three grueling years of excavating Hisarlik (1871-1872), Schliemann was ready to pack it in. He had hoped to find the city of Troy lying just beneath the surface, but what he found instead were the jumbled ruins of cities, stacked on top of each other and stretching back to a barbaric age that was totally foreign to Schliemann. Both he and Sophia were suffering from recurring fevers which Schliemann attributed to the “pestilential miasma” produced by the mass death of frogs in the marsh with the onset of summer—a common understanding of what caused sickness before germ theory came on the scene.¹Vitruvius writes, “For when the morning breezes blow toward the town at sunrise, if they bring with them mist from marshes and, mingled with the mist, the poisonous breath of creatures of the marshes to be wafted into the bodies of the inhabitants, they will make the site unhealthy.” Vitruvius, De architectura I.4.1 However, their momentary affliction was soon forgotten in a blaze of new and exciting discoveries. The first was made towards the end of the fourth season when workmen uncovered the burial of a young woman along with three gold earrings and a gold dress-pin. After a short break in Athens, Schliemann returned for a fifth season (April – May, 1873) in which he found a long ramp made of carefully cut, interlocking flagstones, which led up to the gate of the city. Schliemann named it the Scaean Gate after Troy’s main gate in the Iliad.

The quality of the masonry in this city, which Schliemann designated “Troy II,” surpassed anything he had encountered so far. There were also clear signs of burning in the levels associated with the gate. Here was a city that could, perhaps, be identified with the city of Homeric fame set ablaze by the Greeks. It was the kind of discovery Schliemann had dreamt of making. The time had come, Schliemann decided, to shut down the dig and publish his findings. But the season wasn’t yet over. On a sunny day in late May, just as he was preparing to depart, Schliemann made his greatest discovery.

Priam’s Treasure

The exact circumstances of the discovery remain obscure. According to Schliemann’s account, he was cleaning a wall at a depth of 28 feet next to “the palace of King Priam.” Schliemann continues,

He immediately declared a “rest period” and sent the workmen home. He and Sophia then quickly removed the treasure from its resting place and bundled it into her shawl. Once back in their small house they had time to study the items more closely. Among the cache of objects were vessels of copper, silver, and gold. One of the silver vessels contained a large number of gold earrings, rings, and buttons. Bronze daggers, spear heads, and two golden diadems were also found in the cache.

It was a major discovery. But now Schliemann had to figure out what to do with it? Rumors were already circulating of a significant find at Hisarlik. Amin Effendi, the Turkish official in charge of overseeing Schliemann’s operations, grew suspicious and demanded that he be allowed to search the house. That night, rather than surrender the treasure, Schliemann loaded it on the backs of several donkeys and sent it to Friedrich Calvert who lived at nearby Thymbria. The following note accompanied the treasure :

The treasure was shipped to Sophia’s relatives in Greece. Schliemann and Sophia followed shortly thereafter. News of their discovery, and a picture of Sophia wearing the Trojan finery, captured headlines around the world.

Higher Criticism

Schliemann rose from humble beginnings to fortune and fame. But he remained an outsider in the rarefied air of the academy. The distinguished Hellenist, Ernst Curtius, writing to an associate in “mutual confidence as gentlemen,” declared that Schliemann was no more than a “dilettante treasure seeker.” Curtius’ dislike for Schliemann led him to dismiss the golden mask of a bronze age Greek king, which Schliemann had discovered at Mycenae, as nothing more than a Byzantine funerary mask. Curtius also cursorily dismissed Schliemann’s identification of Hisarlik with Troy. Similarly, the retired German army officer, Ernst Botticher, compared Schliemann’s brain to “one of the sponges brought by naked divers.”²Moorehead 1996, 115 More recent articles refer to Schliemann as a tradesman³Link, amateur, con-man⁴Link, and a liar who blasted his way through the tell with dynamite⁵Link, Link, Link and then fabricated “Priam’s Treasure.”⁶Link But these assessments are either simply untrue or a little unfair.

While it is true that his excavations did a great deal of damage to the site, this was true of most excavations carried out in the early years of archaeology—and Schliemann was truly a pioneer in this regard. (I have not seen any evidence that Schliemann used dynamite so I am not sure where this accusation comes from.) Many articles on Schliemann make a quip about how he accomplished at Troy what the Greeks could never do; he destroyed the city. But this is not quite true. The Greeks did actually manage destroy a large portion of the tell—howbeit in the 3rd century BC rather than the 12th—and not by intention, but in levelling of an area for the construction of the temple of Athena, the Greeks basically cut the top off of the tell. By the time Schliemann got there, not much of Strata VI-VIIa (“Homer’s Troy”) was left on the top of the tell, which is where he spent most his time digging. Thus he mostly found the early and middle bronze levels (Troy I-V).

Schliemann made a lot of mistakes, but at least he published his findings in accessible and interesting volumes. And though Schliemann may have embellished the part about Sophia being with him when he discovered the treasure—some researchers maintain that she was in Athens at the time—this doesn’t mean he fabricated his discoveries from whole cloth, as some have claimed.

There is an aspect to the criticism of Schliemann which goes beyond the sturm and drang of academia. It is personal. By the mid-19th century, scholars had fully embraced a method of reading ancient texts, known as “higher criticism,” by which they sought to deconstruct a text in order to discover the various sources which lay behind it. Although higher criticism employs a very detailed and thorough reading of the text, and has therefore produced new insights, it also gives the literary critic a tool by which to invent their own narratives and call it “science.” It also lends itself to a very arid and clinical reading of the text. As the eminent Assyriologist, A.H. Sayce (1892-1919), once observed, the methods of higher criticism gave rise to a pervasive “spirit of skepticism” within the academy. Sayce continues,

For many in the academy, Schliemann was an outsider and a dilettante who lacked sense enough to know that Homer’s tales were fiction. Schliemann shattered that consensus, and he was hated for it.

Homer’s Troy?

But if Schliemann’s faith in Homer led him to Troy, it may also have contributed to the misdating of Troy II and “Priam’s Treasure.” The Trojan War is generally thought to have occurred sometime between 1300 and 1100 BC whereas Troy II dates approximately a millennia earlier by most estimates. In fairness to Schliemann, he had no way of making a good assessment. Too little was then known about ancient Greece and Anatolia. Indeed, the term “Bronze Age” had not yet entered into common usage. Only years later, after excavating Mycenae and then returning to Troy, did it become evident that Troy VI-VIIa was the better candidate for Homer’s Troy.

However, Schliemann’s ego did not prevent him from collaborating with men more knowledgeable than himself and seeking their advice. One of these, Wilhelm Dorpfeld, continued to excavate Troy for several more years after Schliemann’s death (with funding provided by Sophia Schliemann). Many years later, when Dorpfeld was asked how Schliemann responded when he confronted him with evidence that Stratum VI was the better candidate for Homer’s Troy, Dorpfeld responded “with a characteristic twinkle in his eyes” and related the following anecdote,