HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN

HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN

THE "FATHER" OF MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY

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I. Debate about the Man: Visionary or Fraud?

A. Did he discover Troy?

B. Did he lie about his discoveries?

C. Did he "create" the new science of archaeology?

D. One problem is that you cannot trust his writings about himself

II. A story of romance and intrigue

A. Early Life

1. Born in Mecklenbug (Germany) in 1822

2. He tells us he was obsessed with the story of the Iliad and the Trojan War since he was young

B. He was a successful businessman in Russia and America

C. In 1859 Schliemann visited Greece and Asia Minor and considered becoming an "archaeologist" perhaps to gain respectability

1. Note that Darwin's The Origin of Species appeared in the same year

2. He married Sofia Engastromenou

III. The "Discovery" of Troy

A. Most scholars considered Homer's stories of the Trojan War to be just myths

B. Schliemann decided they were true and in 1868 he decided to "discover" Troy-to dig it up

C. He set out to find it at Hisarlik in Northwestern Asia Minor

1. In this belief he was preceded by the work of Frank Calvert

2. In 1870 Schliemann began to excavate at Hisarlik

D. The first two seasons were disappointing, but in 1873 Schliemann announced that he had found Homer's Troy

1. The "Treasure of Priam"--recently "discovered" in Moscow

2. These finds caused a sensation throughout the world

3. Slowly scholars were won over by Schliemann, but controversy has continued

E. Nonetheless, Schliemann had demonstrated the value of archaeology for historical purposes and he "discovered" the Greek Bronze Age

IV. Schliemann at Mycenae

A. Schliemann turned his attention to Greece

B. In 1876 he began his excavations at Mycenae

Quotes:

In Ilios, published in 1880, he said that when he was eight he received from his father a copy of Jerrer's Universal History, which contained the story of Troy with an engraving of Aeneas fleeing from the burning city.

"Father, Jerrer must have seen Troy; otherwise he could not have represented it here.

"My son," his father replied, "that is merely a fanciful picture …"

"Father! I answered, if such walls once existed they cannot have been completely destroyed: vast ruins of them must still remain, but hidden away beneath the dust of ages…."

"In the end we both agreed that I should one day excavate Troy."

At Troy he had many difficulties: malaria, scorpions, insects, fevers, the fierce wind from the north which "drives dust into our eyes" and blew threw the chinks in their hut at night. Schliemann soon stopped being pleased that Homer had spoken of "windy Troy!" He fought off constipation with a "bottle of the best English stout every day," but he and Sophie were often so ill that "we cannot undertake the direction [of the dig] throughout the day in the terrible heat of the sun."

Discovery of the "treasure" of Priam.

He took the treasure to Greece, to the great anger of the Turks, who pursued him.

His first major publication was in 1874: field reports and over 200 sketches, plans, and photographs, presented, as he said, "in the hope that my colleagues might be able to explain points obscure to me … [for] everything appeared strange and mysterious to me."

He feared he had not found Homer's Troy.

Schliemann went to Mycenae in 1876 and began to excavate there. The location of this site was always known, but it was overgrown and unstudied.

Pausanias talked about the burial of kings of Mycenae inside the walls, and scholars thought he referred to larger walls around the tholos tomb. Schliemann thought Pausanias meant inside the walls and so he began to dig just inside the lion gate.

There he found five rectangular shaft graves, the first of which had the remains of nineteen adults and two infants, all literally covered in gold. The men's faces were covered with magnificent gold masks; on their breasts gold decorations, one of the women a gold diadem; bronze weapons, some with gold hilts and gold and silver inlay. Gold and silver drinking cups, gold boxes, ivory containers and plaques, and hundreds of gold disks.

Schliemann thought he had found Agamemnon. Pausanias said there were five kings: he found five graves; there was even a tradition that Cassandra had two infant sons who were killed with her. In the last grave was the climax: three male bodies richly adorned with gold and bronze weapons, and gold burial masks. The first two were utterly decomposed, but the third : "had been preserved under its ponderous golden mask … both eyes perfectly visible, also the mouth, which owing to the enormous weight that had pressed upon it was wide open and showed two beautiful teeth…the man must have died at the early age of thirty-five … The news that the tolerably well preserved body of a man of the mythic heroic age had been found … spread like wildfire throughout the Aargolid, and people came by thousands from Aargos, Nauplia, and the villages to see the wonder."

Schliemann tried to preserve the body but he failed. There is a drawing.

The apocryphal story: he sent the king of Greece a telegram: "Today I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon.""

He wrote: "For my part, I have always firmly believed in the Trojan War; my full faith in the tradition has never been shaken by mode and criticism, and to this faith of mine I am indebted for the discovery of Troy and its treasure…. My firm faith in the traditions made me undertake my late excavations in the akropolis [of Mycenae] and led to the discovery of the five tombs with their immense treasures… I have not the slightest objection to admitting that the tradition which assigns the tombs to Agamemnon and his companions may be perfectly correct."

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