Heinrich Schliemann

The site of Ilium described—Excavations in 1870: the City Wall of Lysimachus—Purchase of the site and grant of a firman—Arrival of Dr. and Madame Schliemann in 1871, and beginning of the Excavations—The Hill of HISSARLIK, the Acropolis of the Greek Ilium—Search for its limits—Difficulties of the work—The great cutting on the North side—Greek coins found—Dangers from fever.

On the Hill of Hissarlik, in the Plain of Troy,
October 18th, 1871.

IN my work ‘Ithaca, the Peloponnesus, and Troy,’ published in 1869, I endeavoured to prove, both by the result of my own excavations and by the statements 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 the beginning of the ninth century A.D.,[74] was called Ilium, and not until 1000 years after its disappearance—that is 1788 A.D.—was christened Ilium Novum by Lechevalier,[75] who, as his work proves, can never have visited his Ilium Novum; for in his map he places it on the other side of the Scamander, close to Kum-kaleh, and therefore 4 miles from its true position.

The site of Ilium is upon a plateau lying on an average about 80 feet above the Plain, and descending very abruptly on the north side. Its north-western corner is formed by a hill about 26 feet higher still, which is about 705 feet in breadth and 984 in length,[76] and from its imposing situation and natural fortifications this hill of Hissarlik seems specially suited to be the Acropolis of the town.[77] Ever since my first visit, I never doubted that I should find the Pergamus of Priam in the depths of this hill. In an excavation which I made on its north-western corner in April 1870,[78] I found among other things, at a depth of 16 feet, walls about 6½ feet thick, which, as has now been proved, belong to a bastion of the time of Lysimachus. Unfortunately I could not continue those excavations at the time, because the proprietors of the field, two Turks in Kum-Kaleh, who had their sheepfolds on the site, would only grant me permission to dig further on condition that I would at once pay them 12,000 piasters for damages,[79] and in addition they wished to bind me, after the conclusion of my excavations, to put the field in order again. As this did not suit my convenience, and the two proprietors would not sell me the field at any price, I applied to his Excellency Safvet Pacha, the Minister of Public Instruction, who at my request, and in the interest of science, managed that Achmed Pacha, the Governor of the Dardanelles and the Archipelago, should receive orders from the Ministry of the Interior to have the field valued by competent persons, and to force the proprietors to sell it to the Government at the price at which it had been valued: it was thus obtained for 3000 piasters.

In trying to obtain the necessary firman for continuing my excavations, I met with new and great difficulties, for the Turkish Government are collecting ancient works of art for their recently established Museum in Constantinople, in consequence of which the Sultan no longer grants permission for making excavations. But what I could not obtain in spite of three journeys to Constantinople, I got at last through the intercession of my valued friend, the temporary chargÉ d’affaires of the United States to the Sublime Porte—Mr. John P. Brown, the author of the excellent work ‘Ancient and Modern Constantinople’ (London, 1868).

So on the 27th of September I arrived at the Dardanelles with my firman. But here again I met with difficulties, this time on the part of the before named Achmed Pacha, who imagined that the position of the field which I was to excavate was not accurately enough indicated in the document, and therefore would not give me his permission for the excavations until he should receive a more definite explanation from the Grand Vizier. Owing to the change of ministry which had occurred, a long time would no doubt have elapsed before the matter was settled, had it not occurred to Mr. Brown to apply to his Excellency Kiamil-Pacha, the new Minister of Public Instruction, who takes a lively interest in science, and at whose intercession the Grand Vizier immediately gave Achmed Pacha the desired explanation. This, however, again occupied 13 days, and it was only on the evening of the 10th of October that I started with my wife from the Dardanelles for the Plain of Troy, a journey of eight hours. As, according to the firman, I was to be watched by a Turkish official, whose salary I have to pay during the time of my excavations, Achmed Pacha assigned to me the second secretary of his chancellary of justice, an Armenian, by name Georgios Sarkis, whom I pay 23 piasters daily.

At last, on Wednesday, the 11th of this month, I again commenced my excavations with 8 workmen, but on the following morning I was enabled to increase their number to 35, and on the 13th to 74, each of whom receives 9 piasters daily (1 franc 80 centimes). As, unfortunately, I only brought 8 wheelbarrows from France, and they cannot be obtained here, and cannot even be made in all the country round, I have to use 52 baskets for carrying away the rubbish. This work, however, proceeds but slowly and is very tiring, as the rubbish has to be carried a long way off. I therefore employ also four carts drawn by oxen, each of which again costs me 20 piasters a day. I work with great energy and spare no cost, in order, if possible, to reach the native soil before the winter rains set in, which may happen at any moment. Thus I hope finally to solve the great problem as to whether the hill of Hissarlik is—as I firmly believe—the citadel of Troy.

As it is an established fact that hills which consist of pure earth and are brought under the plough gradually disappear—that for instance, the Wartsberg, near the village of Ackershagen in Mecklenburg, which I once, as a child, considered to be the highest mountain in the world, has quite vanished in 40 years—so it is equally a fact, that hills on which, in the course of thousands of years, new buildings have been continually erected upon the ruins of former buildings, gain very considerably in circumference and height. The hill of Hissarlik furnishes the most striking proof of this. As already mentioned, it lies at the north-western end of the site of Ilium, which is distinctly indicated by the surrounding walls built by Lysimachus. In addition to the imposing situation of this hill within the circuit of the town, its present Turkish name of Hissarlik, “fortress” or “acropolis”—from the word ??????? root ??????, to enclose, which has passed from the Arabic into the Turkish—seems also to prove that this is the Pergamus of Ilium; that here Xerxes (in 480 B.C.) offered up 1000 oxen to the Ilian Athena;[80] 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 dedicated therein belonging to the time of the Trojan war, and likewise sacrificed to the Ilian Athena.[81] 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. But in order, at the same time, to bring to light the most ancient of the fortifying walls of the Pergamus, and to decide accurately how much the hill had increased in breadth by the dÉbris which had been thrown down since the erection of those walls, I made an immense cutting on the face of the steep northern slope, about 66 feet from my last year’s work.[82] This cutting was made in a direction due south, and extended across the highest plateau, and was so broad that it embraced the whole building, the foundations of which, consisting of large hewn stones, I had already laid open last year to a depth of from only 1 to 3 feet below the surface. According to an exact measurement, this building, which appears to belong to the first century after Christ, is about 59 feet in length, and 43 feet in breadth. I have of course had all these foundations removed as, being within my excavation, they were of no use and would only have been in the way.

The difficulty of making excavations in a wilderness like this, where everything is wanting, are immense and they increase day by day; for, on account of the steep slope of the hill, the cutting becomes longer the deeper I dig, and so the difficulty of removing the rubbish is always increasing. This, moreover, cannot be thrown directly down the slope, for it would of course only have to be carried away again; so it has to be thrown down on the steep side of the hill at some distance to the right and left of the mouth of the cutting. The numbers of immense blocks of stone also, which we continually come upon, cause great trouble and have to be got out and removed, which takes up a great deal of time, for at the moment when a large block of this kind is rolled to the edge of the slope, all of my workmen leave their own work and hurry off to see the enormous weight roll down its steep path with a thundering noise and settle itself at some distance in the Plain. It is, moreover, an absolute impossibility for me, who am the only one to preside over all, to give each workman his right occupation, and to watch that each does his duty. Then, for the purpose of carrying away the rubbish, the side passages have to be kept in order, which likewise runs away with a great deal of time, for their inclinations have to be considerably modified at each step that we go further down.

Notwithstanding all these difficulties the work advances rapidly, and if I could only work on uninterruptedly for a month, I should certainly reach a depth of more than 32 feet, in spite of the immense breadth of the cutting.

The medals hitherto discovered are all of copper, and belong for the most part to Alexandria Troas; some also are of Ilium, and of the first centuries before and after Christ.

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. I will not say anything about our mode of life in this solitude, where everything is wanting, and where we have to take four grains of quinine every morning as a precaution against the pestilential malaria. All of my workmen are Greeks, from the neighbouring village of RenkoÏ; only on Sunday, a day on which the Greeks do not work, I employ Turks. My servant, Nikolaos Zaphyros, from RenkoÏ, whom I pay 30 piasters a day, is invaluable to me in paying the daily wages of the workmen, for he knows every one of them, and is honest. Unfortunately, however, he gives me no assistance in the works, as he neither possesses the gift of commanding, nor has he the slightest knowledge of what I am seeking.

I naturally have no leisure here, and I have only been able to write the above because it is raining heavily, and therefore no work can be done. On the next rainy day I shall report further on the progress of my excavations.

No. 36. A large Trojan Amphora of Terra-cotta (8 M.).
No. 36. A large Trojan Amphora of Terra-cotta (8 M.).

CHAPTER II.

On the Hill of Hissarlik, October 26th, 1871.

Nos. 37-39. Stamped Terra-cottas (1½—2 M.).
Nos. 37-39. Stamped Terra-cottas (1½—2 M.).

Since my report of the 18th I have continued the excavations with the utmost energy, with, on an average, 80 workmen, and I have to-day reached an average depth of 4 meters (13 feet). At a depth of 6½ feet I discovered a well, covered with a very large stone, and filled with rubbish. Its depth I have not been able to ascertain; it belongs to the Roman period, as is proved by the cement with which the stones are joined together. Ruins of buildings, consisting of hewn stones joined or not joined by cement, I only find at about a depth of 2 meters (6½ feet). In the layers of dÉbris between 2 and 4 meters deep (6½ to 13 feet), I find scarcely any stones, and to my delight the huge blocks of stone no longer occur at all. Medals belonging to Ilium and to the first and second centuries before Christ, and the first two centuries after Christ, as well as coins of Alexandria Troas and Sigeum, the age of which I do not know, were found almost immediately below the surface, and only in some few cases as deep as 1 meter (3¼ feet). By far the greater number of the Ilian coins bear the image of Minerva, of Faustina the elder, of Marcus Aurelius, of Faustina the younger, of Commodus or of Crispina, and I found one with the following inscription: F??S???? ???O? ????O?. As far down as 2 meters (6½ feet) I found, as during my last year’s excavations in this hill, an immense number of round articles of terra-cotta, red, yellow, grey and black, with two holes, without inscriptions, but frequently with a kind of potter’s stamp upon them. I cannot find in the holes of any one of these articles the slightest trace of wear by their having been used for domestic purposes, and therefore I presume that they have served as Ex votos for hanging up in the temples. Upon most of those bearing a stamp I perceive in it an altar, and above the latter a bee or fly with outspread wings; upon others there is a bull, a swan, a child, or two horses. Curiously enough these articles vanish all at once at a depth of a 2 meters (6½ feet), and from this depth downwards I find, in their stead, pieces that are sometimes as round as a ball, exactly the shape of a German humming-top, sometimes in the form of hemispheres, others again in the form of cones, tops (carrouselen), or volcanoes. They are from ¾ of an inch to 2¼ inches high and broad, and all the different forms have a hole right through the centre; almost all of them have on one side the most various kinds of decorations encircling the central hole.[83] With the exception of a few of these objects made of blue stone, from ¾ of an inch to 1½ inch broad, and found at a depth of 3 meters (10 feet), they are all made of terra-cotta, and it is quite evident that the decorations were engraved when the clay was still in a soft state. All are of such excellent clay, and burnt so hard, that I at first believed them to be of stone, and only perceived my mistake after having carefully examined them. In the depth we have now arrived at I also find very many of those elegant round vertebrÆ which form the backbone of the shark, and of which walking-sticks are often made. The existence of these vertebrÆ seems to prove that in remote antiquity this sea contained sharks, which are now no longer met with here. To-day I also found upon a fragment of rough pottery the representation of a man’s head with large protruding eyes, a long nose, and a very small mouth, which seems clearly to be of Phoenician workmanship.

I also constantly come upon immense quantities of mussel-shells, and it seems as if the old inhabitants of Ilium had been very fond of this shell-fish. Oyster-shells are also found, but only seldom; on the other hand, I find very many fragments of pottery. As far as the depth yet reached, all the buildings which have stood upon this hill in the course of thousands of years seem to have been destroyed by fire; every one of them is distinctly indicated by a layer of calcined ruins. This is at all events the reason why I do not also find other objects, and especially why I no longer find earthen vessels. Those I have hitherto found uninjured are very small pots of coarse workmanship; however, the fragments of the pottery prove that even in the time to which the ruins belong, at a depth of 4 meters (13 feet), there already existed good kitchen utensils.

In the quadrangular building already mentioned I found, at a depth of about 5 feet, a slab of marble 25·6 inches in length, the upper part of which is 13·6 inches in breadth, and the lower part 15·36 inches. It contains the following inscription:—

The king spoken of in this inscription must have been one of the kings of Pergamus, and from the character of the writing I believe that it must be assigned to the third century before Christ.

At about the same depth, and by the side of the building, I found a second marble slab 16·5 inches in length and 13·4 inches in breadth. The inscription runs as follows:—

This second inscription, to judge from the form of the letters, appears to belong to the first century B.C. “???aa???” here occurs for the first time as an Attic name.

At the same depth, and likewise by the side of the foundations of the same building, I found a third marble slab, nearly 15 inches long and about 14 broad. Its inscription is:—

This third inscription also appears to belong to the first century B.C.

It is probable that the building in and around which I discovered these three inscriptions was the Town-hall of Ilium; at all events, it does not appear to have been a temple.

The view from the hill of Hissarlik is extremely magnificent.[84] Before me lies the glorious Plain of Troy, which, since the recent rain, is again covered with grass and yellow buttercups; on the north-north-west, at about an hour’s distance, it is bounded by the Hellespont. The peninsula of Gallipoli here runs out to a point, upon which stands a lighthouse. To the left of it is the island of Imbros, above which rises Mount Ida of the island of Samothrace, at present covered with snow; a little more to the west, on the Macedonian peninsula, lies the celebrated Mount Athos, or Monte Santo, with its monasteries, at the north-western side of which there are still to be seen traces of that great canal which, according to Herodotus (VII. 22-23), was made by Xerxes, in order to avoid sailing round the stormy Cape Athos.

Returning to the Plain of Troy, we see to the right of it, upon a spur of the promontory of Rhoeteum, the sepulchral mound of Ajax; at the foot of the opposite Cape of Sigeum that of Patroclus, and upon a spur of the same cape the sepulchre of Achilles; to the left of the latter, on the promontory itself, is the village of Yenishehr. The Plain, which is about two hours’ journey in breadth, is thence bounded on the west by the shores of the Ægean, which are, on an average, about 131 feet high, and upon which we see first the sepulchral mound of Festus, the confidential friend of Caracalla, whom the Emperor (according to Herodian, IV.) caused to be poisoned on his visit to Ilium, that he might be able to imitate the funeral rites which Achilles celebrated in honour of his friend Patroclus, as described by Homer (Iliad, XXIII.). Then upon the same coast there is another sepulchral mound, called Udjek-TÉpÉ, rather more than 78½ feet in height, which most archÆologists consider to be that of the old man Æsyetes, from which Polites, trusting to the swiftness of his feet, watched to see when the Greek army would set forth from the ships.[85] The distance of this mound from the Greek camp on the Hellespont is, however, fully 3½ hours, whereas at a distance of a quarter of an hour a man cannot be seen. Polites, moreover, would not have required to have been very swift-footed to have escaped at a distance of 3½ hours. In short, from the passage in the Iliad this tomb cannot possibly be identified with that of Æsyetes, whether the site of ancient Troy be assigned to the heights of Bunarbashi or to Ilium, where I am digging. Between the last-named mounds we see projecting above the high shores of the Ægean Sea the island of Tenedos. To the south, we see the Plain of Troy, extending again to a distance of two hours, as far as the heights of Bunarbashi, above which rises majestically the snow-capped Gargarus of Mount Ida, from which Jupiter witnessed the battles between the Trojans and the Greeks.[86] At half-an-hour’s distance to the left of Bunarbashi is the beautiful estate of 5000 acres, whose name of Batak is now changed into Thymbria, belonging to my friend Mr. Frederick Calvert. It deserves the change of name for more than one reason; for not only does the river Thymbrius (now Kemer) flow through it, but it comprises the whole site of the ancient town of Thymbria, with its temple of Apollo, among the ruins of which the proprietor’s brother, Mr. Frank Calvert—known for his archÆological investigations—is making excavations, and has found several valuable inscriptions; among others, an inventory of the temple. This estate further comprises the site of an ancient town, which is apparently encompassed in some places by ramparts; it is covered with fragments of pottery, and in regard to position, distance, &c., corresponds so closely with the statements of Strabo that it must certainly be his “?????? ???,” where, agreeing with the theory of Demetrius of Scepsis, he places the Homeric Troy. At the foot of the hill containing the site, there are, curiously enough, two springs, one of hot the other of cold water.[87] These springs—probably owing to their natural channels having been stopped up for centuries by a fallen bridge—have formed a large marsh of 240 acres, the evaporations of which greatly contribute to the malaria of the glorious Plain. The marvellous circumstance that these springs are situated directly before the site of “?????? ???” and that their position corresponds so exactly with the two springs of hot and cold water which existed in front of ancient Troy, and in which the Trojan women used to wash their clothes, convinces Mr. Frederick Calvert that Demetrius of Scepsis and Strabo were right, and that he possesses the actual site of ancient Troy. In order to gain 240 acres of rich land and to make the district more healthy, but especially also in the interest of science, Mr. Calvert has now caused the channels to be opened, and he believes, as the incline is considerable, amounting at least to 53 feet, and the distance from the Hellespont is three hours, that by next summer the whole marsh will be dried up, and the two springs, which are now 5 feet under water, will be brought to light.[88] I have in vain endeavoured to make Mr. Calvert change his opinion, by seeking to convince him that, according to the Iliad (II. 123-30),[89] Troy must at least have had 50,000 inhabitants, whereas the site he possesses is scarcely large enough for 10,000; further, that the distance from the ?????? ??? to the Hellespont directly contradicts the statements of Homer, for we are told that the Greek troops in one day twice forced their way fighting from the camp to the town, and returned twice, fighting. The distance of the town from the ships, therefore, in my opinion, can at most have been that of one hour (about 3 miles). Mr. Calvert replies that the whole Plain of Troy is alluvial land, and that at the time of the Trojan war its site must have been nearer the Hellespont; but, three years ago, in my work, ‘Ithaca, the Peloponnesus, and Troy,’ I endeavoured to prove that the Plain of Troy is decidedly not alluvial land.

PLATE IV.

(~1mb)
ISLAND OF IMBROS. Mount Ida in Samothrace. The Ægean Sea. Kum-Kaleh. Lighthouse. PENINSULA OF GALLIPOLI. Hellespont. Simois. To the right of the Camels is the old bed of the Scamander. Mounds of Achilles and Patroclus. Yeni-Shehr on Sigeum Pr. VIEW OF THE NORTHERN PART OF THE PLAIN OF TROY, FROM THE HILL OF HISSARLIK.
VIEW OF THE NORTHERN PART OF THE PLAIN OF TROY, FROM THE HILL OF HISSARLIK.

PLATE V.

(~1mb)
THE CHAIN OF MOUNT IDA. Mount Gargarus (Kasdak). Village of Chiplak. Snow-clad Summit. Excavations in the Temple. Altar. VIEW OF THE SOUTH-EASTERN PART OF THE PLAIN OF TROY, FROM THE HILL OF HISSARLIK.
VIEW OF THE SOUTH-EASTERN PART OF THE PLAIN OF TROY, FROM THE HILL OF HISSARLIK.

Another curiosity of this estate is, that close to the temple of Apollo there exists a round hill, called “ChanaÏ TÉpÉ,” about 32¾ feet in height, and 216½ feet in diameter at its base. It used to be considered a natural hill, till Mr. Frank Calvert, in the year 1856, made a cutting in it, and found upon a flat rock, 16 feet high, a circular space, enclosed by a wall 6½ feet in height. The whole of the inner space, as far as the edge of the surrounding wall, was filled with calcined bones, which the surgeons of the English fleet pronounced to be human bones. In the centre Mr. Calvert found the skeleton of a human being. The whole was covered with about 10 feet of earth.

The Plain of Troy is traversed from the south-east to the north-west by the Scamander, which is distant from Hissarlik 35 minutes’ walk, and the bed of which I can recognise from here by the uninterrupted row of trees growing upon its banks. Between the Scamander and Hissarlik, at a distance of only 15 minutes from the latter, the Plain is again intersected by the river Kalifatli-Asmak, which rises in the marshes of Batak (Thymbria), and is filled with running water only in late autumn, winter, and spring; but during the hot summer months, till the end of October, it consists of an uninterrupted series of deep pools. This stream, even during the continual heavy winter rains, and in comparison with its splendid and immensely broad channel, has but a very scanty supply of water—in fact, never so much as to cover even the tenth part of the breadth of its bed. I therefore believe that its huge bed must at one time have been the bed of the Scamander; I believe this all the more, as the SimoÏs still flows into the Kalifatli-Asmak at a quarter of an hour’s distance north of Ilium, where I am digging.[90] By identifying the channel of this river, which may be traced to the Hellespont near Cape Rhoeteum, with the most ancient bed of the Scamander, we may settle the otherwise insurmountable difficulties of the Homeric topography of the Plain of Troy; for, had the Scamander occupied its present bed at the time of the Trojan war, it would have flowed through the Greek camp, and Homer would have had abundant opportunity of speaking of this important circumstance. But as he never mentions a river in the camp, there can, of course, have been none there. Moreover, the SimoÏs is now half-an-hour’s distance from the Scamander; whereas Homer frequently mentions the confluence of these two streams before Ilium, and most of the battles took place in the fields between Troy, the Scamander, and the SimoÏs. At its confluence with the Kalifatli-Asmak, whose enormous bed must, at one time, have belonged to the Scamander, the SimoÏs has an especially large and deep bed, which is doubtless still the same that this stream occupied at the time of the Trojan war.

The Kalifatli-Asmak, after its confluence with the Scamander near the village of Kum-kÖi, turns to the north-west, and flows into the sea by three arms, not very far from the present bed of the Scamander; below the village, however, it has quite a narrow bed, which is obviously of recent formation. Its old channel, on the other hand, which was the ancient bed of the Scamander and is of an immense breadth, proceeds direct northwards from Kum-kÖi: it is now occupied by the water of the small rivulet called In-tÉpÉ-Asmak, which I shall afterwards describe minutely, and empties itself, as before said, into the Hellespont close to Cape Rhoeteum.

The Scamander did not take possession of its present bed suddenly, but very gradually, probably in the course of many centuries; for between its present channel and its ancient one there are three enormous river-beds, likewise leading to the Hellespont, which possess no water and must necessarily have been successively formed by the Scamander, as there is no other river here that could have formed them.

To the north-north-east, I overlook another plain, called Chalil-Owasi, half an hour in breadth and 1½ hour in length, which is traversed by the SimoÏs and extends to the hill upon which are the mighty ruins of the ancient city of Ophrynium. The coins which have been found there leave no doubt about this. There, close to the SimoÏs, was Hector’s (so-called) tomb, and a grove sacred to his memory.[91]

No. 41. A great mixing Vessel (??at??), of Terra-cotta, with 4 Handles, about 1 ft. 5 in. high, and nearly 1 ft. 9 in. in diameter (7 M.). (See see p. 157, 262).
No. 41. A great mixing Vessel (??at??), of Terra-cotta, with 4 Handles, about 1 ft. 5 in. high, and nearly 1 ft. 9 in. in diameter (7 M.).
(See see p. 157, 262).

CHAPTER III.

On the Hill of Hissarlik, November 3rd, 1871.

MY last communication was dated the 26th of October, and since then I have proceeded vigorously with 80 workmen on an average. Unfortunately, however, I have lost three days; for on Sunday, a day on which the Greeks do not work, I could not secure the services of any Turkish workmen, for they are now sowing their crops; on two other days I was hindered by heavy rains.

To my extreme surprise, on Monday, the 30th of last month, I suddenly came upon a mass of dÉbris, in which I found an immense quantity of implements made of hard black stone (diorite), but of a very primitive form. On the following day, however, not a single stone implement was found, but a small piece of silver wire and a great deal of broken pottery of elegant workmanship, among others the fragment of a cup with an owl’s head. I therefore thought I had again come upon the remains of a civilized people, and that the stone implements of the previous day were the remains of an invasion of a barbarous tribe, whose dominion had been of but short duration. But I was mistaken, for on the Wednesday the stone period reappeared in even greater force, and continued throughout the whole of yesterday. To-day, unfortunately, no work can be done owing to the heavy downpour of rain.

I find much in this stone period that is quite inexplicable to me, and I therefore consider it necessary to describe everything as minutely as possible, in the hope that one or other of my honoured colleagues will be able to give an explanation of the points which are obscure to me.

In the first place, I am astonished that here on the highest point of the hill, where, according to every supposition the noblest buildings must have stood, I come upon the stone period as early as at a depth of 4½ meters (about 15 feet), whereas last year, at a distance of only 66 feet from the top of the hill, I found in my cutting, at the depth of more than 16 feet, a wall, 6½ feet thick, and by no means very ancient, and no trace of the stone period, although I carried that cutting to a depth of more than 26 feet. This probably can be explained in no other way than that the hill, at the place where the wall stands, must have been very low, and that this low position has been gradually raised by the dÉbris.

Further, I do not understand how it is possible that in the present stratum and upon the whole length of my cutting (which must now be at least 184 feet) to its mouth, that is, as far as the steep declivity, I should find stone implements, which obviously prove that that part of the steep side of the hill cannot have increased in size since the stone period by rubbish thrown down from above.

Next, I cannot explain how it is possible that I should find things which, to all appearance, must have been used by the uncivilized men of the stone period, but which could not have been made with the rude implements at their disposal. Among these I may specially mention the earthen vessels found in great numbers, without decorations, it is true, and not fine, but which however are of excellent workmanship. Not one of these vessels has been turned upon a potter’s wheel, and yet it appears to me that they could not have been made without the aid of some kind of machine, such as, on the other hand, could not have been produced by the rude stone implements of the period.

I am further surprised to find, in this stone period, and more frequently than ever before, those round articles with a hole in the centre, which have sometimes the form of humming-tops or whorls (carrouselen), sometimes of fiery mountains. In the last form they bear, on a small scale, the most striking resemblance to the colossal sepulchral mounds of this district, which latter, both on this account and also because stone implements have been found in one of them (the ChanaÏ TÉpÉ) belong probably to the stone period, and therefore perhaps to an age thousands of years before the Trojan war.[92] At a depth of 3 meters (about 10 feet), I found one of these objects made of very fine marble: all the rest are made of excellent clay rendered very hard by burning; almost all of them have decorations, which have evidently been scratched into them when the clay was as yet unburnt, and which in very many cases have been filled with a white substance, to make them more striking to the eye. It is probable that at one time the decorations upon all of these objects were filled with that white substance, for upon many of them, where it no longer exists, I see some traces of it. Upon some of the articles of very hard black clay without decorations, some hand has endeavoured to make them after the clay had been burnt, and, when looked at through a magnifying glass, these marks leave no doubt that they have been laboriously scratched with a piece of flint.

The question then forces itself upon us: For what were these objects used? They cannot possibly have been employed in spinning or weaving, or as weights for fishing-nets, for they are too fine and elegant for such purposes; neither have I as yet been able to discover any indication that they could have been used for any handicraft. When, therefore, I consider the perfect likeness of most of these objects to the form of the heroic sepulchral mounds, I am forced to believe that they, as well as those with two holes which occurred only at a depth of 6½ feet, were used as Ex votos.

Again, to my surprise, I frequently find the Priapus, sometimes represented quite true to nature in stone or terra-cotta, sometimes in the form of a pillar rounded off at the top (just such as I have seen in Indian temples, but there only about 4 inches in length). I once also found the symbol in the form of a little pillar only about 1 inch in length, made of splendid black marble striped with white and beautifully polished, such as is never met with in the whole of this district. I consequently have not the slightest doubt that the Trojan people of the stone period worshipped Priapus as a divinity, and that, belonging to the Indo-Germanic race, they brought this religion from Bactria; for in India, as is well known, the god of production and of destruction is represented and worshipped in this form. Moreover, it is probable that these ancient Trojans are the ancestors of the great Hellenic nation, for I repeatedly find upon cups and vases of terra-cotta representations of the owl’s head, which is probably the great-great-grandmother of the Athenian bird of Pallas-Athena.

With the exception of the above-mentioned piece of silver wire and two copper nails, I have as yet found no trace of metal in the strata of the stone period.

As in the upper strata, so in those of the stone period, I find a great many boars’ tusks, which, in the latter strata, have without exception been pointed at the end, and have served as implements. It is inconceivable to me how the men of the stone period, with their imperfect weapons, were able to kill wild boars. Their lances—like all their other weapons and instruments—are, it is true, made of very hard black or green stone, but still they are so blunt that it must have required a giant’s strength to kill a boar with them. Hammers and axes are met with of all sizes and in great numbers.[93] I likewise find very many weights of granite, also a number of hand-mills of lava, which consist of two pieces about a foot in length, oval on one side and flat on the other, between which the corn was crushed. Sometimes these mill-stones are made of granite. Knives are found in very great numbers; all are of flint, some in the form of knife-blades, others—by far the greater majority—are jagged on one or on both sides, like saws. Needles and bodkins made of bone are of frequent occurrence, and sometimes also small bone spoons. Primitive canoes, such as I frequently saw in Ceylon, formed out of a hollowed trunk of a tree, are often met with here in miniature, made of terra-cotta, and I presume that these small vessels may have served as salt-cellars or pepper-boxes. I likewise find a number of whetstones about 4 inches in length and nearly as much in breadth, which are sometimes made of clay, sometimes of green or black slate; further, a number of round, flat stones a little under and over two inches in diameter, painted red on one side; also many hundreds of round terra-cottas of the like size and shape, with a hole in the centre, and which have evidently been made out of fragments of pottery, and may have been used on spindles. Flat stone mortars are also met with.

I also find in my excavations a house-wall of the stone period, consisting of stones joined by clay, like the buildings which were discovered on the islands of Therasia and Thera (Santorin) under three layers of volcanic ashes, forming together a height of 68 feet.

My expectations are extremely modest; I have no hope of finding plastic works of art. The single object of my excavations from the beginning was only to find Troy, whose site has been discussed by a hundred scholars in a hundred books, but which as yet no one has ever sought to bring to light by excavations. If I should not succeed in this, still I shall be perfectly contented, if by my labours I succeed only in penetrating to the deepest darkness of pre-historic times, and enriching archÆology by the discovery of a few interesting features from the most ancient history of the great Hellenic race. The discovery of the stone period, instead of discouraging me, has therefore only made me the more desirous to penetrate to the place which was occupied by the first people that came here, and I still intend to reach it even if I should have to dig another 50 feet further down.

Note.—The “Stone Period” described in this chapter seems to be that of the third stratum upwards from the rock (4 to 7 meters, or 13 to 23 feet deep); but the description does not make this perfectly clear.—{ED.}

(9M.) (7M.) (14M.)

Nos. 42-44. Terra-cotta Whorls. No. 44 Is remarkable for the depth at which it was found.
Nos. 42-44. Terra-cotta Whorls.
No. 44 Is remarkable for the depth at which it was found.

CHAPTER IV.

Another passage from the Stone Age to copper implements mixed with stone—The signs of a higher civilization increase with the depth reached—All the implements are of better workmanship—Discovery of supposed inscriptions—Further discussion of the use of the whorls—Troy still to be reached—Fine terra-cotta vessels of remarkable forms—Great numbers of stone weights and hand millstones—Numerous house-walls—Construction of the great cutting—Fever and quinine—Wounds and arnica.