[Gutenberg 45190] • Troy and Its Remains / A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries Made on the Site of Ilium and in the Trojan Plain

DR. SCHLIEMANN’S original narrative of his wonderful discoveries on the spot marked as the site of Homer’s Ilium by an unbroken tradition, from the earliest historic age of Greece, has a permanent value and interest which can scarcely be affected by the final verdict of criticism on the result of his discoveries. If he has indeed found the fire-scathed ruins of the city whose fate inspired the immortal first-fruits of Greek poetry, and brought to light many thousands of objects illustrating the race, language, and religion of her inhabitants, their wealth and civilization, their instruments and appliances for peaceful life and war; and if, in digging out these remains, he has supplied the missing link, long testified by tradition as well as poetry, between the famous Greeks of history and their kindred in the East; no words can describe the interest which must ever belong to the first birth of such a contribution to the history of the world. Or should we, on the other hand, in the face of all that has been revealed on the very spot of which the Greeks themselves believed that Homer sang, lean to the scepticism of the scholar who still says:—“I know as yet of one Ilion only, that is, the Ilion as sung by Homer, which is not likely to be found in the trenches of Hissarlik, but rather among the Muses who dwell on Olympus;” even so a new interest of historic and antiquarian curiosity would be excited by “the splendid ruins,” as the same high authority rightly calls those “which Dr. Schliemann has brought to light at Hissarlik.” For what, in that case, were the four cities, whose successive layers of ruins, still marked by the fires that have passed over them in turn, are piled to the height of fifty feet above the old summit of the hill? If not even one of them is Troy, what is the story, so like that of Troy, which belongs to them?

“Trojæ renascens alite lugubri

Fortuna tristi clade iterabitur.”

What is the light that is struggling to break forth from the varied mass of evidence, and the half-deciphered inscriptions, that are still exercising the ingenuity of the most able enquirers? Whatever may be the true and final answer to these questions—and we have had to put on record a signal proof that the most sanguine investigators will be content with no answer short of the truth[1]—the vivid narrative written by the discoverer on the spot can never lose that charm which Renan has so happily described as “la charme des origines.”

CONTENTS

On the Hill of Hissarlik, October 18th, 1871.

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, October 26th, 1871.

Number of workmen— Discoveries at 2 to 4 meters deep— Greek coins— Remarkable terra-cottas with small stamps, probably Ex votos— These cease, and are succeeded by the whorls— Bones of sharks, shells of mussels and oysters, and pottery— Three Greek Inscriptions— The splendid panoramic view from Hissarlik— The Plain of Troy and the heroic tumuli— Thymbria: Mr. Frank Calvert’s Museum— The mound of Chanaï Tépé— The Scamander and its ancient bed— Valley of the Simoïs, and Ruins of Ophrynium

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