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Chapter 2 (part 4)
The 3rd period of Layer II (p.61).
Of
the two gates from the 3rd period of layer II, the smaller (EM) was
already uncovered by Schliemann in 1873 and held to be the «Scaean»
gate of Homeric Troy. We have already gotten to know some of its ground
plan from figs.15 and 16. It is drawn more fully on the main plans
(Plates III and IV) and in figs.20 and 21. The differences between the
two latter floor plans are intended to illustrate the alterations which
the gate underwent, as we have already indicated, at the beginning of
the 3rd period. Although the gate has already been described several
times by Schliemann (Ilios p. 42 and Troja p. 75), a more precise description need not be superfluous.
On
a ramp paved with polygonal stone slabs, which is remarkably well
preserved, one climbs up to the gate. The lower end of the ramp has not
yet been excavated, so its full length is not yet known. The uncovered
piece has a length of 21 m up to the first gate lock. The height
difference between the two ends is about 5 m from which a pitch ratio
of almost 1:4 results. Driving up with a wagon was hardly possible on
such a steep ramp, and in fact there are no traces of wagons to be
seen. The total width of the ramp is 7.55 m. There are 1.10 m on both
sides for parapet walls, which are completely destroyed but are secured
by their foundations, leaving a width of about 5.35 m for the paved
path. The height of the parapet walls is unknown. Perhaps they were
only 1m high and then served to border the path. If they were higher,
they could be used for (p.69) defence.
 The excellent state of
preservation of the pavement can be clearly seen in the photograph in
fig.19, in which part of the ridge (a) can be seen on the right, the
substructure of the left gate tower (b) in the middle and the castle
wall on the far left. Unfortunately, the top part of the pavement was
destroyed after the first excavation, the lower part is so perfectly
preserved that it must have been covered with earth during the
existence of the second layer.
Fig.19: Paved ramp of gate FM and the castle wall of the 3rd period of the second layer.
(p.70)
At the top of the ramp lies the gate FM, whose plan is perfectly clear
despite the great destruction. It consists of a 5.25 m (10 old cubits?)
wide gateway, which is bordered on both sides by quarry stone walls and
had a double gate closure. Since the short transverse walls (c, d, e,
f) serving as a stop for the gate wings protrude about 0.65 m in front
of the wall, the door openings themselves had a width of about 4 m,
which was also a completely sufficient size for wagons. The ground plan
of the building is divided into three sections by the two closures: a
vestibule, a door chamber and, behind the second closure, a rear hall.
 During
the excavation, the wall corners a and b of the rear hall were still
provided with stone bases for wooden parastades, a building element
that we will encounter more often as a special feature of the 3rd
period of the 2nd layer. While these parastades or antae are generally
very valuable for the architectural reconstruction of our prehistoric
buildings, they are particularly important here because they allow us
to assign the gate in its later form with certainty to the interior
buildings of the 3rd period.
Fig.20: The gate FM at the end of the 2nd period of the layer II,
We will go into more detail about
their construction and form when discussing the interior buildings. No
parastade bases have been found at the corners of the walls of the
vestibule (k and i), nor do they appear to have ever existed.
Originally, the front ends of the gate walls were probably designed as
strong gate towers, as shown in fig.20. Only more recently (see fig.21)
do we find in their place narrower projecting piers (g and h), which
may have had wooden parastades.
 However, there are still
some concerns about the accuracy of the former reconstruction, because
the surviving older remains are too small to permit a safe addition. It
is doubtful whether we have correctly expanded the two 2.70 m wide
foundations (k and i) in fig.20 and in a somewhat different way in
fig.16 to form tower-like projections, or whether they are only the
foundations of the narrower ones drawn in fig.21 have formed gate
pillars.
Fig.21: The gate FM in the 3rd period of the layer II.
I do not share these concerns. In my opinion, narrow
pillars 1 m wide do not need 2.70 m thick foundations. I therefore give
decided preference to supplementing the surviving foundations with
broad gate towers. It is also not completely certain that the two rear
rooms of the gate, as I assume, did not exist initially and were only
added during a conversion. Why I consider this assumption to be more
correct has already been explained above on p. 64 in the discussion of
the castle wall II-2. The most important reason is because otherwise
the older inner building of II-3, which is partly below the rear hall,
cannot be explained.
The
floor plan of the later form of the gate shown in fig.21, on the other
hand, is completely secured by the remains that have been preserved.
The front part of the gate, made of large flat stones, is in its
present condition built in one piece with the rear part. The parapet
walls (m and n) of the large ramp will have reached up to the pillars
(g and h) of the gate; in any case, they are exactly in their flight.
The
connection between the ring wall and the gate was not always even.
Originally, according to fig.20, either the wall drawn in black from
the 2nd period (q r) or the wall of the 3rd period erected in front of
it (s t) will have been the castle wall belonging to the gate in the
east. In fig.20 one possibility is shown in black, in fig.21 the other.
A little later the curved wall p (fig.21) is erected to fill the angle
between i and s.
On the other, western side of the gate, the
wall has remained in the same place, but has undergone several
reconstructions, taking on a small change in its direction and slope.
Some of these conversions can be seen in our fig.19. The castle wall
preserved on the left edge of the picture (p.72) has a roughly
vertical, almost vertical piece at the top, below it a strongly sloping
part of the same height and finally a larger, also sloping piece, the
lower part of which is not visible in the picture. Between the 2nd and
3rd pieces, at the same height as the tower-like pillar b is preserved,
a dark strip of earth can be seen in the picture. Up to here the castle
wall of the 2nd period had been removed when the gate was built; the
two upper pieces belong to the 3rd period.
We are very badly
informed about the outline of the gate, and we lack even all the basics
to draw even a sketch of its shape. The only thing I think I can
say for sure is that the roof of the gate was made of wood and a
horizontal earthen roof was attached over it. The vestibule, however,
hardly had a roof, because such a roof would have made it easier for
the attackers to destroy and capture the gate. Provision will have been
made to ensure that the defenders of the gate towers could see and
paint the outside of the gate. The fact that wood and bricks were
present in the side walls of the gate is confirmed by the remains of
both materials that were preserved during the excavation above the
standing stone base.
 The second gate of the 3rd Period, the
South-East gate FO, shows almost the same ground plan as the gate FM,
but in larger dimensions. In terms of location and size, it behaves in
the same way to the older gate PN as the smaller gate FM does to the
older FL. Its plan and general position are shown in Plates III and IV,
and in detail in fig.22. The walls of the 3rd period are entirely black
in the latter, those of the other two periods of the 2nd layer are
dotted or cross-hatched.
Fig.22: The gate FO in the 3rd period of the II layer.
The
three parts of the gate building, namely the vestibule with strong side
walls, the gate chamber and the back hall with thinner walls, recur
here, and between them there are again two gate closures, each formed
by two pillars on continuous foundation walls. These transverse walls
are 2.50m thick and the side walls 2.0m thick, so they are at least
twice as thick as the corresponding walls of the gate FM.
The
dimensions of the individual rooms are also about half larger; the
width is 7.20 and 7.60 m (compared to 5.25 m), the depth of the
vestibule is 4.80 m, the length of the middle room is 7.15 m and the
depth of the inner hall is 6.80 m (compared to 4.10 m for all three
rooms). The two door openings, which were certainly closed with two
wooden door leaves each, have a width of 4.40 m, a dimension that is
only slightly larger than the corresponding (4.0 m) of the smaller
gate. The reason for this slight difference is obvious: the gates had
to have a certain width so that a carriage could easily drive through,
going beyond was only possible at the expense of the strength and
safety of the gate and therefore not advisable.
Wooden
parastades were not attached to the corners of the rear hall, at least
no base stones for them have been found. On the other hand, in the
front hall, as in the gate FM, the two types of pillars of different
dimensions recur; originally 3.5m thick and 8m deep, they were later
reduced to 2m thick and 5m deep. I think it is more likely that this is
also a later conversion than that a narrow pillar was erected on a
protruding substructure. However, the side walls of the two rear rooms
also seem to rest on broader foundations, but the assumption that the
remains of an older gate are also present in these foundation walls
cannot be entirely rejected. In our fig.22 I have drawn the wider base
walls like older walls to make them stand out more clearly. (p.74) This
is not to say that they are really older. Incidentally, the
investigation of the older floor plan of the gate is also made more
difficult by the fact that a large part of the building is still hidden
under more recent alterations and is therefore not visible at all.
The
shape of the superstructure and especially the facade of the gate is
completely unknown. Since no weather-resistant materials were used in
its furnishing (at least none have been found), there is no hope that
secure bases for a reconstruction of the elevation will ever be found.
In
fig.20 and on Plates III and IV, some later alterations to the gate are
also shown, for which it can be doubtful whether they must be ascribed
to layer II or the later layer III. I have chosen the latter option and
will therefore discuss these walls in the III layer structures. In my
opinion, they no longer belong to the II layer because, firstly, it is
a matter of reducing and narrowing the gate, which fits very well with
the village-like III settlement, but not with the stately II castle.
Secondly,
the attached walls are still 2 m high despite their partly poor
construction, which also occurs in the inner buildings of the little
destroyed III layer. In the buildings of the second layer, on the other
hand, only the very thick walls escaped destruction, while all the
others except for their foundations were destroyed. We were also able
to determine that the inhabitants of the III layer made the castle
walls and gates of the destroyed Castle II usable again in other places
through repairs and conversions.
The castle wall of the 3rd
period of the II layer is not an even wall encircling the whole hill,
but was apparently made in very different dimensions on the different
sides of the hill. I say apparently because the wall is so badly
damaged and built over by younger walls that its original shape can no
longer be seen everywhere. I don't think it impossible that an even
wall was built at the beginning and that the existing differences only
arose during later reconstructions.
The best preserved is the
castle wall immediately north-east of Gate FO. On a 1m high stone base,
a brick wall about 4m thick still stands up to 3m high and is still
equipped with several towers, which once gave it a great defensive
capability. In our fig.20, the two towers b a and b c are drawn, and on
plans III and IV a third tower. The fact that more followed to the
north and that some of them are still preserved under buildings VI C
and VI D can be concluded from a small remains visible under the latter
building in square H 4. The dimensions of the (p.75) towers and their
distances from each other are about the same for all, namely tower
width about 3.30m, depth 2.25m, distance between every two towers
6.50m. In the book Troy (1882),
Plate VII, the distance between the towers was assumed to be twice as
large, because we had not yet discovered the tower b a at that time.
Some
have wanted to deny the character of the towers as defensive works and
declared them to be buttresses, which were only designed to achieve
greater stability of the castle wall (cf. G. Schröder, Archiv für die Artillerie- und Ingenieur-Officer,
1888, p. 316) . But I think this view is incorrect. A brick wall four
meters thick needs no buttresses, just as in fact several Trojan walls
only about eight and a half meters thick and many similar walls in
Greece have no projections whatsoever.
The most well-known
example is the city wall of Athens built under Themistokles, which also
consisted of unfired bricks on a stone foundation and, despite its low
thickness of 2.60 m, has no buttresses or other projections. Then our
castle wall on the south-east needed even fewer buttresses than on the
other sides of the castle, because here the terrain undercut was the
least, and consequently the wall was stronger without buttresses than
on the higher slopes of the other sides.
Further, the
protruding corners of the towers or buttresses are much exposed to
destruction by wind and weather, and also by the attackers; it would
therefore have been very impractical to make such projections just for
the purpose of increasing the strength of the masonry. The towers were
built despite the low durability of their corners only because the
projecting towers could be used to coat the intermediate sections of
wall with projectiles and thus better defend them.
Finally,
reference must also be made to the numerous pictorial representations
of oriental and Greek city walls, in which similar and sometimes no
larger wall projections are occupied by defenders at the top and are
therefore actually used as towers. These projections deserve the name
towers, whether they extend beyond the height of the wall or cut off
with it; it suffices that they jut out in front of the wall line and
give space to the defenders at the top. It may also be remembered that
Homer knew towers both at the wall of Troy and at the wall of the camp
of Greece.
Real buttresses, which were not towers, we will see
later leaning on the inside of the castle wall and in the inner
buildings. They are different in size and shape from our towers, which
were obviously built to better defend the wall.
The towers and
also the wall itself have no sloping foundation on the east side of the
castle, but a vertical stone foundation of only about one high. A part
of this base built of small stones and earth (p.76) must have been
underground as a real foundation, the other part would have been
visible as a base. The embankment was allowed to be omitted because the
difference in terrain between the outside and inside of the castle was
very small at this point, and the base wall was therefore not a
retaining or terrace wall. The wall stood on the upper edge of a gently
sloping earth bank, which compensated for the difference in height
between the castle hill and the plateau of the lower town.
 Photo 10: The East castle wall of level II-3, made of unfired bricks.
The
current appearance of the wall and its towers in square G 6 is to be
illustrated in Photo 10: a is the brick wall with its stone base, b and
c are the protruding towers of the same type. Visible below the wall at
d is the earth on which the wall rests and which also contains much of
the burnt rubble from the older wall. At the top edge of the picture at
e you can see the remains of younger house walls, which consist of
small stones and probably belong to layer IV. The structure of the
brick wall itself can be seen in some places in the picture, such as to
the left above the workman and in the upper part of the tower. The
joints stand out from the bricks due to their different coloring.
In the book Troy
(1882), Schliemann describes the superstructure built on the stone
foundation as a brick wall, which was built from unbroken clay bricks,
but was then burned as a finished wall in order to become firmer by
converting the brick and mortar into terracotta. Initially, I also
shared this view, but I was already convinced of their incorrectness in
1882. At that time I tried to dissuade Schliemann in vain. I could not
prevent him from explaining this in detail in the book Troy.
Since Schliemann's view is now not represented by anyone, I think it is
superfluous to refute them in detail. As far as I know, brick walls
that have only been deliberately burned in their finished state have
never been proven.
The superstructure of our ring wall actually
consisted of unbroken bricks and earth mortar and was only burned by a
great conflagration of the castle. Individual wooden beams that were
installed to give the earth wall a larger hold, and probably also the
wooden beams of covered ways provide fuel for the fire and the wall
burned red and black in the way described in the book Troy,
p. 67. Since the heat naturally travelled upward, the upper
part of the wall was the most strongly burned, while the lower part
burned less. The bricks below the lowest wooden beam have even remained
completely unbroken and do not even have any signs of fire. The formats
of bricks and their material have been discussed above (p. 37 ff.) It
may only be mentioned here that the bricks are 0.45m long, 0.22m wide
and 0.12m high. The joints have a thickness of 10 - 15 mm.
(p.77)
The outside of the wall is still partially covered with a thick clay
plaster, itself covered with a thin clay layer. This clay plaster also
covered over the stone base. The outermost layer of the clay probably
stems from a frequent coat of paint that the city wall gained better
appearance from time to time. We also found the same plaster and
coating on the inside of the wall. Incidentally, only two small places
are uncovered from the inside of the southeast, and it must therefore
remain doubtful whether the inner edge of the wall, as was assumed in
the drawings, was in a straight line, or whether there are no remnants
of which indicates, any extensions were present. It is even possible
that the wall, as we will see immediately, was only the outer part of
an approximately 16m thick castle wall.
There are some doubts
about the course of the ring wall in the squares H 5 to G 3. It is not
certain whether the lines in the drawing, which were chosen according
to the preserved and uncovered remains in the plans, corresponds to
reality. For instance, we do not know whether the high, heavily
brilliant stone wall in H 4 and G 3 was really the substructure of our
brick wall, or whether it was not a member of an older period. In the
latter case, it would have to be not taken into account when
reconstruction of the train of the 3rd period. Then the location of the
castle wall depends on the explanation of the two large buildings II N
and II M, which may belong to the castle wall.
These two strange
constructions, one of which remains particularly noteworthy in that
some magnificent stone axes or scepters have been found in it
(discussed in more detail in the IV layer), consist of an only 0.25 m
deep foundation of small stones, over which bricks were laid. These
form wide walls, the inside of which contained several longitudinal and
cross-lengths. They would be kept for the inner building of the castle,
if not along the entire eastern castle wall, from squares G 3 to the
gate Fo and even further to the gate EM, where remnants of very similar
systems had been found.
The location, direction and shape of
these remnants strongly suggest that they belong to the castle wall of
the eastern and southern side. Unfortunately, the condition of almost
all of these walls, partly as a result of the poor foundations, is so
deteriorated that the floor plan is not completely understandable and
its meaning cannot be determined.
It seems most likely that
the 4m wide ring wall, as I already indicated, together with the
buildings II M and II N have formed an approximately 16m thick
fastening wall with interiors, as are known in similar dimensions of
other castles and cities. For example, I only need recall the castle
wall of Tiryns, which has a thickness of 12m on the south side and
contains galleries and chambers; or even better, the brick walls (p.78)
of Mesopotamian cities of Babylonia, according to the description of
Herodotus of 50 cubits or around 25m thickness.
If I continue to
be concerned about reconstructing our Trojan Wall in the significant
strength of 16m on our tables, and if I have limited myself to indicate
their course through dotted lines, it is because the surviving
remnants are too low, to allow a confident addition. However, I
can still point out two circumstances that confirm our presumption.
First, the remains of walls, which in their design match with II M and
II N, are only on the eastern and southern side of the hill, i.e. only
where the hill had no natural slope, but only by a low reduction in the
plateau of the later lower town. Secondly, the depth of the two choral
systems FO and I M is very good for such a wide wall, and furthermore,
its floor plan with the three rooms in succession would only be fully
explained by such an assumption.
It deserves to be emphasized
that in direct connections to the east wall of the gate fm, in their
design and in their masses, they agree with wall II N and would
therefore be very well supplemented into a strong castle wall of the
3rd period of the II layer. However, the building remains II F obtained
in the squares D 6 cannot be combined.
This building is
undoubtedly older than the castle wall of the 1 and 2 periods because
it runs across its stone substructures. It is also secured as the
construction of the 3rd period by the stone antenna base, which was
preserved at its southern end. On the other hand, it is certainly older
than the remnants of the very broad wall foundation just mentioned,
because one of these remnants (see photo 3) goes over it.
One
could want to conclude from this that the strong castle wall could not
belong to the II layer at all, but the IIIrd. The prehistoric village
would then have to be allocated. But that seems quite impossible to me.
How can we assume a 16m thick castle wall for the poor village of the
III layer with its small huts and, on the other hand, calculate a
significantly thinner wall to the stately buildings of the 3rd period
of the II layer? Only then do the different facts seem to me to be in
harmony when we assume that the 16m strong fortress wall owes its
origin to a conversion of the 3rd period of the II layer that was built
before the destruction of this layer. The people of the II Castle may
have decided to significantly reinforce the ring wall before or during
a siege and built the extremely strong wall on the most threatened
sides of the castle (p.79) that also good magazines in their interiors
for storage of all kinds of food.
Whether it will be possible to
prove this assumption in the event of further excavations as a fact
must remain very questionable, because only small areas that are not
excavated are available in which such an investigation is possible.
However, since these places I discussed earlier, however, remain better
untouched for the time being, we have to be satisfied with at least to
have proven the possibility of the existence of a clay wall about 16m
thick on the east and south side of the castle.
If we continue
to pursue the II-3 castle wall around the northern and western
side of the hill, we have to constantly be aware that nothing is
discovered on the northern slopes of such a wall. It was only on the
northwestern corner in C 3 that we come back on a brick wall with a
poor foundation and base made of stones, which can be followed up to
the corner tower FH and further to the FM. There are no outer towers on
this entire route. Their foundation would also have very difficulty on
the slopes covered with rubble.
In contrast, some
buttresses are found on the inside, which are apparently built up to
the wall. These pillars are about 1.30m wide and jump about 1.60m in
front of the wall, so they have completely different dimensions than
the towers detected in the east on the outside. In addition to the
western wall, such buttresses have also been found in the south above
the bricked -up gate FN. It is not known whether they also appear on
the eastern wall. The western castle wall, which includes the
buttresses, has a thickness of only 2m and therefore required the help
of the pillars to obtain greater strength. In the event of a later
renovation, this relatively thin ring wall was replaced by a full 4m
thick wall. We assume that this change was made while the layer II-3
was done; Maybe it took place at the same time as the 16m strong east
wall was built.
On the western corner of the castle, where the
large corner tower FH had stood in the older period, our wall has only
a simple right -angled corner that is high above the tower that was
already buried at the time. In the southern thigh of the corner there
is still a small gate FJ to mention that apparently took the place of
the attracted gate FK. A narrow ramp -like path leads over the tower FH
up to this gate.
The last part of the wall II-3 from the western
corner to the gate FM is best seen on the already mentioned Photo 6. On
the far right, a corner of the gate FM is visible, which is part of the
stone substructure of the castle wall to the left, in its upper (p.80)
parts of the 3rd period, in its lower of the 2nd. Where the wall bends
and shows a gap (at B), the gate FL stood in the 1st period, the lower
walls of which still get to the railroad, but are not recognizable in
the picture. Another piece of the II-2 and II-3 castle wall follows and
then, called C, the large west tower FH. The thin walls (D) visible in
the right parts of the picture belong to the IIIrd layer. The remnants
of the wall on the left of the railway come from the even younger
layers IV- IX. Under the railway there are some walls of clay bricks
and stones that were perhaps external defense works. But their meaning
must remain undecided.
While we have observed a three - or
even four -time renewal and expansion in the castle wall of the IInd
layer, and have gotten to know the walls of each individual period, the
inner buildings are essentially from only one period, namely the third.
In order to find the floor plans of the older houses, the buildings of
the 3rd period should have been destroyed. However, since this was of
course not permitted, we tried to research older walls by excavations
inside some rooms and between the individual buildings. We succeeded in
determining the presence of two older periods of inner buildings.
However, we have not been able to restore their floor plans. We will
therefore primarily deal with the better known buildings from the 3rd
period of the II layer.
[Continue to Chapter 2, part 5]
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