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Chapter 2 (part 15)
7. Layer VII: two pre-Greek settlements. (p.183)
Over
the ruins of the layer VI Castle, a new settlement was built after some
time. We do not know whether this happened soon or whether the
destroyed castle was completely deserted for a long time. We found
simple buildings that served as dwellings, magazines and perhaps also
as stables above the ruined walls of the stately sixth layer. These are
the same buildings that I described as storerooms in the provisional
report on the excavations of 1894 (Athen. Mittheilungen 1894,
p. 391 and Table IX) and which I still believe to be ascribed to the
last period of the VI Castle, shortly before its destruction.
On
the plan of that tablet I had counted it as part of the sixth layer,
but differentiated it from the other buildings in this layer by means
of a different hatching, because they were clearly distinguished from
them by their type of construction and their altitude. As it turned
out, their assignment to layer VI later turned out to be wrong.
However, the houses known at that time and drawn on the plan were all
located in the wide path between the castle wall and the first row of
VI residential houses, so it could be assumed that they existed at the
same time as the latter.
But we had already noticed that they
were getting so close to the retaining walls of the VI layer buildings
that traffic between them was hardly possible. Later, several walls
were added, which undoubtedly reach over some of the wall foundations
of Castle VI and must therefore be more recent than the destruction of
this castle. In addition, their affiliation with the VI layer is ruled
out by the fact that the floor slabs surrounding the well B c, which
certainly date from the same time as the houses, apparently go beyond
the retaining wall of the building VI F, which has already been
demolished, and can therefore no longer belong to the VI layer. We
therefore assign the houses to a 1st period of the VII stratum, and
designate the previously designated VII settlement as a 2nd period of
this stratum.
However, we could also have designated the houses
formerly assigned to level VII as a level VIII settlement and then
assigned a different number to the higher levels as well. In this way
we would have received a total of ten layers instead of nine. But such
a renaming of several strata is not only to be avoided in general, but
would even have been incorrect in our case.
In fact, the
houses that we erroneously counted earlier in the 2nd period of the VI
castle belong to the same stratum as the buildings formerly designated
as the VII stratum. The older houses were still widely used by the
younger residents in the second period of the seventh shift and some of
them were rebuilt. The new houses also did not have a significantly
higher floor. In the case of these houses, therefore, we must not speak
of two different strata, but only of two periods of the same stratum.
a. The 1st period of the VII layer (p.184)
All the walls from the first period of the VII stratum are
distinguished on Plate 6 by a different shade of color from the more
recent walls of the same stratum. The most important of the films are
also drawn on a larger scale in Figures 70-72, and, as all the more
recent walls are omitted, can be better surveyed. According to the
earlier plan, the individual houses of level VII-1 are named in all of
these floor plans with the small Greek letters a-w, with the addition
of the number VII to designate the level. On the other hand, the walls
of the sixth layer, insofar as they were then still standing and could
therefore be used, are hatched crosswise, but where they were buried
and no longer visible, they are provided with a dotted line. The walls
from the 1st period of the VII layer are simply hatched.
Plate 6: Plan of Troy ruins from the layers VII and VIII.
We
have already explained earlier how it was that the castle wall of the
buildings of the VI layer escaped complete destruction and was thus
found partially still standing by the new settlers. The new residents
built their houses on these remains of the ring wall, using the
remaining upper wall as a rear wall. Dwellings were also added to some
of the retaining walls of the inner buildings, such as the western wall
of Building VI M. While several of the houses consist of a square,
mostly not quite right-angled room, others (particularly many in the
east) have no front wall and are open halls; their side walls terminate
in front in square pillars or parastades. In some rooms of this type
there is still an inner transverse wall (e.g. in VII ß, VII Y and
perhaps also in VII a); here, then, was an open vestibule and a closed
room. One would like to assume that there were also such transverse
walls in the other open spaces (e.g. in Vfl C, VII -q and VII 6), but
nothing of this can be seen anymore.
A certain similarity
between the floor plans of the buildings of levels VI and VII cannot be
denied hereafter. In both strata we find as dwellings simple rooms, or
open halls with a closed room behind, and in both cases the houses are
arranged close together in circles. In the younger layer we know of
course only one such circle, but in two places at least the remains of
some buildings lying further inwards have been preserved. They also
differ in that the younger houses are smaller and have common partition
walls, while the large houses of the VI layer have their own enclosing
walls and are even separated from each other by narrow spaces.
But
these differences are not great. The resemblance is so overwhelming
that we may assume the same ethnic group as the inhabitants of both
(p.185) strata, taking into account the similarity in relation to the
pottery ware presented in the next chapter. Of course, the stately
buildings of the VI layer were the dwellings of the ruler and his
relatives, while the simpler buildings of the I period of VII must be
considered the houses of simple peasants.
When the destroyed
Castle VI was set up again as a residential area, the castle wall was
probably still standing enough that repairs and small additions could
be made to restore it to a defensible condition. We can conclude that
on the one hand from the fact that the upper wall still served as the
back wall of most houses, and on the other hand from the fact that the castle gate S was still used as a gate at that time.
Although the old gate
of Layer VI was buried, a new gate VII S was built 2m higher in the
same place. We have already seen its outline in fig.41,
and its ground plan can be found in figs.70 and 71. In the latter two plans
the gate opening is marked (cd) and the (p.186) older corner of the wall
that is used for this had, denoted by (be). To close the gate, a wooden
frame, shown in fig.41, was arranged at (cd), against which wooden
door leaves leaned. The old gate (h) from the VI layer was destroyed
and buried.
A new castle wall (b f a) was perhaps built in front
of the gate at that time, which presumably reached as far as tower VI h
and then between a and VI h, where it is dotted in fig.71, must have
had a passage. However, this wall could possibly have been built as
early as the end of the VI layer, as evidenced by its deep location and
fairly good execution. It would then be able to be erected at the same
time as the wall through which the west gate VI U was walled up.
On
the other hand, the assumption cannot be denied that it only came into
being in the 2nd period of layer VII, because at that time, as we shall
see, several houses were built in the space between it and the eastern
castle wall VI. The decision for one of these three options is only
possible after the entire wall has been uncovered. The excavated piece
b a is drawn in section in fig.74 and can also be seen on Photo 27 in
the foreground on the left. Its outer slope at f (fig.71) coincides
exactly with the slope of the corner of the VI layer wall and gradually
decreases to the south, presumably to merge with the steeper slope of
Tower VI h.
The
southern gate T seems to have existed unchanged as a gate in layer
VII-1. It is not known how far the floor had risen here. It has already
been assumed above that an extension to the castle wall uncovered here
and shown in fig.42 (p. 132) may have been built at this time. No trace
has been found of other gates from the 1st period of the VII stratum.
The
buildings inside the castle, of which we have found a large number,
deserve a brief description. The northernmost of them, VII alpha, located
in squares J 5 and K 5, was cut through by Schliemann's northeast ditch
and is therefore only partially preserved. Its outline is drawn in
addition in fig.70. Two corners of the wall (r and q) form an open
vestibule, behind which there was probably a closed room; because at s
a piece of a transverse wall seems to have been preserved. As with most
buildings of this period, the upper castle wall served as the rear wall
of the room.
 The neighboring building VII beta is better
preserved. Between the vestibule and the room the wall with a small
door is still preserved in its lower part. Besides several pithoi, five
of which were found in the room and one in the vestibule, a
quadrangular depression in the floor has emerged at t, which must have
served to store grain.
The neighboring building VII gamma is
somewhat smaller than VII beta, but of the same shape. Here, too, 7 pithoi
have been preserved in the vestibule and the closed rooms. The fact
that its southern wall is shorter than the (p.187) northern one can be
explained by the attempt not to narrow the wide access to gate S. For
the same reason, the neighboring building VII delta, in which 4 pithoi also
appeared, has a triangular floor plan.
Fig.70: The houses of the 1st period of the VII layer near the eastern gate VII S.
This group of 4 buildings
could be mistaken for a single dwelling house consisting of several
rooms; but such a view seems to me incorrect. Because, on the one hand,
the similarity of most of the buildings in terms of their floor plan
and, on the other hand, the fact that they are not connected by
intermediate doors, but all open towards the main path, in my opinion
sufficiently prove that these are individual residential buildings with
common border walls.
Because of the large number of pithoi
found in some rooms, one might be tempted to declare all the structures
to be magazines. There is no denying that some of these (e.g. VII e and
y.) were magazines or storerooms, but most certainly served as
dwellings. The pithoi did not, in fact, occupy so much space as it
appears from the plan, for here the greatest diameters of the vessels
are drawn, while in fact only their much smaller upper margins were
visible above the floor.
A second group of houses of settlement
VII-1 adjoins the gateway to the south-west and ends at the paved
square next to the fountain B c. There are 5 houses or chambers
(fig.71), of which the 1st and 5th were closed rooms, the three
middle but large open halls. The 1st House, called VII epsilon, appears to
have been attached to its neighboring building VII zeta only later,
because at 1 a free-standing corner was originally bricked, to which
wall k abuts.
 The three buildings VII zeta, VII eta,
and VII theta are large open halls, averaging about 5m wide and about
10m deep. We have already pointed out the possibility that these rooms
originally also had interior walls, as in the northern group of houses.
If such transverse walls were once there, they were demolished during
the reconstruction of the houses in the 2nd period of the 7th layer.
However, it must be expressly mentioned that we have not yet noticed
any traces of former inner walls. The front wall corners 1, m, n and o
have been partially preserved despite the later reconstruction and are
still clearly visible within or below the younger walls.
Fig.71: Houses from the I Period of the VII Strata, southwest of Gate VII S.
Just
off the corner (o) we found a well B c and around it a square paved
with large stone slabs. We have already shown on p.176 above and in
fig.66 that the well comes from the sixth layer and was only used again
by the seventh settlers and raised for this purpose. Because of its
good paving, the square can be regarded as the main fountain square of
the VII layer, at any rate we have not found a paving that was even
remotely as well prepared in any part of the settlement. When we
uncovered the large stone slabs, we were inclined to assign them to the
VI layer despite (p.188) their high position. However, after it had
been shown that the plaster safely reached over the destroyed front
wall of building VI F, there could no longer be any doubt that it had
only been made after the buildings of level VI had collapsed.
Next
to the fountain square, two remains of buildings from settlement VII-1
have been preserved, which do not lean against the castle wall. These
are the two buildings q and r in fig.71, the first of which is built on
the foundations of building VI G (cf. p. 162). We could not quite
determine the floor plan because some of it was already destroyed in
antiquity and altered by subsequent settlers.
(p.189) Further to
the south-west, in and next to the Roman theater B, some walls of
houses from the 1st period of the VII stratum have been found, VII iota
and VII chi. The latter building, recognizable by its parastade-like
corner of the wall, has come to light under the rows of seats in
Theater B in square H 8 and was apparently a house attached to the
castle wall. It probably agreed in plan with the buildings of our
period described above, and contained, like several of these, a larger
number of pithoi. So it might have served as a storage room.
 While
only small remains of houses from our period are known in the southern
part of the castle, we have again found several houses in the western
part, near the former gate VI U. It is true that almost all of them
were rebuilt or somewhat altered in the later period of the seventh
stratum, but their floor plans could still be produced with some
certainty as they are drawn in fig.72.
Fig.72: Houses from the 1st period of the VII stratum, in the vicinity of Gate VI U.
(p.190)
Several of these houses (VII mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, and rho) lean
against the southern castle wall of the VI layer. The first two are now
very shallow, but probably formerly reached, as indicated by dotting in
fig.72, over the lower part of the castle wall to the upper wall. In
figure 77 only the smaller depth is drawn. Since not only the
superstructure of the southern ring wall but also the upper part of the
lower wall was completely destroyed, it is not possible to speak with
certainty about the extent of the chambers. We have shown a section
through VII mu (a in fig.39). While the third house (VII xi), like mu
and nu, still has a door in the east wall, in the building VII
omicron, which is remarkable because of the six pithoi found in it, the
position of the door is not known. Of the two houses VII pi and VII rho
adjoining to the north-west, only the common partition wall is
preserved, which in front is a square pillar (a) There appear to have
been similar open halls on the western wall of the castle as on the
eastern wall.
Separated from this row of
houses by a path, several buildings have been found which seem to have
belonged to a second concentric row of dwellings. The first to be
mentioned here is House VII epsilon, which was attached to the western
retaining wall of the large building VI M, which was still standing. We
recognize its wall facing the path in the photograph of fig.73, where
it is marked with the letter b. It abuts on the right the corner a of
VI M, built of large stones, and does not go down as deeply as this,
but stands on rubble.
When it was built, the lower part of the
beautiful corner was already underground. They are made of small
stones, some of which are cut at right angles and are therefore taken
from the ruined buildings of the VI layer. It is only about 1 m high.
The upper part of the wall (d) can be recognized not only by the
upright slabs c as a work from the 2nd period of layer VII, but also by
the fact that it extends over wall b to the left. There the slabs (c)
stand directly on the rubble and form the sole foundation of the wall.
The walls visible in the background on the left (d and e) belong to the
more recent period, while the wall (f) shown in the foreground is the
northern wall of Room VII nu, discussed above.
Fig.73: The corner (a) of VI M with a house wall (b) of the 1st period and two house walls (d) of the 2nd period of layer VII.
Only
small remains of the walls of Building VII tau, which lay further to
the north-west, have survived; they do not suffice to supplement the
floor plan even as a supposition. We even have doubts as to whether
these walls belong to layer VII or whether they belong to an older
stratum.
Building VII sigma has been preserved all the better,
the ground plan of which can be seen on Plate VI and the outline of
which can be seen in several pictures. We have already noticed its
south-west corner in fig.33 (p. 106), recognizable by the (p.191) large
cuboids c, which apparently come from a ruined building of the sixth
layer. Also in fig.32 (p.105) a piece of its western wall (d) appears
in the background. In this picture we can see from a dark stripe below
the third row of stones from the top that a longitudinal beam made of
wood was once built into the wall. The bearing of this beam can be seen
more clearly on photo 23 (on p. 152). The western wall of a here runs
from the middle of the picture to the right edge and bears the letter
e. In its left part, behind the worker, the place of the former wooden
beam immediately catches the eye as a straight, dark line. Since we
have also (p.192) found a similar use of wooden beams in a wall of
level VI, we may recognize here a further point of agreement between
the buildings of levels VI and VII-1.
In contrast to all the
buildings of the VII layer discussed so far, the house VII sigma
consists of several adjacent and interconnected rooms, as the ground
plan on plate VI shows. However, the interior walls, some of which are
in a very poor state of preservation, may not all date from the 1st
period; in any case, some were added later. That the building actually
underwent multiple changes and additions in the 2nd period of the 7th
layer can be seen both from the floor plans and from the photographs
already mentioned.
The floor plans also show that the house is
located just above the ruined walls of Building VI A, without these
having been used as foundations in any way. The VII settlers therefore
no longer knew anything about building VI A. Its superstructure was
completely destroyed and its foundations were buried when the houses of
the VII layer were built.
Further to the north-west and all
along the north side of the castle, only small fragments of walls of
layer VII-1 have survived, all of them so insignificant that they
cannot be arbitrarily added to full structures. Nevertheless, they
prove that the houses of this settlement certainly extended a little
further on the periphery of the castle than they are now preserved. We
do not know whether they also extended along the entire north side, but
it seems to me at least very probable.
Finally, if we take a
look at the general arrangement of the buildings from the 1st period of
the VII layer, we see before us a large number of individual chambers
or houses, which mostly lean on the inside of the remaining remains of
the castle wall and the space between them and the terrace walls. They
formed a circle of dwellings around the higher center of the castle.
The
fact that other houses formed a second inner circle opposite them is
confirmed by a few remains of buildings, without Hesse being able to
make a definite judgment about the number of these houses. Further to
the middle of the castle hill no houses seem to have stood. At least,
in some places where houses of our period might have survived, no trace
of them has been discovered.
In general, nothing has been
found that justifies us in assuming further houses or a sanctuary on
the upper slopes and the top of the hill. The old castle wall still ran
around the whole settlement. It wasn't as stately as it used to be,
because the lower wall was partly buried under the rubble and the upper
wall had probably only undergone makeshift repairs, but it was probably
still defendable. We were able to present a picture of one of the two
gates, which were probably in the course of the circular wall (fig.41
on p. 129).
Photo 28:
Eastern castle wall (a) of the VI layer; castle wall (b and c) of the
eighth layer; house wall (g) of the VII layer; Cuboid foundation (d) of
the columned hall IX M.
[Continue to Chapter 2, part 16]
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