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Chapter 2 (part 21)
10. The excavations in the lower town. (p.234)
The
mound of ruins, the nine different strata of which we have hitherto
discussed, is the extreme north-western spur of a ridge which forms the
southern edge of the Simoeis valley. The hill rises only slightly above
the average height of the next part of the plateau, even lower than its
highest point. But as it is separated from it by a depression in the
ground, it was very useful as an isolated hill for a castle.
[p.235]
The general shape of the ridge can be seen from the sketch map of
north-western Troas (Plate I) and from the plan of the lower town drawn
in a larger scale (Plate II). However, the latter plan only includes
that part of the plateau which belonged to the Roman lower town and
which was again separated from the ridge extending further to the east
by a depression.
The former extent of the Roman lower town can
still be clearly recognized today by the numerous roof tiles, marble
fragments, building stones of all kinds and other remains of the old
town that cover the ground of the fields. In addition, the course of
the ring wall that once surrounded the city is secured by the terrain
design and often also by a low earth wall originating from the remains
of the wall. Only in a few places one can be in doubt about the exact
boundary of the city. In the plan of the lower town, which Herr Ritter
Wolfif took up in 1883 and from which our plate II is drawn, the Roman
wall line could therefore be indicated, although the wall itself has
not been preserved. According to this plan, the length of the ring wall
was around 3300m and the area of the city was more than 60 hectares.
But
did the older settlements, the remains of which are preserved on the
Acropolis hill, also have a lower town? And can its extent still be
determined?
In the years 1879 and 1882 Schliemann had already
created a large number of shafts and ditches within the Roman lower
town, while in the first year he found only Graeco-Roman buildings, a
few graves and pottery from the historical period (cf. Ilios,
p.683 and plan II), many sherds of "the first two prehistoric cities",
i.e. layers I and II, were later excavated on the plateau near the
castle hill (cf. Troy
(1882), p.28 and 68 ). Schliemann initially concluded from this that
there was only a Greco-Roman lower town, but later, after the discovery
of the prehistoric shards, he also assumed a lower town of the II layer
and also drew the presumed extent in Plan VIII of Troy (1882) of this prehistoric lower city.
In
order to check his statements and at the same time to come to a clear
conclusion about the questions connected to the various lower towns, we
had decided for the excavations of 1893 and 1894 to uncover a larger
part of the lower town and to thoroughly explore its entire area as
(p.236) a set task. To our keen regret, however, we were not able to
complete this work in either of the two years. The finding and partial
uncovering of the stately ruins of Layer VI, the real Homeric castle,
so occupied our attention and manpower that little time was left for
exploring the lower town. But we dug a few trenches and several shafts.
A. Götze took over the special direction of this work. It is not
possible to print his detailed report on this excavation here because
of its size. However, some passages from it may be shared here, which
relate to three different, particularly important deposits:
I.
"A ditch excavated south-east of the castle hill (marked A in Plane II)
contained the remains of a Roman settlement in its upper layers: a
stylobate with a column base, two water pipes, parts of a mortar base
for a pavement, of which a red marble slab still survives was, also
larger and smaller pieces of marble columns and other pieces of
architecture, all of which lay south of the stylobate, as well as small
implements, of which a surgical knife may be mentioned. The layer with
these Roman inclusions, which was mixed down with some older
sherds, consists of rubble; its thickness is on average 2 m. Among the
many Roman sherds only three Greek sherds with varnish painting were
found".
"Below this layer follows another layer of fine brown
earth, which contains clay sherds exclusively of the type from the VI
city, also double-conical and spherical spindle whorls without
ornament, a conical clay weight with a round base, half of an oval hand
mill and a piece of flint, also running in this one level two low wall
foundations of rough stone diagonally on top of each other. The natural
soil is at a depth of 3.25m except for one spot".
“Here the
brown layer descends deeper. After a small and poorly constructed wall
had broken away, a ring of double layers of stone, 2.20 m in width,
appeared below it at a depth of 3.40 m. It was the edge of a round
well, 9.50 m deep from here, which had been worked through the rock
into a water-bearing layer. It was filled with soil, stones, artefacts
of the VI layer, and frequent cavities under larger stones suggest that
it was not filled up gradually, but was filled up in a relatively short
time. Among its contents are several large pieces of architecture,
including a large stone, apparently coming from a sloped edge of the VI
castle wall, and a base for a double column (?), as well as clay sherds
from the VI city, fragments of a brazier and a bone spindle".
2.
"On the western slope of the castle hill, outside the ring wall, two
trenches (E and F on Plate II) were dug, which show that the (p.237)
earth on the higher, more heavily sloped part of this slope was only
very thin ( 1/4 - 1/2 m) and only at the foot of the hill up to 3 m
thick on the rock. In the upper part of the longer ditch, three of
those peculiar well-like depressions were excavated, a number of which
were found here in 1893. In one shaft, 1.25 m wide, the bottom had not
yet been reached at a depth of 6 m. It contained bad late pottery and a
piece of terra sigillata with relief palmettes. Two small shafts were
only 0.50 and 0.80 m deep. In the lower part of the ditches there was a
water pipe, some small wall foundations and 6 simple ditches (see
Section VII). Outside the tombs a number of Hellenistic, Roman and
Byzantine objects have been found, which may have come from destroyed
tombs. In particular, the fragment of a gray clay tablet with a relief
depiction of the front part of a horse, similar to the tablets
discussed in Troja 1893, p. 72 ff., should be mentioned".
3.
"A ditch laid out on the plateau of the lower town about 200 m south of
the castle ring (B on Plate II) revealed that the stratification
conditions are quite analogous to those in the first ditch (A): down to
the depth of the Roman floor, from which in 0.85 m deep a larger area
of white screed was preserved, only Roman inclusions, below that there
is a layer reaching down to a depth of 1.80 m, in which Roman and older
sherds are mixed, and from 1.8 m to 2 m, where the rock begins,
exclusively potted goods of the VI layer in a brown soil layer. Of
distinctly Greek sherds, only three pieces with black varnish and the
sherds of a Hellenistic red clay vessel with reliefs of a skeleton,
vases, palm branches and other things were found here. In the Roman
layer, remains of the walls of two buildings were also uncovered, which
lie on either side of a space 1/2 a meter wide, probably a street going
from N. to S., since five parallel water pipes were found here. In the
vicinity of some of the larger stones protruding from the foundations
of a transverse wall lay the sherds of the Hellenistic vessel just
mentioned, with depictions in relief. In the lowest layer was a
skeleton in a stretched position, below it was a fairly circular pit
(upper diam. 2.65m, lower diam. 2.42m) with carefully smoothed bottom
and walls, another 0.50m in the rock incorporated, it contained only
monochrome sherds of the VI layer".
Finally, A. Götze sums up
his judgment on the results of the excavations in the lower town as
follows : " These excavations yield the following with regard to the
question of the lower towns of the various strata : First of all, it
must be emphasized that not a single object was found, which should be
dated to the pre-Mycenaean period. Schliemann claims the existence of a
lower town for the second settlement (p.238) of the castle hill and
justifies this with the occurrence of ceramic finds, allegedly from the
first and second town, in the lowest layers of the plateau (cf. Troja p
96) However, his observations are limited to the immediate vicinity of
the castle hill, about which there are no new observations to check. If
there really was a small lower town here for the second stratum, it
certainly did not have the extent that Plan VIII in Troy
(1882) gives it. The oldest finds in the ditches made in 1894 belong to
the VI town, namely they are found in large numbers in the western half
of the plateau and in a continuous layer lying directly on the rock. In
Mycenaean times, the plateau was settled, the circumference of which
seems to be roughly circumscribed by the red line that is supposed to
designate the Homeric lower city on Plan VIII in the book Troy,
with the only difference that the southern border is probably even
further to advance to the south until close to the Roman enclosing
wall".
"Almost none were found from the older Greek period, and
so few remains from the Hellenistic period that it seems questionable
whether they should be regarded as evidence of a lower town or only as
pieces scattered from the castle hill. Apart from earlier finds, the
ditches we have excavated have provided sufficient examples of the
existence of a large Roman lower town with large, beautiful buildings".
From
the results of all previous excavations, namely those conducted by A.
Götze, the following results for the lower towns of the various layers:
While
the first settlement was limited to the castle hill, the adjoining
plateau may have been partially settled at the time of the second
layer. Outside the castle there may have been a few houses because
Schliemann found sherds of this layer in some of his ditches. However,
a larger lower town does not seem to have existed in this epoch.
That
the villages of the III, IV and V strata occupied not only the upper
surface of the hill but also its slopes, is stated above (p.102). These
settlements, however, hardly extended over the plateau of the lower
town.
With regard to the VI layer, the excavations of 1893 and
1894, as A. Götze explains above, prove that a large part of the lower
town was settled. In the western half of what later became the city
district, the characteristic sherds of the VI layer were found in the
lowest layer and in some places also the remains of walls of a simple
type made of rubble and clay. Given the small extent of the uncovered
areas, no judgment could be made about the floor plans of these
buildings. It was also not possible to determine whether these were
isolated houses or a closed (p.239) settlement. No trace of a ring wall
of this lower town has yet been found, at least none of the wall
remains found can claim to be a ring wall of the lower town from
Mycenaean times.
It would have been very important for the
comparison of the local facts with the Homeric poems if the existence
of a walled lower town could have been proved with certainty next to
the strong and stately castle. So far, however, this has not been
permitted, and it must be left to later excavations to bring full
clarity about this. However, the possibility of the existence of a
fortified lower town seems to me to have been proven by the discovery
of the remains of a VI settlement on the plateau south and south-east
of the castle. Because this settlement could be temporarily or
permanently surrounded by a ring wall.
No walls or other remains
have been found in the area of the lower town from the time of the VII
stratum. On the other hand, isolated ancient Greek and Hellenistic
pottery, i.e. remains of layer VIII, came to light. If the city of
Ilion had occupied the entire area of the Roman lower city since the
time of Lysimachus, i.e. since 300 BC, as was almost universally
believed in the past, then the walls and remains of their houses would
have had to be found to a greater extent below the Roman houses. Since
this has not hitherto been the case, the Greek city which we assume
next to the sanctuary of the Ilian Athena on the castle hill can at
most have extended over part of the plateau. I consider it certain that
it was not limited to the acropolis, but that at least in the
Hellenistic period there were also houses outside the fortified castle.
But whether there were very many and where they were, I cannot say.
Hopefully later excavations will provide us with information about
this. Incidentally, several of the inscriptions cited by A. Brückner in
Chapters VI and VIII speak for a considerable expansion of the lower
town in the Hellenistic period.
From a Hellenistic building
outside the acropolis we know of a theater from an inscription (see
Chapter VI, No. 2). This will certainly have been situated on the same
spot where the ruins of a large Roman theater are still preserved,
namely north-east of the castle on the northern slope of the city
plateau (cf. Plate II). A part of the skene building was uncovered by
Schliemann in 1882 and its design and plan turned out to be a Roman
building. Unfortunately, in 1894 we were not able to examine it more
thoroughly and uncover it. We therefore do not know whether there are
still remains of a Greek skene under the Roman walls. The walls
uncovered by Schliemann were partly broken down by Turkish soldiers and
partly buried again; which they didn't even bother to measure. We do
not know any other (p.240) buildings in the Greek lower town. Only from
the inscriptions (see Chapter VI, Nos. 14, 16, 19, 25, 35) can we infer
the existence of a prytaneion, dicasterion, stadium, basileia and
several sanctuaries. Whether they were all in the lower town is unknown.
We
have already shown that nothing was found of a Greek city wall, and
that there was hardly one. We believed that Strabo's report (XIII, S93)
about the building of a 40-stadia long ring wall by Lysimachus had to
be related to Alexandria Troas (p. 207). The circular wall of Ilion,
the remains of which are still in existence, the course of which is
indicated by stippling in Plate II, is assigned to the IX layer, i.e.
to the Roman city. Wherever we have found the remains of its
foundations, it consists of soft porous blocks and corresponds in its
design to the foundations of the columned halls of the Athena district.
On the south side of the city (at G on Table II) we uncovered it in two
places and measured its thickness to be 8 feet. On the north side, the
castle wall and boundary wall of the Athena district could have served
as the wall of the lower town at the same time. It is possible,
however, that a special city wall existed deeper on the slope, because
in 1882 I saw a wall corner built from right-angled blocks on the
northern slope during excavations, which Schliemann describes in the
book Troja (1882), p.20 may belong to a ring wall of the lower town. We could not find them again in 1894.
We
are just as little informed about the time when the great city wall was
built as we are about the time when it fell. In any case, since it must
have been built after the destruction by Fimbria, it seems to me most
probable that it was built in the time of Julius Caesar or Augustus.
From the former we know that he enlarged the territory of Ilion and
gave the city complete freedom, he is said to have even had the plan to
transfer the seat of government from Rome to Ilion (cf. E. Meyer, History of Troas, p. 95 and Haubold, De rebus Iliensium,
p. 41). Not only is it certain that Augustus did good to the city, but
he is even called "ktistes", i.e. founder of the city, on a coin. The
people here also stamped his head on their coins alongside those of his
successors up to Claudius (cf. Haubold, De rebus Iliensium, p. 45).
None
of the buildings inside the Roman lower town have been completely
excavated, but we have found many in the excavated shafts and ditches.
Walls of ashlar and brick, floors of lime screed, marble slabs or
tesserae, columns of marble and syenite, pieces of entablature of
marble and porous limestone have been found in large numbers, proving
that the whole area within the encircling wall was occupied by
buildings of various kinds. It is to be wished that soon a larger part
of the city area would be freed from the masses of rubble. The place
south-east of the Acropolis (p.241) should be recommended as such,
because according to finds to date the agora of the city may have been
located there. Such an excavation would also soon make it possible to
determine whether the public buildings in Hellenistic times were in the
lower city or were still on the Acropolis, as they had been before.
Finally,
the water supply of the lower town has to be discussed. From the
discovery of a few in the dug ditches we can conclude that there were
numerous wells in the houses of the city. Wells could easily be dug in
the tertiary limestone of the soil, reaching water-bearing strata at a
depth of about 100 m. Even on the Acropolis several wells have been
brought down to these strata (cf. p.180 above). The same water that was
drawn from these wells also appeared in springs on the slopes of the
plateau.
Three such springs are still to be found on the
northern slope, that is, in the Simoeis valley. One is drawn northeast
of the theater on Plate II, where it bears the letter L, a second is in
the depression just east of the town, and a third a few hundred yards
further east. All three still provide good and plentiful drinking water
(cf. Ilios, p. I28). A fourth
was dug up and cleaned by us in 1882 on the west side of the city, that
is in the Skamander valley (cf. Troja
1882, p. 71). A previously known tunnel (K on panel II) leads into the
rock here and divides into three arms, all of which supply good water.
In Roman times, this water was fed through clay pipes to a basin in
front of the tunnel and then certainly to a running well. A canal made
of small stones, which we found under the clay pipe on the bottom of
the tunnel, dates back to earlier times. It proves that the spring was
already in use and tapped in pre-Roman times. Even today it still gives
water. From the course of the horizontal curves in Plate II it can also
be inferred that the water from this spring ran westwards through a
fold in the terrain to the old Skamander from ancient times.
Although
these springs and the numerous fountains provided good water for the
old castle and also for the city, the people of Roman times were no
longer content with this. They wanted fresh, running water both inside
the city and on the Acropolis, so they built a large aqueduct that
brought good spring water from far away from the mountains to Ilion.
Clay tubes fed by this line have been found in many places in the city
and on the Acropolis. The clay pipes in which the water was carried up
to the Acropolis under pressure have also been preserved. Given the
location of the city, this water could only come from the south-east,
from the foothills of the Ida Mountains. In fact, it was brought to
Ilion either from the upper Thymbrios (now Kemar-Su), or from a still
higher point. For a stately arch of an aqueduct still exists about 6
kilometers above the confluence (p.242) of this river into the
Skamander, and it is this that has given the Thymbrios its current name
"arched river". Measured as the crow flies, the site is about 9 km
south-east of Ilion.
photo 32: Arch of the Roman aqueduct from Ilion in the Thymbraios valley.
We see the stately arch, which once led the
water from the southern bank to the northern one, on photo 32. The
considerable size of the span can be seen in the people depicted on the
bottom left and top right. The arch itself and its abutment walls are
made of cut stone, while the upper part of the structure is made of
small rubble stones with lime. Noteworthy is the relief head located on
the keystone of the arch. Perhaps it represents the Roman emperor who
built the large complex for Ilion, the ancestral seat of the Julian
family. It is not known which emperor it was. However, there can be no
doubt that the aqueduct is certainly a Roman and not a Hellenistic
work, given the design of the arch. A line that contained such arches
must have been a magnificent work, and so this one arch still bears
loud testimony to the great heyday of Ilion in Roman times.
Wilhelm Dorpfeld
[Continue to Chapter 3]
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