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Chapter 3
On the Hill of Hissarlik, November 3rd, 1871. {75}
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{76} 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{77} 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{78} 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{79} 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{80} (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.
Figs. 42-44: Terra-cotta Whorls. No. 44 (at right) Is remarkable for the depth at which it was found.
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.}
Footnotes:
[92]
For the further and most interesting discoveries which speedily led Dr.
Schliemann to recal this conjecture, and which have affected all
previous theories about the ages of stone and bronze, see the beginning
of Chapter IV.
[Continue to Chapter 4]
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