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Chapter 7:
On the Hill of Hissarlik, April 25th, 1872.
SINCE
my report of the 5th of this month I have continued the excavations
most industriously with an average of 120 workmen. Unfortunately,
however, seven of these twenty days were lost through rainy weather and
festivals, one day also by a mutiny among my men. I had observed that
the smoking of cigarettes interrupted the work, and I therefore forbad
smoking during working hours, but I did not gain my point immediately,
for I found that the men smoked in secret. I was, however, determined
to carry my point, and caused it to be proclaimed that transgressors
would be forthwith dismissed and never taken on again. Enraged at this,
the workmen from the village of Renkoï—about 70 in number—declared that
they would not work, if everyone were not allowed to smoke as much as
he pleased; they left the platform, and deterred the men from the other
villages from working by throwing stones.
The good people had
imagined that I would give in to them at once, as I could not do
without them, and that{108} now I could not obtain workmen enough; that
moreover during the beautiful weather it was not likely that I would
sit still a whole day. But they found themselves mistaken, for I
immediately sent my foreman to the other neighbouring villages and
succeeded (to the horror of the 70 Renkoïts, who had waited the whole
night at my door) in collecting 120 workmen for the next morning
without requiring their services. My energetic measures have at last
completely humbled the Renkoïts, from whose impudence I had very much
to put up with during my last year’s excavations, and have also had a
beneficial effect upon all of my present men. Since the mutiny I have
not only been able to prohibit smoking, but even to lengthen the day’s
work by one hour; for, instead of working as formerly from half-past
five in the morning to half-past five in the evening, I now always
commence at five and continue till six in the evening. But, as before,
I allow half an hour at nine and an hour and a half in the afternoon
for eating and smoking.
According to an exact calculation of the
engineer, M. A. Laurent, in the seventeen days since the 1st of the
month I have removed about 8500 cubic meters (11,000 cubic yards) of
débris; this is about 666 cubic yards each day, and somewhat above
5-1/3 cubic yards each workman.
We have already advanced the
platform 49 feet into the hill, but to my extreme surprise I have not
yet reached the primary soil. The opinion I expressed in my report of
the 24th of November of last year, that the thickness of the hill on
the north side had not increased since the remotest times, I find
confirmed as regards the whole western end of my platform, to a breadth
of 45 meters (147½ feet); for it is only upon the eastern portion of
it, to a breadth of 82 feet, that I found 6½ and even 10 feet of soil;
below and behind it, as far as 16½ feet above the platform, there is
débris as hard as stone, which appears to consist only of ashes of wood
and animals,{109} the remains of the offerings presented to the Ilian
Athena. I therefore feel perfectly convinced that by penetrating
further into this part I shall come upon the site of the very ancient
temple of the goddess.
The ashes of this stratum have such a
clayey appearance, that I should believe it to be the pure earth, were
it not that I find it frequently to contain bones, charcoal, and small
shells, occasionally also small pieces of brick. The shells are
uninjured, which sufficiently proves that they cannot have been exposed
to heat. In this very hard stratum of ash, at 11 feet above the
platform, and 46 feet from its edge, I found a channel made of green
sandstone nearly 8 inches broad and above 7 inches high, which probably
once served for carrying away the blood of the animals sacrificed, and
must necessarily at one time have discharged its contents down the
declivity of the hill. It therefore proves that the thickness of the
hill at this point has increased fully 46 feet since the destruction of
the temple to which it belonged.
Fig.71: A Mould of Mica-schist for casting Ornaments (14m depth).
Upon
the other 147½ feet of the platform I find everywhere, as far as to
about 16½ feet high, colossal masses of large blocks of shelly
limestone, often more or less hewn, but generally unhewn, which
frequently lie so close one upon another that they have the appearance
of actual walls. But I soon found that all of these masses of stone
must of necessity belong to grand buildings which once have stood there
and were destroyed by a fearful catastrophe. The buildings cannot
possibly have been built of these stones without some uniting
substance, and I presume that this was done with mere earth, for I find
no trace of lime or cement. Between the immense masses of stone there
are intermediate spaces, more or less large, consisting of very firm
débris, often as hard as stone, in which we meet with very many bones,
shells, and quantities of other remains of habitation. No traces of any
kind of interesting articles were found in the whole length of the wall
of débris, 229½ feet in length{110} and 16¼ feet in height, except a
small splendidly worked hair-or dress-pin of silver, but destroyed by
rust.
To-day, however, at a perpendicular depth of 14 meters (46 feet)
I found a beautiful polished piece of mica-schist, with moulds for
casting two breast-pins (fig.71), and two other ornaments which are quite
unknown to me—all of the most fanciful description.
Fig.72: Fragment of a large Urn of Terra-cotta with Assyrian (?) Decorations, from the Lowest Stratum (14m depth).
The
fragments of this vase {111} show a thickness of about ¾ of an inch. Two
other enormous urns, but completely broken, either for water, wine, or
funereal ashes, with decorations in the form of several wreaths,
forming perfect circles, were found on the 22nd and 23rd of this month,
at from 19½ to 23 feet above the platform, and therefore, at a
perpendicular depth of from 26 to 33 feet. Both must have been more
than 6½ feet high, and more than 3¼ feet in diameter, for the fragments
show a thickness of nearly 2 inches. The wreaths are likewise in
bas-relief, and show either double triangles fitting into one another
with circles, or flowers, or three rows or sometimes one row of
circles. The last decoration was also found upon the frieze of green
stone which Lord Elgin discovered in the year 1810 in the treasury of
Agamemnon in Mycenæ, and which is now in the British Museum. Both this
frieze, and the above-mentioned urns discovered by me in the depths of
Ilium, distinctly point to Assyrian art, and I cannot look at them
without a feeling of sadness when I think with what tears of joy and
with what delight the ever-memorable German scholar, Julius Braun, who
unfortunately succumbed three years ago to his excessive exertions,
would have welcomed their discovery; for he was not only the great
advocate of the theory that the Homeric Troy must be only looked for
below the ruins of Ilium, but he was also the able defender of the
doctrine, that the plastic arts and a portion of the Egyptian and
Assyrian mythology had migrated to Asia Minor and Greece, and he has
shown this by thousands of irrefutable proofs in his profound and
excellent work, Geschichte der Kunst in ihrem Entwickelungsgange, which
I most urgently recommend to all who are interested in art and
archæology.
Both the urns found at a depth of 46 feet and those
at from 26 to 33 feet, as well as all the funereal urns and large wine
or water vessels which I formerly discovered, were standing upright,
which sufficiently proves that the colossal masses of débris and ruins
were gradually formed on the{112} spot, and could not have been brought
there from another place in order to increase the height of the hill.
This is, moreover, a pure impossibility in regard to the immense
numbers of gigantic blocks of stone, hewn and unhewn, which frequently
weigh from 1 to 2 tons.
In the strata at a depth of from 7 to 10
meters (23 to 33 feet), I found two lumps of lead of a round and
concave form, each weighing about two pounds; a great number of rusted
copper nails, also some knives and a copper lance; further very many
smaller and larger knives of white and brown silex in the form of
single and double-edged saws; a number of whet-stones of green and
black slate with a hole at one end, as well as various small objects of
ivory.[109] In all the strata from 4 to 10 meters (13 to 33 feet) deep
I found a number of hammers, axes and wedges of diorite, which,
however, are decidedly of much better workmanship in the strata below
the depth of 7 meters (23 feet) than in the upper ones. Likewise at all
depths from 3 meters (10 feet) below the surface we find a number of
flat idols of very fine marble; upon many of them is the owl’s face and
a female girdle with dots; upon one there are in addition two female
breasts.[110] The striking resemblance of these owls’ faces to those
upon many of the vases and covers, with a kind of helmet on the owl’s
head, makes me firmly convinced that all of the idols, and all of the
helmeted owls’ heads represent a goddess, and indeed must represent one
and the same goddess, all the more so as, in fact, all the owl-faced
vases with female breasts and a navel have also generally two upraised
arms: in one case the navel is represented by a cross with four
nails.[111] The cups (covers) with owls’ heads, on the other{113} hand,
never have breasts or a navel, yet upon some of them I find long female
hair represented at the back.[112]
The important question now
presents itself:—What goddess is it who is here found so repeatedly,
and is, moreover, the only one to be found, upon the idols,
drinking-cups and vases? The answer is:—She must necessarily be the
tutelary goddess of Troy, she must be the Ilian Athena, and this indeed
perfectly agrees with the statement of Homer, who continually calls her
?e? ??a???p?? ?????, “the goddess Athena with the owl’s face.” For the
epithet “??a???p??” has been wrongly translated by the scholars of all
ages, because they could not imagine that Athena should have been
represented with an owl’s face. The epithet, however, consists of the
two words ??a?? and ?p?, and, as I can show by an immense number of
proofs, the only possible literal translation is “with an owl’s face”;
and the usual translation “with blue, fiery or sparkling eyes” is
utterly wrong. The natural conclusion is that owing to progressive
civilization Athena received a human face, and her former owl’s head
was transformed into her favourite bird, the owl, which as such is
unknown to Homer. The next conclusion is that the worship of Athena as
the tutelary goddess of Troy was well known to Homer; hence that a Troy
existed, and that it was situated on the sacred spot, the depths of
which I am investigating.
In like manner, when excavations shall
be made in the Heræum between Argos and Mycenæ, and on the site of the
very ancient temple of Hera on the island of Samos, the image of this
goddess with a cow’s head will doubtless be found upon idols, cups and
vases; for “ß??p??” the usual epithet of Hera in Homer, can originally
have{114} signified nothing else than “with the face of an ox.” But as
Homer also sometimes applies the epithet ß??p?? to mortal women, it is
probable that even at his time it was considered to be bad taste to
represent Hera, the wife of the mightiest of all the gods, with the
face of an ox, and that therefore men even at that time began to
represent her with a woman’s face, but with the eyes of an ox, that is,
with very large eyes; consequently the common epithet of ß??p??, which
had formerly been only applied to Hera with the meaning of “with the
face of an ox,” now merely signified with large eyes.
Of
pottery we have found a great deal during the last weeks, but
unfortunately more than half of it in a broken condition. Of painting
upon terra-cotta there is still no trace; most of the vessels are of a
simple brilliant black, yellow, or brown colour; the very large vases
on the other hand are generally colourless. Plates of ordinary
manufacture I have as yet found only at a depth of from 8 to 10 meters
(26 to 33 feet), and, as can be distinctly seen (fig.73), they have been turned
upon a potter’s wheel (fig.73).
All the other vessels hitherto found seem,
however, to have been formed by the hand alone; yet they possess a
certain elegance, and excite the admiration of beholders by their
strange and very curious forms. The vases with a long neck bent back, a
beak-shaped mouth turned upwards, and a round protruding body[113]—two
of which are in the British{115} Museum, several of those found in
Cyprus in the Museum in Constantinople, and several of those discovered
beneath three layers of volcanic ashes in Thera and Therassia in the
French school in Athens—are almost certainly intended to represent
women, for I find the same here at a depth of from 26 to 33 feet, with
two or even with three breasts, and hence I believe that those found
here represent the tutelary goddess of Ilium.
We also find some vases
and covers with men’s faces (fig.74), which, however, are never without some
indications of the owl; moreover, the vases with such faces always have
two female breasts and a navel. I must draw especial attention to the
fact that almost all of the vases with owls’ faces, or with human faces
and the indications of the owl, have two uplifted arms, which serve as
handles, and this leads me to conjecture that they are imitations of
the large idol which was placed in the very ancient temple of the Ilian
divinity, which therefore must have had an owl’s face, but a female
figure, and two arms beside the head. It is very remarkable that most
of the vessels which I find have been suspended by cords, as is proved
by the two holes in the mouth, and the two little tubes, or holes in
the handles, at the side of the vessels.
Unfortunately,
many of the terra-cottas get broken when the débris is being loosened
and falls down, for there is only one way in which I can save my men
and myself from being crushed and maimed by the falling stones: this
is, by keeping the lowest part of the mighty earthen wall on the
perpendicular up to 16 feet (not 7 feet, as on the first five days),
and the whole of the upper part at an angle of 50 degrees, by always
loosening the perpendicular portion, by making shafts, and working with
large iron levers in pieces of from 15 to 30 cubic metres (20 to 40
cubic{116} yards).
By thus causing the débris and the stones of the
upper portion to be loosened with the pickaxe, the stones fall in
almost a direct line over the lower perpendicular wall of 16 feet;
therefore they roll at most a few paces, and there is less danger that
anyone will be hurt. By this means I also have the advantage that the
greatest portion of the débris falls down of its own accord, and what
remains can be shovelled down with little trouble, whereas at first I
spent half of my time in getting it down.
As, however, in making shafts
and in bringing down the colossal lumps of earth a certain amount of
skill and caution is necessary, I have engaged a third foreman at 7
francs a day, Georgios Photidos, of Paxos, who has for seven years
worked as a miner in Australia, and was there occupied principally in
making tunnels. Home-sickness led him back to his native country,
where, without having sufficient means of earning his daily bread, he,
in youthful thoughtlessness and out of patriotism, married a poor girl
of his own people who was but fifteen years old. It was only after his
marriage, and in consequence of domestic cares, that he recovered his
senses. He heard that I was making excavations here, and came on
speculation to offer me his services. As he had assured me, when I
first saw him, that my accepting his services was a question of life
and death to him and his wife, I engaged him at once, the more so
because I was very much in want of a miner, tunnel-maker, and pitman,
such as he is. Besides acting in these capacities, he is of great use
to me on Sundays and on other festivals, for he can write Greek, and he
is thus able to copy my Greek reports for the newspapers and learned
societies in the East; for I had hitherto found nothing more
intolerable than to have to write out in Greek three times over my long
reports about one and the same subject, especially as I had to take the
time from my sleep. To my great regret, the excellent engineer Adolphe
Laurent leaves me to-morrow, for his month is up, and he has now{117}
to commence the construction of the railroad from the Piræus to Lamia.
He has, however, made me a good plan of this hill.
I must add that the
Pergamus of Priam cannot have been limited to this hill, which is, for
the most part, artificial; but that, as I endeavoured to explain four
years ago,[114] it must necessarily have extended a good way further
south, beyond the high plateau. But even if the Pergamus should have
been confined to this hill, it was, nevertheless, larger than the
Acropolis of Athens; for the latter covers only 50,126 square meters
(about 60,000 square yards), whereas the plateau of this hill amounts
to 64,500 square meters (about 77,400 square yards). I must further
mention that, according to Laurent’s calculation, the plateau rises 46
feet above my platform, and that his measurements of its height (about
38 feet on the north and 39 feet on the south) applies to those points
where the steep precipice commences. I have just built a house with
three rooms, as well as a magazine and kitchen, which altogether cost
only 1000 francs (40l.), including the covering of waterproof felt; for
wood is cheap here, and a plank of about 10 feet in length, 10 inches
in breadth, and 1 inch thick, may be got for 2 piasters, or 40
centimes. (These houses are seen in Plates X. and XI.)
We still
find poisonous snakes among the stones as far down as from 33 to 36
feet, and I had hitherto been astonished to see my workmen take hold of
the reptiles with their hands and play with them; nay, yesterday I saw
one of the men bitten twice by a viper, without seeming to trouble
himself about it. When I expressed my horror, he laughed, and said that
he and all his comrades knew that there were a great many snakes in
this hill, and they had therefore all drunk a decoction of the
snake-weed which{118} grows in the district, and which renders the bite
harmless. Of course I ordered a decoction to be brought to me, so that
I also may be safe from their bites. I should, however, like to know
whether this decoction would be a safeguard against the fatal effects
of the bite of the hooded cobra, of which in India I have seen a man
die within half an hour; if it were so, it would be a good speculation
to cultivate snake-weed in India.
The frequently-discussed
terra-cottas in the form of the volcano and top (carrousel) are
continually found in immense numbers, as far as a depth of from 33 to
36 feet, and most of them have decorations, of which I always make an
accurate drawing.[115] On comparing these drawings, I now find that
all, without exception, represent the sun in the centre, and that
almost the half of the other carvings show either only simple rays or
rays with stars between, or round the edge; or again, three, four, six,
or eight simple, double, treble, and quadruple rising suns in a circle
round the edge.[116]
Sometimes the sun is in the centre of the cross
with four nails, which, according to the explanations in my sixth
memoir, can evidently, and in all cases, represent only the instrument
which our Aryan forefathers used for producing the holy fire (Agni),
and which some Sanscrit scholars call “Arani” and others “Suastika.”
The rising sun must have been the most sacred object to our Aryan
ancestors; for, according to Max Müller (Essays), out of it—that is,
out of its struggle with the clouds—arose a very large portion of the
gods who afterwards peopled Olympus. Upon some pieces the sun is
surrounded by 40 or 50 little stars.
I also found one upon which it is
represented{119} in the centre, surrounded by 32 little stars and three
?; another where one entire half of the circle is filled by the rays of
the sun, which, as in all cases, occupies the central point; on the
other half are two ? and 18 little stars, of which twice three (like
the sword of Orion) stand in a row; and another where even four are
seen in a row. As M. Émile Burnouf tells me, three dots in a row, in
the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, denote “royal majesty.”
I do not
venture to decide whether the three dots here admit of a similar
interpretation. Perhaps they point to the majesty of the sun-god and of
Agni, who was produced out of the ?. Upon some of these terra-cottas
the sun is even surrounded by four ?, which again form a cross by their
position round it. Upon others, again, I find the sun in the centre of
a cross formed by four trees, and each one of these trees has three or
four large leaves.[117] Indian scholars will, perhaps, find these
tree-crosses to represent the framework upon which our ancestors used
to produce the holy fire, and the repeatedly-recurring fifth tree to be
the “Pramantha.”
I find representations of this same tree several
times, either surrounded by circles or standing alone, upon small
terra-cotta cones of from 1½ to 2-1/3 inches in diameter, which, in
addition, have the most various kinds of symbols and a number of suns
and stars. Upon a ball, found at the depth of 8 meters (26 feet), there
is a tree of this kind, surrounded by stars, opposite a ?, beside which
there is a group of nine little stars.[118] I therefore venture to
express the conjecture that this tree is the tree of life, which is so
frequently met with in the Assyrian sculptures, and that it is
identical with the holy Sôma-tree, which, according to the Vêdas (see
Émile Burnouf, Max Müller, Adalbert Kuhn, and Fr. Windischmann), grows
in{120} heaven, and is there guarded by the Gandharvas, who belong to
the primeval Aryan period, and subsequently became the Centaurs of the
Greeks.
Indra, the sun-god, in the form of a falcon,[119] stole from
heaven this Sôma-tree, from which trickled the Amrita (ambrosia) which
conferred immortality. Fr. Windischmann[120] has pointed out the
existence of the Sôma-tree worship as common to the tribes of Aryans
before their separation, and he therefore justly designates it an
inheritance from their most ancient traditions.[121]
Julius Braun[122]
says, in regard to this Sôma-tree: “Hermes, the rare visitor, is
regaled with nectar and ambrosia. This is the food which the gods
require in order to preserve their immortality. It has come to the West
from Central Asia, with the whole company of the Olympian gods; for the
root of this conception is the tree of life in the ancient system of
Zoroaster. The fruit and sap of this tree of life bestows immortality,
and the future Messiah (Sosiosh, in the Zend writings) will give some
of it to all the faithful and make them all immortal. This hope we have
seen fully expressed in the Assyrian sculptures, where the winged genii
stand before the holy tree with a vessel containing the juice and
fruit.”
Just now two of those curious little terra-cottas, in
the form of a volcano, were brought to me, upon one of which three
animals with antlers are engraved in a circle round the sun;[123] upon
another there are four signs (which I have hitherto not met with) in
the shape of large combs with{121} long teeth, forming a cross round
the sun.[124] I conjecture that these extremely remarkable
hieroglyphics, which at first sight might be imagined to be actual
letters, can by no means represent anything else than the sacrificial
altar with the flames blazing upon it. I do not doubt moreover, that in
the continuation of the excavations I shall find this comb-shaped sign
together with other symbols, which will confirm my conjectures.
Fig.75: A Whorl, with three animals (3m depth).
I
must also add that the good old Trojans may perhaps have brought with
them from Bactria the name of Ida, which they gave to the mountain
which I see before me to the south-east, covered with snow, upon which
Jove and Hera held dalliance,[125] and from which Jove looked down upon
Ilium and upon the battles in the Plain of Troy, for, according to Max
Müller,[126] Ida was the wife of Dyaus (Zeus), and their son was Eros.
The parents whom Sappho ascribes to Eros—Heaven and Earth—are identical
with his Vedic parents. Heracles is called ?da???, from his being
identical with the Sun, and he has this name in common with Apollo and
Jove.
Fig.75b: Two Whorls,
To-morrow the Greek Easter festival commences, during
which unfortunately there are six days on which no work is done. Thus I
shall not be able to continue the excavations until the 1st of May.{122}
Footnotes:
[109]
See an illustration to Chapter X. for similar ivories, still more
interesting, from their greater depth, than those mentioned in the
text, which are very imperfectly shown on the original photograph.
[110] See the Plate of Idols, p. 36.
[111] See Cut, No. 13, p. 35.
[112]
Dr. Schliemann is here speaking of the “cups” which he afterwards
decided to be covers, which of course represent only the head, the body
being on the vase.—[Ed.]
[113] See Cut, No. 54, p. 86.
[114]
Ithaque, le Péloponnèse et Troie. Dr. Schliemann’s subsequent change of
opinion on this point is explained in subsequent chapters, and in the
Introduction.
[115] The various types of whorls spoken of here
and throughout the work are delineated in the lithographic Plates at
the end of the volume, and are described in the List of Illustrations.
[116]
These “rising suns” are the arcs with their ends resting on the
circumference of the whorl, as in Nos. 321-28, and many others on the
Plates. M. Burnouf describes them as “stations of the sun.”
[117]
For the type of whorls with “sôma-trees” or “trees of life” (four, or
more, or fewer), see Nos. 398, 400, 401, 404, &c. In No. 410 the
four trees form a cross.
[118] Plate LII., No. 498.
[119]
This falcon seems to be represented by rude two-legged figures on some
of the whorls:—e. g. on Plate XLV., No. 468 (comp. p. 135).
[120] Abhandlungen der K. bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1846, S. 127.
[121] A. Kuhn, ‘Herabkunft des Feuers.'
[122] Geschichte der Kunst.
[123]
See the cut No. 75 and also on Plate XXX., No. 382. M. Burnouf
describes the animal to the right as a hare, the symbol of the Moon,
and the other two as the antelopes, which denote the prevailing of the
two halves of the month (quinzaines).
[124] See Plate XXXV., No. 414. The same symbol is seen on several other examples.
[125]
Iliad, XIV. 346-351. An English writer ought surely to use our
old-fashioned form Jove, which is also even philologically preferable
as the stem common to Ζεύς and Ju-piter (Διο = Ζεϝ = Jov), rather than
the somewhat pedantically sounding Ζεύς.—[Ed.]
[126] Essays, II. 93.
[Continue to Chapter 8]
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