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Chapter 13 (p.212)
Pergamus of Troy, August 14th, 1872.
SINCE
my report of the 4th of this month I have continued the excavations
with the utmost energy, but I am now compelled to stop the works this
evening, for my three foremen and my servant, who is also my cashier,
have been seized by the malignant marsh-fever, and my wife and I are so
unwell that we are quite unable to undertake the sole direction
throughout the day in the terrible heat of the sun. We shall therefore
leave our two wooden houses and all our machines and implements in
charge of a watchman, and to-morrow we shall return to Athens.
The
admirers of Homer, on visiting the Pergamus of Troy, will find that I
have not only laid bare the Tower on the south side, along the whole
breadth of my trench, down to the rock upon which it stands, at a depth
of 14 meters or 46½ feet, but that by my excavations on the east and
west I have uncovered it considerably further, without having found its
end. On the contrary, upon the east side, where it is 40 feet broad,
and seems even to be broader still, I found the ruins of a second
storey, of which, (p.213) however, as far as I can at present judge, four
broad steps have been preserved.[207] On the western side it is only 9
meters or 30 feet in breadth, and on this side there extends to the
north an enormous wall, the thickness of which I have not been able to
ascertain. The fact of my not having been able to carry these new
excavations down to the primary soil, but only to a depth of 11 meters
(36½ feet) is owing to the brittle nature of the walls of rubbish and
ruins round about the Tower, which, as anyone may convince himself,
consist of red ashes and of stones calcined by the heat, and which
threatened at any moment to fall in and bury my workmen.
 Fig.155 (left): A Trojan Terra-cotta Vase, with an Ornament like the Greek Lambda (8m depth.).
Fig.156 (right): Curious Terra-cotta Vessel in the shape of a Mole (Tower: 7 or 8 m depth.).
Upon
the Tower, and more especially in the long oval depression on the top
of it, and upon the steps I found two copper Trojan lances, several
arrow-heads in the primitive form of thick pegs, from above 1 inch to
nearly 2 inches long, which were fastened at the end of the shaft;
further, an arrow-head 2½ inches in length, made of silex, and in the
form of a pointed double-edged saw; then several copper and silver
nails with round heads, which may have served as clothes-pins; further,
great quantities of bones, masses of fragments of Trojan pottery of a
brilliant red and black, and a number of vases and pots more or less
well preserved.
Among them is a pretty brilliant red vase nearly 10
inches high, filled with the bones of a sea-fish. This vase (found in
an urn, which was unfortunately broken to pieces) has two small
handles, and on two sides an ornament in the form of the Greek letter
Lambda, but with circular ends.[208] Three other vases (p.214) of a
similar form, and with exactly the same decorations, were found upon
the Tower. Two other vases of the same form, and with very similar
decorations, were found at depths of 26 and 20 feet. I also found upon
the Tower an exceedingly curious vessel nearly 6 inches in length,
exactly the shape of a mole, and with three feet; it can also be placed
so that the snout of the animal is lowest and serves as a foot; the
orifice is in the tail, which a large handle connects with the back.
I
also found there a splendid Trojan vase, of a brilliant black colour,
15¾ inches high, which was unfortunately completely broken, but I have
all the pieces of it, and consequently shall be able to restore it.
Besides these, a Trojan pot, and a globular vessel with the
above-mentioned decoration of a rounded lambda. I likewise saved, in an
almost perfect condition, an exceedingly interesting red jug, above 9
inches high, quite round below and with a neck more bent backwards than
I have ever found it in such vessels. I further found there a Priapus
and a very pretty bird’s egg made of fine marble, many small
terra-cotta whorls with the usual symbols of double and treble crosses,
six suns, four or five double or treble rising suns, or stars, in the
circle round (p.215) the central sun; also one article where four ? form a
cross round the sun, and the rest of the space is filled with stars.
Further, a few small vessels with suspension rings were found also on
the Tower, as well as 25 very ordinary earthen plates, which have been
turned by the potter, whereas all the other articles appear to have
been made by the hand without a potter’s wheel; about half of the
plates were got out uninjured.
 In
digging to the left and right of the Tower, a number of other
interesting objects have been found since my last report; for instance,
at a depth of 2 meters (6½ feet), a number of very neat although
ordinary vessels with small rings on the sides and holes in the mouth
for hanging them up, which have hitherto only been met with much
further down; at a depth of 3 meters (10 feet) a small cover, with the
owl’s face and helmet of the Ilian Athena, of very good manufacture;
then, at a depth of 11½ feet, a small terra-cotta whorl with three
stags in the circle round the sun.
Fig.157: A Trojan Dish with side Rings, and Plates turned by the Potter (Tower: 7m depth.).
At a depth of from 5 to 6 meters
(16½ to 20 feet), I found a great number of small knives of silex in
the form of saws. At a depth of 10 meters (33 feet) I discovered a very
curious instrument of brilliant (p.216) yellow terra-cotta, a drawing of
which I give. It is quite inexplicable to me for what purpose it can
have been used; it is almost in the shape of a shield, and by the side
of the handle which is ornamented with a tree, it has a cavity for
putting the hand in. As it is made of terra-cotta it cannot, of course,
have been used as a shield.[209]
After having had no rain here
for four months, to-day, curiously enough, just after stopping the
works, we have had a thunderstorm accompanied by a tremendous downpour
of rain, and I regret extremely not to have been able to make a channel
for leading off the rain-water from the Tower as far as the western
declivity of the hill. But such a channel would need to be 50 feet deep
and as many broad, otherwise its walls, consisting of calcined ruins
and loose red ashes, would fall in. I should therefore have to remove
5000 cubic meters (6000 cubic yards) of débris, and such a gigantic
piece of work I cannot now undertake.
In stopping the
excavations for this year, and in looking back upon the fearful dangers
to which we have continually been exposed since the 1st of April,
between the gigantic layers of ruins, I cannot but fervently thank God
for His great mercy, that not only has no life been lost, but that none
of us has even been seriously hurt.
Now, as regards the result
of my excavations, everyone must admit that I have solved a great
historical problem, and that I have solved it by the discovery of a
high civilization and immense buildings upon the primary soil, in the
depths of an ancient town, which throughout antiquity was called Ilium
and declared itself to be the successor of Troy, the site of which was
regarded as identical with the site of the Homeric Ilium by the whole
civilized world of that time. The situation of this town not only
corresponds perfectly with all the statements of the Iliad, but also
with all the traditions handed down to (p.217) us by later authors; and,
moreover, neither in the Plain of Troy, nor in its vicinity, is there
any other place which could in the slightest degree be made to
correspond with them. To regard the heights of Bunarbashi as the site
of Troy, contradicts, in every respect, all the statements of Homer and
of tradition. My excavations of Bunarbashi, as well as the form of the
rocks, prove that those heights, as far as the three sepulchral mounds,
can never have been inhabited by men. As I have already said, behind
those tumuli there are the ruins of a very small town, the area of
which, surrounded on two sides by the ruins of an enclosing wall, and
on the other side by precipices, is so insignificant, that at most it
can have only possessed 2000 inhabitants. The enclosing wall of its
small Acropolis is scarcely a foot thick, and the gate scarcely 3¼ feet
wide. The accumulation of débris is not worth mentioning, for in many
places the naked flat rocks are seen on the ground of the Acropolis.
Here in Ilium, however, the proportions are very different. The area of
the Greek city, which is indicated by the surrounding wall built by
Lysimachus, is large enough for a population of more than 100,000
souls; and that the number of the inhabitants was actually as large is
proved by the stage of the theatre, which is 200 feet in breadth. Here
the surrounding wall of Lysimachus is 6½ feet thick, whereas the wall
which runs out from the Tower at a great depth below the other seems to
be five times as thick, and Homer assuredly ascribed the erection of
the walls of Troy to Poseidon and Apollo on account of their enormous
proportions.[210] Then, as regards the accumulation of débris, here in
the Pergamus there is no place where it amounts to less than 14 meters,
or 46½ feet, and in many places it is even much more considerable.
Thus, for instance, on my great platform, I only reached the primary
soil at a depth (p.218) of 16 meters, or 53-1/3 feet, and in the depths of
the temple, on the adjacent field, belonging to Mr. Frank Calvert, I
have not yet reached it at a depth of 15½ meters, or 51-2/3 feet. Such
an accumulation of ruins has never as yet been discovered in any other
part of the world, except occasionally in the rocky valleys of
Jerusalem; where, however, it has only begun to accumulate since the
destruction of the city by Titus, and hence is scarcely more than 1800
years old.[211] Here in Troy the remains of the Greek period cease
entirely at a depth of ½, 1, or 2 meters, and thence, down to the
primary soil, we find in regular succession the mighty layers of ruins
belonging to four very ancient nations.
In like manner, as
regards the more than a hundred thousand objects which I have brought
to light, and which were used by those very ancient tribes, I venture
to say that I have revealed a new world to archæology; for, in order to
give but one instance, I have here found many thousands of those
wheels, volcanoes, or tops (carrousels) of terra-cotta with the most
various Aryan religious symbols.
If, as it seems, neither the
Trojans nor any of the three succeeding peoples possessed a written
language, we must, as far as possible, replace it by the “monuments
figurés” which I have discovered.[212] As already said, I (p.219) make a
drawing in my diary each evening of every one of the objects which have
been found during the day, and more especially of the pictorial
symbols, with the greatest exactness. By comparing the innumerable
symbols I have succeeded in deciphering some of them, and I hope that
my learned colleagues will succeed in explaining the rest. Archæology
shall on no account lose any one of my discoveries; every article which
can have any interest for the learned world shall be photographed, or
copied by a skilful draughtsman, and published in the Appendix to this
work; and by the side of every article I shall state the depth in which
I discovered it.
Fig.158: A curious Trojan Jug of Terra-cotta (8m depth). (p.220)
Footnotes:
[207]
Respecting these steps, which are marked No. 6, on Plan II., and c on
Plan III., p. 306, see further in Chapter XXII., p. 318, where the idea
of an upper storey is rejected.—[Ed.]
[208] The cut represents a
vase of this type, with the upper part joined on by Dr. Schliemann, who
remarks that it is doubtful whether the owl’s face belongs to this
vase, as the Ilian goddess is in no other case represented on vases
without the breasts and abdomen. (Description in the Atlas of
Photographs.)
[209] See Plate XXI., No. 309.
[210]
According to Mr. Gladstone’s theory, these masses of masonry, and the
tradition ascribing them to Poseidon and Apollo, are signs of Phœnician
influence.—[Ed.]
[211] This statement is hardly accurate. The
greatest depth of débris discovered by the officers of the Palestine
Exploration Fund at Jerusalem was not in the valleys, but on the
Eastern slope of Mount Moriah. The accumulation reached from the foot
of the wall down the slope to the bed of the Kedron, and beyond it some
distance up the slope of the Mount of Olives. The usual depth at the
wall was 60 or 70 feet, but at the north end it reached as much as 120,
owing to the descent of the original ground at that spot. The masons’
marks on the lowest courses of the stones, reached by sinking shafts
through these great depths, seemed to show a date nearer that of
Solomon than of Titus.—[Ed.]
[212] We leave this, like other
such passages, as landmarks of the rapid progress made in the
discoveries opened up by Dr. Schliemann.—[Ed.]
[Continue to Chapter 14]
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