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Chapter 14 (p.220)
Athens, September 28th, 1872.
I wrote my last memoir on the 14th of last month, and on the 10th of this
month, accompanied by my wife and Sisilas the land-surveyor, I returned
to Troy in order to make a new plan of the Pergamus, which contains the
most exact picture of my excavations, as well as of the depth in which
the remains of immortal fame were discovered by me. I also took the
photographer Siebrecht from the Dardanelles with me, in order to have
photographs taken of my excavations, of two of the four springs
situated on the north side of Ilium, of Ilium’s Great Tower and the
Plain of Troy, as well as of the Hellespont as seen from this monument.
To
my horror, upon arriving there, I found that the watchman whom I had
left in charge had been faithless, and that an immense number of large
hewn stones dug out of my excavations, with which I had erected walls
in several places in order to prevent the winter rains from washing
away the débris which we had pulled down, had been carried off. The man
excused himself by saying that the stones had been used for a good
purpose, namely for (p.221) the construction of a belfry in the Christian
village of Yenishehr, and for building houses in the Turkish village of
Chiplak. I, of course, packed him off directly, and engaged in his
place a watchman whom I armed with a musket. He had the reputation of
being honest, and his physical strength will inspire the pilferers of
the stones with respect. What vexed me most was, that these thieves had
even laid their hands upon the splendid bastion of the time of
Lysimachus, which I had uncovered on the south side of the hill; they
had made off with two large stones from it, and the bastion would
assuredly have vanished entirely had I been away a week longer.
I
also regret to see that the downpour of rain on the 14th of August has
filled the great cutting, which I made on the south side of the Tower,
in order to bring the Tower to light down as far as the rock upon which
it is built, with débris to a height of 2 meters (6˝ feet). So,
immediately upon my arrival, I engaged 20 workmen, 10 of whom are busy
in clearing the south side of the Tower as far as the primary soil, in
wheeling away the débris, and in building in front of the cutting a
wall of large blocks of stone, through which the rain-water can escape,
but not the débris that may be washed down.
I have now had an
opportunity of convincing myself that the rain does not harm the Tower,
for it disappears directly to the right and left of it in the loose
débris. Of the other ten workmen, six are occupied in repairing the
walls which have been destroyed or injured by wanton hands, while the
other four are working in order to lay bare as far as possible an
exceedingly remarkable wall, which rises at an angle of 40 degrees at
the depth of 15˝ meters (50˝ feet) and at 43˝ yards from the edge of
the hill, on the site of the temple, exactly 6˝ feet below the Trojan
wall which I there brought to light. (See p. 200.) As I have before
remarked, the strata of débris, which run obliquely to the north below
that Trojan wall, prove that (p.222) it was built upon the steep slope of
the hill, and this is an additional and infallible proof that the
buttress, which is erected 6˝ feet below it, can have served no other
purpose than for consolidating and strengthening the ground of the
declivity so effectually that buildings of an enormous weight might be
erected upon the summit without danger. Now as I have never hitherto
found buttresses of this kind for consolidating the declivity of the
hill among the strata of the pre-Hellenic period, although there was no
lack of grand buildings in the Pergamus of Troy (as is proved by the
colossal masses of hewn and unhewn stones from 16˝ to 20 feet high,
mixed with charred débris, with which I had to struggle upon my great
platform), I positively believe that the above-mentioned buttress was
erected to support the site of a temple of great sanctity. I believe
this all the more, as the buttress here forms a curve and appears to
protect the whole of the north-eastern corner of the hill, which was
the extreme end of the Pergamus and perfectly corresponds with Homer’s
statement about the position of the temple of Athena, “on the summit of
the city” (?? p??e? ????: Iliad, VI. 297). I have no doubt that in
ascending from this buttress I shall find the ruins of that ancient
temple at a distance of less than 10 meters (33 feet). But in order to
penetrate further, I must first of all pull down the Trojan wall, 10
feet high and 6˝ feet thick, which I have already frequently mentioned,
and remove the enormous masses of débris; this work must be deferred
till the 1st of February, for I am now too ill and tired to attempt it.
The discovery of the very ancient temple of Athena at the north-eastern
corner would, moreover solve the great problem—whence arises the
colossal accumulation of débris, which here covers the declivity with a
crust as hard as stone, 131 feet in thickness, and which caused me so
much trouble, not only in this excavation, but also at the eastern end
of my platform, along an extent of more than 80 feet. It will be found
that this enormous crust has (p.223) arisen solely from the remains of the
sacrifices offered to the Ilian Athena.
I had not noticed this
buttress at the time of my departure on the 15th of August, and I have
now only discovered it because the rain has laid bare two of its
stones. It is built of blocks of shelly limestone (Muschelkalk), from
about a foot to 2 feet 2 inches long and broad, joined with earth, and
it probably covered the whole north-eastern corner of the hill from the
bottom to the top. I presume that the drain of green sandstone, nearly
8 inches broad and about 7 inches high, which I spoke of in my report
of the 25th of April, belongs to the very ancient temple of Athena; it
will be remembered that I found it at about 11˝ feet above my great
platform, and at a distance of 46 feet from the edge of the declivity.
The
block of triglyphs with the Sun-god and the four horses, which I found
here, proves that the temple which it adorned was built in the Doric
style; and, as the Doric is confessedly the oldest style of
architecture, the ancient temple of the Ilian Athena was doubtless in
that style. We know, however, from the Iliad[213] that there was also a
temple of Apollo in the Pergamus. It probably stood at the
south-eastern corner of the hill, for at the foot of it may be seen, in
a small excavation, a wall composed of splendid Corinthian pillars
joined by means of cement. It is probable that these pillars belong to
a temple of Apollo of the time of Lysimachus. In excavating the Tower
further to the east, I hope to find the site of this temple, and in its
depths the ruins of the very ancient temple of Apollo.
If the
Trojans possessed an alphabetical language, I shall probably find
inscriptions in the ruins of the two temples. I am, however, no longer
sanguine in regard to this, as I have hitherto found no trace of
writing in the colossal strata of the four tribes which preceded the
Greek colony.[214] (p.224)
Footnotes:
[213] Iliad, VII. 83 and IV. 508.; see p. 145-6, 257.
[214] See note ([+]), p. 218.
[Continue to Chapter 15]
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