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Chapter 19 (p.266)
Pergamus of Troy, March 29th, 1873.
 Since my
report of the 22nd of this month I have unfortunately made little or no
progress, for most of the villagers are trimming their vineyards during
this week; and besides this, we have been tormented by a horrible
icy-cold high north wind, which yesterday and to-day rendered it
impossible to carry on the works.
Fig.183: A brilliant Black Vase, with the Symbols of the Ilian Athena, from the Tower (8m depth).
But
in spite of this, during the week we have found at a depth of 8 meters
(26 feet), and upon the Tower, a great number of splendid vases of the
most remarkable form; they are indeed all in a more or less broken
condition, but they can easily be mended, as I have all the pieces.
Those especially deserving of being mentioned are a brilliant black
vase with two large female breasts, a large navel, and with two mighty
upraised arms (fig.183); further, a vase 33¾ inches high, in a good
state of preservation; a large mixing bowl (??at??) with two handles,
and a smaller vase, round below, with four handles of two different
forms.
Fig.184 (left): Vase-cover with Handle in shape of a Coronet (8m depth).
Fig.185 (right): Vase-cover with a Human Face: found on the Tower (8m depth).
Among the smaller vessels there are, especially deserving of
attention, a brilliant black cup cover, with a handle in the form of a
coronet, and a brilliant red cover, with a very curious human face, in
which the features of the owl cannot be mistaken. (figs.184,185) Of the other articles, (p.267) I can only mention a little plate of
gold in the form of an arrow-head, with a small hole at the lower end
(fig.186); an ivory tube with very curious decorations (fig.187); and a
well-preserved skull with neat little teeth, which I discovered,
together with a few bones and a quantity of human ashes, in a vase
(unfortunately broken) 27½ inches high and broad, at a depth of 26
feet, upon the Tower.
 Fig.186 (left): Flat piece of Gold, in the Form of an Arrow-head: from the Tower (8m depth).
Fig.187 (right): Prettily decorated Tube of Ivory. From the Tower (8 m depth).
This is the first time that I have found such
well-preserved human bones and even a skull in an urn. Funereal urns,
indeed, we dig out daily, but the bodies are always completely burnt to
ashes; and, with the exception of the skeleton (already described) of
an embryo found in a vase at a depth of 51 feet upon the primary rock,
I have hitherto never found an entire bone in a funereal urn,
The vase
in which I found the skull is made of that excellent Trojan (p.268)
terra-cotta which I find only at a depth of from 36 to 46 and 52½ feet,
except upon the Tower; the skull must have belonged to a Trojan woman,
for it is too delicate to have been the skull of a man. In the same urn
I also found a copper hair or dress pin. Upon the Tower we also met
with two marble idols without owls’ faces, one of which is 6 inches
long, the other 6-1/3 inches.
We likewise discovered quantities of
terra-cotta whorls with symbolical decorations, twelve of which are of
types not previously found. One is the form of a shirt stud,[237] 1-1/3
inch high and 1-1/5 inch broad, with the never-failing perforated hole
and an engraved flower, the four petals of which form a cross round the
central point; in three of the petals there (p.269) are very large dots,
which may denote suns or moons; upon another, in the form of a top,
there are six trees in the circle, the top and the foot of which are
alternately directed to the central sun.[238]
I have already
repeatedly mentioned the terra-cotta discs, between 1 and 2 inches in
diameter, thick in the middle and cut smooth on one side, in the shape
of a Greek lamp; they always have at one side two very small perforated
holes, and frequently a round or oval potter’s stamp, in which one can
recognise either an altar and a bee with outspread wings, or a swan, an
ox, a horse, a man, or something of the kind. I have also said that
these discs must have belonged to the Greek colony, for I generally
find them quite close to the surface as far down as 3¼ feet and rarely
below 6½ feet, and besides this the fine and almost microscopical
figures in the stamp show a Greek style of art.[239]
The small holes at
the sides leave no doubt that the articles have been used as votive
offerings to be hung up in the temples or beside the idols. These
discs, which have hitherto only occurred in terra-cotta, I have this
week found at a depth of 1 meter (3¼ feet), made of diorite with two
holes on one side, which, however, are not perforated; owing to the
hardness of the substance it was no doubt found difficult to make the
two perforations.
During the last few days we have again found
upon the Tower, at a depth of 8 meters (26 feet), a mould of
mica-schist, 11 inches long, upon five sides of which there are forms
for casting twelve, lances, knives, and extremely curious implements,
the use of which is a puzzle to me.
The many stone moulds for
casting weapons, knives, and implements, which are met with here,
sufficiently prove that Troy possessed a number of copper weapons,
knives, and instruments. It is, however, quite natural that I should
find comparatively few of them, for the copper implements (p.270) could of
course easily be melted down and re-cast, and it must not even be
supposed that I shall find any except those which were lost in the
tumult of battle, or were preserved amidst the destruction of the city.
Therefore the fact that I find immensely larger numbers of silex knives
than of copper knives, and by far more axes and hammers of stone than
of copper, by no means proves that at the time of the Trojan war there
were more stone than copper instruments. Stone lances are, moreover,
very rarely met with; this year I found only two of which I know
positively that they are lances; the one was discovered at a depth of
11½ feet, the other at 20 feet deep.
Mr. Frank Calvert of the
Dardanelles, who wishes to convince me by the hippopotamus which I
found at a depth of 23 feet, that the débris at this depth belongs to a
period when hippopotami inhabited the rivers of the Troad, has
expressed the opinion, in his article in the Levant Herald of the 25th
of January, 1873, that Homer would necessarily have mentioned stone
knives and instruments if they had existed in Troy, and that, as he
speaks of none, there could have been none; consequently, that none of
the ruined strata which I have cut through, containing stone
implements, can belong to the Homeric Troy, and that the stratum
directly following the Greek ruins, which extend as far down as 6½
feet, must be more than 1000 years older than the Trojan war.
If
Mr. Calvert had taken the trouble to look into Homer, he would have
found that the word ‘hammer’ (?a?st??) occurs only once (Iliad, XVIII.
477), and that is in the hand of Hephæstus. It is, indeed, not said of
what material the hammer was made; the fire-god, however, would
probably have had none other than a copper hammer. Mr. Calvert also
does not appear to have ever seen a silex knife, for otherwise he would
know that they are almost always only from 1½ to 2½, and rarely 3,
inches long; and moreover, with but few exceptions, they are made in
the (p.271) form of saws. I have here only once met with a saw of this
kind 5 inches in length.
In Homer there is not one opportunity
where such small saw-knives could have been mentioned, nor is it as yet
altogether clear to me what they can have been used for.[240] Homer’s
heroes carry their copper knives beside their swords, and generally use
them for killing the sacrificial animal, for which purpose, of course,
flint knives from 1½ to 3 inches long would not have been appropriate;
but those long copper knives, the size of which is accurately indicated
by the stone moulds in which they were cast, would have been very
suitable. In the Iliad (XVIII. 597), we see Hephæstus making youths
with golden cutlasses upon the shield of Achilles.
Mr. Calvert
believes that the fact of Homer’s not mentioning either the small flint
saws or stone knives is a proof against the identity of Hissarlik with
the site of Troy. I, however, should find it surprising, and so
assuredly would all scholars and admirers of Homer, if the Homeric
heroes had appeared armed with silex saws from 1½ to 3 inches in
length; for a hero, especially in an epic poem, can only carry and
achieve something heroic.
If the Homeric hero requires a stone weapon,
he does not feel in his pocket for a silex saw from 1½ to 3 inches
long, but he takes the first huge stone he meets with, such as two of
the strongest men from among the people could not have raised from the
earth on to a cart by means of levers; but the hero carries it in his
hand with the same ease with which a shepherd would carry the fleece of
a ram, and flings the rock with infinite force against the gate of the
enemy, splinters the panels to shivers, and shatters the double hinges
and the bars; the gate flies open, and the stone-falls with a mighty
crash into the hostile camp.[241] (p.272) Upon another occasion, another
hero uses a stone weapon. He, too, does not look for a small silex saw,
but takes an immense block of stone, which two men from among the
people would have been unable to lift, and hurls it against his
opponent.[242]
Mr. Calvert’s excavations in the Pergamus were confined
to two small cuttings which still exist, and he is wrong in saying that
I have continued his excavations. As my plans of the Pergamus prove, my
excavations of 1870, 1871, and up to the middle of June, 1872, were
made exclusively on the Turkish portion of the Pergamus; and it was
only in June that I began to excavate the site of the temple of Apollo
upon Mr. Calvert’s land, because a depression in the ground, 111½ feet
long and 75½ feet broad, had betrayed the site to me. My friend’s two
small cuttings by no means gave any idea of the existence of such a
temple.
I have never, as Mr. Calvert says, found the native rock
at a depth of 67 feet. I found it at a depth of 16 meters (or 52¾ feet)
upon my large platform, and at a depth of 14 meters (or 46-1/5 feet) in
my great cutting, in the Roman well, and upon the south side of the
Tower. In Mr. Calvert’s field, however, I found the primary soil only
in the hill covered by the very ancient buttress, which has been
repeatedly described.
Examining Mr. Calvert’s article further, I
assure my readers that, with the exception of the wall which I have
already described as consisting of Corinthian pillars taken from the
temple of Athena, I have never come upon any Byzantine ruins here;[243]
that all the Byzantine coins I found were but a few inches below the
surface; and that the ruins and the débris of the Greek colony, as
anyone may convince himself from the earthen walls of my excavations,
rarely extend below 2 meters (6½ feet).
Mr. Calvert’s statement, that I
also find stone implements, perforated (p.273) cylinders, grinding-mills,
and masses of shells, immediately below these ruins, is incorrect; for
in not one of my excavations have I hitherto found these things at less
than 4 meters (13 feet) deep, and if I now find them immediately below
the foundations of the Temple of Athena, I explain this by assuming
that the débris which was dug out of the great excavation for the
reservoir of the temple was used for increasing the elevation of the
site of the sanctuary.
Mr. Calvert is also wrong in his statement that
the larger bones were all broken to get at the marrow; on the contrary,
we very rarely meet with broken bones. He is again incorrect in stating
that I find small articles of bronze, as well as ornaments in gold and
silver filigree work. I have never as yet found bronze here, but in all
cases copper; and never have I found ornaments of gold or silver
filigree work. The ornaments represented in the drawings are of pure
gold, or electrum, or silver, or copper.
His statement is also
erroneous, that I occasionally find engraved representations of
fish-bones upon vessels. It is true that I often find vessels round
which rows of cuneiform decorations are engraved; but these are never
connected with one another, and therefore have no resemblance at all to
fish-bones.
Further, Mr. Calvert is mistaken in his assertion that in
the depths of this hill there are house-walls composed of unhewn stones
laid roughly one on the top of the other. The architect is not yet
born, who could construct house-walls of such stones without some kind
of cement. The walls of clay do not, as Mr. Calvert’s statement would
lead one to believe, consist of one mass of clay, but of sun-dried
bricks; and I assure my readers that I have never yet, as Mr. Calvert
erroneously maintains, found the impressions of long rushes, which
indicate the use of thatch-work.
My learned friend is also completely
wrong in his statement that the floors of some of the houses have been
glazed, and that the regularity of the levellings (p.274) and the flatness
of these floors prove that the glaze is not the result of accident;
further, that one of these glazed floors has a length of 20 feet. I
would give a great deal if this were true, for such a Trojan marvel
would attract thousands desirous of information. Unfortunately,
however, such glazed floors exist only in Mr. Calvert’s own
imagination.
My friend is as completely mistaken in his reports about
the Great Tower, which he describes as consisting of two walls, which
meet at a sharp angle and diverge to a distance of 40 feet, the space
between them being as yet unexplored. It is only the southern wall of
this building that rises at an angle of 75 degrees: on the north side,
as it was sufficiently supported by the mound 65½ feet broad which
rested against it, it had above it only a small perpendicular wall, 3¼
feet high and broad; whereas the southern wall, which inclines at an
angle of 15 degrees, is 6½ feet thick. The whole of the inner space
between the two walls consists of stones laid loosely upon one another.
The perpendicular height of the Tower above the primary rock is not 15
feet, as Mr. Calvert says, but exactly 20 feet.
The terra-cotta discs
with two small holes, which, according to Mr. Calvert, I find here at
all depths, I have in reality always found only close to the surface,
as far down as 3¼ feet, and rarely as far down as 6½ feet. I further
assure my readers that I know nothing about the large perforated
cylinders, which Mr. Calvert says I find in great quantities, and
frequently with half their diameter entirely in the clay of the walls.
The largest of the terra-cotta cylinders which I have discovered here
are only 4 inches long, and never have I seen one of these cylinders in
a house-wall.
In conclusion, I must positively deny Mr.
Calvert’s assertion that stone implements, although met with in the
same stratum with articles made of different metals and with splendid
earthenware, argue a primeval and pre-historic age. Small knives and
saws of silex are, for (p.275) instance, found in numbers in the Acropolis
of Athens, and they appear to have been used up to a very late period.
A rude pre-historic people could by no means have made the beautiful
terra-cottas which are found here immediately below the ruins of the
Greek colony, and still less could they have manufactured the splendid
pottery which shows such a high degree of artistic taste, and which I
meet with here at a great depth.
The life in this wilderness is
not without danger, and last night, for instance, my wife and I and the
foreman Photidas had the narrowest escape of being burnt alive. In the
bedroom on the north side of the wooden house which we are inhabiting,
we had had a small fireplace made, and, owing to the terrible cold
which has again set in during the last six days, we have lighted a fire
in it daily. But the stones of the fireplace rest merely upon the
boards of the floor, and, whether it was owing to a crevice in the
cement joining the stones, or by some other means, the floor took fire,
and when I accidentally awoke this morning at 3 o’clock, it was burning
over a space of two yards long by a yard broad.
The room was filled
with dense smoke, and the north wall was just beginning to catch fire;
a few seconds would have sufficed to burn a hole into it, and the whole
house would then have been in flames in less than a minute, for a
fearful north wind was blowing from that side. In my fright I did not
lose my presence of mind. I poured the contents of a bath upon the
burning north wall, and thus in a moment stopped the fire in that
direction. Our cries awoke Photidas, who was asleep in the adjoining
room, and he called the other foremen from the stone house to our
assistance. In the greatest haste they fetched hammers, iron levers and
pickaxes; the floor was broken up, torn to pieces, and quantities of
damp earth thrown upon it, for we had no water. But, as the lower beams
were burning in many places, a quarter of an hour elapsed before we got
the fire under and all danger was at an end. (p.276)
Footnotes:
[237] See a similar example in Chapter XX., p. 286.
[238] Plate XXXIV., No. 404.
[239] See p. 65.
[240]
May they have been for flaying the sacrificed animals, a sharp flint
being better for this purpose than a copper knife, and perhaps also
being preferred to metal as less contaminated by human labour?—[Ed.]
[241] Iliad, XII. 445-462.
[242] Iliad, V. 302-310.
[243] Nor are even these now considered to be Byzantine; see Chapter XXII., p. 320, and Introduction, p. 30.—{Ed.}
[Continue to Chapter 20]
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