The Schliemanns method of language studying is rather popular today; its essence is in the oral narration of text fragments in the foreign language. Step-by-step memory gets used to a new language, and receptivity to the new type speech increases. It is interesting that most adherents of this method have no idea of what Heinrich Schliemann did besides these studies.
Knowledge of Russian allowed Schliemann to come to Russia as a commercial representative. One year later, in 1847, he took out Russian citizenship. The newly-minted Andrei Aristovitch founded his own company and quickly grew rich supplying the indigo dye and Chilean saltpetre. He was into any business that promised profit. Of course, at the time of gold fever, Schliemann was in America, buying gold sand from gold diggers for a mere song and thus doubling his fortune. During the Crimean War, Schliemann was selling weapons to both sides, but he made a greater profit supplying cardboard-soled boots to the Russian army. Before abolition of serfdom in 1861, Schliemann bought up paper necessary for printing large posters with the manifest to resell it to the Russian government at an exorbitant price
In 1864, having left his Russian wife Yekaterina Lyzhina and his three children in St. Petersburg, Schliemann set off for a journey around the world. He visited the ruins of Carthage in Tunis, remnants of Pompeii in Italy, ancient temples in India and Ceylon, the Great Wall of China and the Aztec ruins in Mexico. Shocked with everything he had seen, he signed up for to attend lectures on antique history and archaeology at Sorbonne. In 1868 Schliemann made his first excavation on the Greek island of Ithaca, which lasted for only two days. Having found a couple of shards in the ground, Schliemann, without a shadow of a doubt, passed them off as items that once belonged to King Odysseus himself.
After that the businessman visited Mycenae and the Asianic coast of the Dardanelles, where having missed the ship to Istanbul, he got acquainted with American consul Frank Calvert. Schliemann published the results of his journeys in his book Ithaca, Peloponnesus and Troy, for which he managed to obtain a doctoral degree from the so-so University of Rostock. The degree was conferred on him in absentia, as the competitor was visiting America to deal with issues of getting American citizenship and divorcing his Russian spouse.[12]
However, the scientific European community did not take his research seriously, and Schliemann decided to submit some foundational proof, having dug out an ancient city or, at least, something that could have possibly passed off as the traces of it
Was Schliemann the first to search for the ancient Ilion in the North-Western Turkey, as it is often announced? No way. Even the laurels of the first explorer of Hisarlik are not rightfully his.
As it is set now, it was not difficult to find Troy; supposing that city was mighty enough to fight against the unified forces of the entire Greece, it should have controlled main trade ways, and, thus, it should have been in a prominent location. Moreover, nature abhors a vacuum, and if there is a city on a crossroad of trade routes, it will be restored after any defeat. So, today there must be a city engaged in the same business as Troy was in due time, monitoring routes and growing rich. It is not necessary to be as wise as Solomon to guess that this city is Constantinople-Istanbul, which is great due to the fact it controls the straits from the Black and Marble seas into the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. There are two straits; Istanbul is located on the Bosporus, and its great predecessor apparently was on the Dardanelles. The geographic details in Homers poems point at them. At the same time, as Constantine the Great noted, being on the Hellespont is even more favourable, as not only the sea-gate but also the land-gate between Europe and Asia can be controlled. There was no better place for a city.
After it becomes clear, it is necessary to estimate and consider how far the sea had moved over three thousand years after the events described, and to look for some hills and fortress ruins at the entry to the Dardanelles, and to hear some legends from the locals
The first scientific attempts to determine the precise position of Troy date back to the 18[[th]] century. In 1742 and 1750 the Englishman Robert Wood made two trips to the Troad and put his impressions in the book An Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer. Despite he believed it was senseless to search for Troy, as it had been destroyed to the ground, Wood was the first person to suggest that the place where Troy had been changed for the worse since the ancient times. The harbour became silted, and the rivers changed their flow. His book was reissued 5 times in four languages and caused some public reaction of the scientific community.
In 1768, 1 year before Robert Woods book was issued, Baron Johann Hermann, a student of the glorified nationalist Johan Winckelmann, the founder of modern ideas about antique art, travelled around the Troad. After this journey he was the first to voice the hypothesis that ancient Troy must have been in the area of the Hisarlik Hill, located several kilometers away from the coast. The German cartographer Frantz Kauffer (1793), the mineralogist Edward Clark (1801), who later became a Cambridge University professor, and Charles McLaren (1822), the author of The Theses on the Topography of the Trojan War, also identified Hisarlik as the location of ancient Troy.
Jean-Baptiste Lechevalier, a French archaeologist, put forward another hypothesis. In 1785 he walked all the way from Hellespont to the Ida Mountain Range with the Iliad book in his road bag and using Woods book as a guide. Lechevalier was convinced that Homer described the geographic features of the peninsula rather accurately. The French scientist decided that the spot was close to the village of Bunarbashi (Pinarbashi) in the Scamander River Valley.
In 1864 the Austrian diplomat and traveler Johann Georg von Hahn decided to practically check the hypothesis of Lechevalier. Having started an excavation near Bunarbashi, von Hahn discovered the traces of some settlement. However, it became clear later that those remnants of ancient buildings dated back to a later period from 7[[th]] to 5th centuries B.C.
In one year Frank Calvert led a test excavation in Hisarlik. Two generations of his family had lived near the Troad already, and Calvert had perfect knowledge of the region. But the real revolution in his world-view happened after 1849, when he met the famous Russian scientist Pyotr Chikhachev. Chikhachev, better known in Russia as the pioneer of the Kuznetsk coal basin, had authored about 100 scientific works on geology and paleontology of Asia Minor, and the most detailed map of the Troad was based on his topographic studies. By accompanying Chikhachev on his expedition, Calvert gained invaluable experience and knowledge in the field of archaeology and geology, but, most importantly, he started to believe the Russian scientists statement that Troy should have been searched in the depths of Hisarlik, a part of which he acquired later.
Calvert came to believe that Troy should have been looked for in the depths of Hisarlik after the famous Russian geographer Pyotr Chikhachev, whose role in the discovery of this ancient city has still not been acknowledged by the descendants.
Chikhachevs role in the discovery of Ilion remained unnoticed by the descendants, and all the victorious palms passed to Schliemann, who in turn claimed them for himself rather than Calvert. The man who identified the location of Troy was undeservedly forgotten, as, alas, is a frequent occasion in history. Today only the Altaic mountain range named after him and the commemorative plaque in Gatchina remind us of the merits of this scientist.
Chikhachevs role in the discovery of Ilion remained unnoticed by the descendants, and all the victorious palms passed to Schliemann, who in turn claimed them for himself rather than Calvert. The man who identified the location of Troy was undeservedly forgotten, as, alas, is a frequent occasion in history. Today only the Altaic mountain range named after him and the commemorative plaque in Gatchina remind us of the merits of this scientist.
While making the digging in Hisarlik in 1865, Calvert came across traces of the Temple of Athena and of the city wall that built by Lysimachus. At that the diplomats financial opportunities exhausted. Calvert had hoped to continue the search after meeting the conceited millionaire Schliemann, who believed that the ruins of Troy were in the spot, where Lechevalier had identified them in Bunarbashi. Later Calvert affirmed that in a letter to The Guardian newspaper: When I first met Doctor [Schliemann] in August, 1868, the Hisarlik and the Troy location were new subjects for him.[13] Schliemann denied everything and even launched a full-scale war in the press against Calvert, charging him with lying. There are no document dated before 1868 that would testify to Schliemann being engaged in the Trojan issue at all. According to the historian Andrei Strelkov, Schliemann simply tripped over Troy during one of his travels.[14] However, the businessman presented it all as if he had been looking for Troy for all his life and selected Hisarlik as the site to excavate the ancient city, basing on hints of Homer. To eliminate any mentioning Calvert in the history of the Troys discovery, Schliemann invented a story about the dream of his childhood and the illustrated book,[15] and introduced himself as a man truly possessed by Homers epos, and even gave the children born of his new Greek wife Sophia the names of Engastromenos,[16] Agamemnon and Andromacha.
Fig. 10. Karl Bryullov. Portrait of P. Chikhachev (1835).
Thus, was all of it happened later, and in August, 1868, Calvert saw the dear visitor in his house on the shore and convinced him to join the excavations assuring him, All my land [on the Hisarlik Hill] is at your disposal.[17] Having felt the scale of profit in case they succeeded, Schliemann agreed to take part in the project. As early as in December he started consulting with the highly experienced Calvert about organization of excavations, in particular in regard to quantification of mattocks and shovels for the works. At the same time he negotiated with the Turkish government for a license for archaeological works.
At last, on October 11, 1871 having employed workers in the near villages, Heinrich Schliemann started soil works. Calvert tried to prevent his comrade from hasty decisions and advised him to carry out the sounding of cultural layers of more than 17 meters deep, at first. However, Schliemann, being sure that Homers Troy was the most ancient thing of everything possible, decided to dig down to the very continental plate.
Long trenches up to seventeen meters deep and wide ruthlessly cut up the Hisarlik Hill, until Schliemann managed to dig down to an ancient settlement, destroying everything of no interest to him and not shining under the sun. Schliemann announced that he had discovered the ruins of the city of Priam.
The merchants barbarous approach to excavations not only deprived future scientists of the most valuable archaeological information, but also resulted in destroying the traces of the old city he had discovered. Left to the mercy of fate in the aggressive environment, they began to crumble and get weathered, suffering from roots of trees and bushes.
They managed to halt the destruction process only in 1988, when expedition participants began to protect the walls of the ancient citadel by their own efforts, led by Professor of Tubingen University Manfred Korfmann.
The thickness of the cultural layer of seventeen meters, though accumulated for some thousands of years, seemed unbelievable until we learned about their origin. Fires often occurred, as wood and straw were used for construction [during the Bronze century], Professor Carl Blegen explained, who used to excavate Hisarlik Hill in 19321938. When a house burned down, its roof would collapsed and its walls would scatter. [] Since there were no bulldozers or graders then, nobody tried to clear the site of the fire or to remove the waste. It was much easier to level the site, covering the not remaining fragments of a building with a thick layer of waste (which ensured the noticeable growth of the cultural layer), and then to build a new house on the same spot. In Troy, such things happened rather often, and every time the ground level rose by 80100 centimeters. Steady growth of the cultural layers on the hill also occurred due to other factors. For example, floors in all dwellings but palaces and magnificent private residences were made of earth or compacted clay. People werent used to collect domestic and kitchen wastes at certain special sites then. So, all wastes, including bones, food waste and broken utensils were left on the floor of the dwelling or were immediately chucked away to the outside. Sooner or later, the floor appeared to be covered with animal bones and wastes so much that even hosts with strongest stomachs understood that something should have been done about it. Solving the issue was simple and rather efficient: waste from the floor was not cleaned out, but was covered with a thick layer of fresh clay, which was compacted after that. During the excavation, the archaeologists often discovered houses, where that process was repeated many times until the floor level appeared too high for normal living, and it would have become necessary to lift the roof and to rebuild the entrance.[18]
Schliemann continued his excavations for three seasons, and finally, on May 31, 1873, he came across some real treasures at the surrounding wall near the southwest gate, at a depth of 8.5 meters. Here is how he described those events:
In excavating this wall further and coming closer and closer to the ancient building and to the North-West from the gate, I came upon a large copper article of the most remarkable form, which attracted my attention all the more as I thought I saw gold behind it. In order to withdraw the treasure from the greed of my workmen, and to save it for archaeology I immediately had paidos called.This word is of unknown origin; it came into the Turkish language and is used instead of the Greek άνάπαυσις, meaning rest time. While the men were eating and resting, I cut out the Treasure with a large knife. It took huge efforts and involved risk, as the fortress wall, under which I had to dig, could fall down on me any moment. However, the view of so many subjects, every one of which was of great value for archaeology, made me fearless, and I did not think about any hazards. It would, however, have been impossible for me to have removed the Treasure without the help of my dear wife, who stood by me ready to pack the things which I cut out in her shawl and to carry them away.[19]
In the niche discovered by Schliemann, a set of 8830 precious metal articles were found, including necklaces, diadems, rings, brooches and bracelets. Owing to Calverts brother Frederic, it was possible to take the treasure to Athens. Having placed it to a bank, the businessman told journalists
Fig. 11. Schliemanns trench with traces from the early Bronze century.