Fig. 11. Schliemanns trench with traces from the early Bronze century.
that he had found neither more nor less than the treasures of the Trojan King Priam. This sensational news covered front pages of newspapers, and the photograph of Sophia Engastromenos in Helens attire was published everywhere. Schliemann provided pictures of these treasures in his book The Trojan Antiquities, issued in 1874 by the famous publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus.
The scientific community, which previously paid no attention to entertaining claims of the dilettante, launched a squall of criticism against him. Professional archaeologists were shocked with the barbarity by which Schliemann literally ripped the cultural layers of the ancient hill to pieces and destroyed many of the more recent constructions.
Many questions were also asked in relation to Schliemanns story being more like a plot of an adventure novel. As it was learnt later from Sophias correspondence with her husband, she could not have participated in transportation of the treasure, as she was in Athens then.[20] Besides, the content of the treasure was also doubtful. For example, the golden bulb of 23 carats for drinks suspiciously resembled a sauceboat of the 19[[th]] century and, within the meaning of Schliemanns letter sent to his Athenian agent on May 28, 1873, in which he asked to find a reliable jeweler, this claim was taken to verify that the Priam treasures were a fake. According to another version, the treasure could have been made of items previously acquired either in Istanbul markets or found at different times during excavations in Hisarlik.[21] One way or another, the treasures could not have belonged to legendary Priam, as they were found in the cultural layer being a thousand years older than Homers Troy.[22]
Fig. 12. Sophia Engastromenos in the Great Diadem from the Priam treasure (1874).
The treasures found by Schliemann could not have belonged to legendary Priam, as they were found in the cultural layer that was a thousand years older than Homers Troy.
The Sublime Porte read the newspapers, too, and having learned about Schliemanns unprecedented smuggling, sued him for ten thousand francs. Silently grinning, the millionaire reimbursed the damage, added extra forty thousand and declared himself the absolute owner of the treasures. Later Schliemann made several attempts to place them in museums in London, Paris and Naples, but they refused to take the treasures for political and financial reasons.[23] In 1881, Schliemann eventually presented the Priam treasures to the city of Berlin, having received the title of the honourable citizen of Berlin in exchange, a title, that was previously conferred to Chancellor Otto von Bismark. The treasures remained there until Professor Wilhelm Unverzagt transferred the Trojan finds to the Soviet Command in 1945 according to contribution conditions. For a long time, the collection was considered to be lost, but it was actually stored in strict confidence in the Pushkin Museum of Moscow (259 items, including the Priam treasures) and in the State Hermitage (414 items made of copper, bronze and clay). It was only in 1993 that Yeltsins Government declared that the most valuable part of the Trojan treasures were being kept in Russia. On April 15[[th]], 1996, the trophies were exhibited in the Pushkin Museum for the first time.[24]
Having found the Priam treasures, Schliemann did not cease his exploratory activity and continued to dig out Mycenae, Orchomenos and Tiryns. He returned to working at the Hisarlik Hill for three times. While different people think differently about Schliemanns activities, it is noteworthy that his adventures not only peaked scientific interest in the history of Troy, but also resulted in discovery of the previously unknown Aegean civilization. Schliemann never learned about it and died in certainty that all his finds were only related to the Trojan War era.
After Schliemanns death, in 18931894, his friend and colleague Wilhelm Dörpfeld studied the stratigraphy of the archaeological layers of the Hisarlik Hill in more detail and determined that nine cities had replaced each other in sequence during the course of nearly 4.5 millennia in that spot. Accordingly, the periods of Troys existence were numbered from 1 to 9. In Dörpfelds opinion, Homers Ilion lied in the sixth layer (Troy 6), which Schliemann ruthlessly destroyed during his first excavations. Dörpfeld arrived at this conclusion even despite the fact that no traces of military operations were found in relation to destruction of Troy 6.
In 1932 Dörpfelds business was continued by the expedition of the Cincinnati University, headed by Carl Blegen, a renowned American archaeologist. Blegen corrected his predecessor and proved that Troy 6 (18001300 B.C.) had perished due to an extremely strong earthquake. Blegen divided the Troy 7 epoch into three periods and suggested that Homers Troy had existed in the 7а period (13001100 B.C.), with its apparent signs of a siege and damage.
The diagram proposed by Carl Blegen in relation to the sequence of existence and destruction of ancient settlements on the Hisarlik Hill became a classical one.
Troy 1 (30002500 B.C.) dates back to the pre-Greek culture, as ancient as most ancient civilizations, such as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Aegean and Indus ones. Inhabitants of Troy 1 had no gold, but lived in rather good houses, called megarons, they used metal tools and bred sheep and goats.
Fig. 13. According to Dörpfeld and Blegen, the Trojan settlement is a kind of a sandwich cake. (Image © Nika Tya-Sen.)
Troy 2 (25002200 B.C.) was a large city of the Minoan culture with walls of four meters thick, cobbled streets and gates. The basic activity of its inhabitants was agriculture: manual grinding mills were found in almost every house of this city. They used potters wheels to make utensils. Troy 2 traded fabrics, wool, ceramics and timber in the huge territory from Bulgaria and Thrace up to Central Anatolia and Syria, which promoted noticeable growth of its financial well-being, demonstrated by a great number of golden and silver items found in this cultural layer, including the Priam treasure found by Schliemann.
The city was destroyed by a sudden fire, and locals had no time to collect their precious utensils. However, according to Blegen, the catastrophe did not cause any significant damage to the settlements cultural development. Given the retention of the former civilization and absence of obvious traces of foreign influence, the culture of Troy 2 was gradually and steadily developed until its successor Troy 3 picked up the baton.[25]
Troy 3 (22002050 B.C.) and Troy 4 (20501900 B.C.) were established on the site of the capital that burnt-down. They were protected with walls and occupied a large area. Despite the rather primitive (even compared to Troy 2) culture in general, the population of these cities improved upon cooking methods and notably varied their diet.
Troy 5 (19001800 B.C.) was a city with a quite high culture level given the samples of fine ceramics and building art discovered. Compared to the previous periods, the manners and habits of the citizens changed a lot. One of the innovations that was introduced in Troy 5 (which archaeologists regret strongly) was procedding to a new and more efficient way of house cleaning. Now they swept the floor and cleaned it from the rubbish accumulated during the day; therefore, nowadays archaeologists can only rarely find animal bones, various small items discarded and lost, as well as whole or broken ceramic vessels.[26] Like the previous cities standing on Hisarlik Hill, Troy of that period was destroyed, although the cause for this remains unknown: there are no traces of a fire in the ruins of buildings, and nothing would confirm that the city was captured by enemies.
Fig. 14. The Southwest (Scaean) gate where Schliemann excavated the Priam treasure dates back to the Troy 2 period.
Troy 6 (18001300 B.C.) was a really great city with block walls of 5 meters thick and with four gates, with squares and palaces. Its population were people of foreign traditions, who apparently came there from another place and brought their own cultural legacy with them. They tamed horses, established a custom of cremation of the deceased, and perfected the art of weapons production. As early as in the beginning of the Troy 6 period, the range of pottery wares had been changed to something new. This city was leveled by an earthquake, as evidenced by specific cracks on walls of buildings.
According to the legend, Ilion was founded by Ilus, son of Tros. Then the power was overtaken by Ilions son Laomedon. During its times, Troy achieved might and established control over Asia Minor, Propontis (the Sea of Marmara) and the straits. Laomedon erected a city on the top of the hill, the walls of which were built by Poseidon, who ended up a slave to Zeus (by Zeus will) together with Apollo, ordered to pasture Zeus oxen. For their assiduous work, Laomedon promised to pay the gods, but changed his mind and, in the end, just expelled them from the country, threatening to cut their ears off (Ilus. XXI, 440458). Then Poseidon sent a sea monster to Ilion to devour all the people. It was when Heracles came in and killed the monster, getting into the monsters belly and hacking all its entrails. For this feat, Laomedon promised him magic horses but once again failed to keep his promise. Nothing to be done, Heracles had to destroy the city, to kill Laomedon and to shoot all his heirs to death by bow and arrow, and to give the kings daughter Hesion[27] to his friend Telamon. At the same time, Hesion was allowed to release one of the captives. She chose her younger brother Podarces and paid for him with her headscarf. Since then, Podarces was called Priam, meaning redeemed.[28] Thus, the legend obviously referred to the times of Troy 6, and the earthquake that destroyed the city was interpreted as anger of Heracles.
Fig. 15. Thats what Troy 6 looks like to our contemporaries. (Image © Nika Tya-Sen.)
Who were the founders of Troy 6, so noticeably different from the cities of previous periods? Blegen was sure that they were Greeks; however, he could not know for sure how they departed for new lands. He wrote, They did not manage to define whether they roamed from the North to the shore of the Aegean Sea, or sailed from the South of Russia across the they arrived in Greece by sea from the West or the East. There are no hints left by either ceramics, artefacts, or horse bones.[29]
Fig. 16. The fortification wall and the East gate of Troy 6 (15th 13th century B.C.).
Troy 7 referred to the period 13001100 B.C. The Trojan War is considered to have taken place during that period. There are some calculations based on different methods, but most of them put this era at between 1220 and 1180 B.C.
The ancient writers could only estimate the dates of the Trojan War, according to the approximate number of generations up to the first Olympic Games, epical tradition, etc. And they arrived at different results, ranging from the 14th to 12th centuries B.C. There were other methods, too, including the study of archaeological artefacts, epigraphy, etc.
The unique method was applied in 2008 by Marcelo Magnasco, Professor of Physics and Mathematics of the American Rockefeller University, and Constantino Baikouzis, astronomer from the Argentinas La-Plata Observatory.[30] They took note that according to Homer when Odysseus was beating the grooms seeking to marry his wife Penelope,
the sun has perished out of heaven and an evil mist hovers over all
Odyssey. XX. 356357and they decided that this text pertained to a solar eclipse. The dates of solar eclipses, both in the past and future, can be easily calculated. Having compared these dates with other astronomical data provided in the text, scientists concluded that King Odysseus returned to Ithaca on April 16th, 1178 B.C. According to Homer, Odysseus wandering after the Trojan War took about 10 years. Thus, according to Magnasco and Baikouzis, the Trojan War could have been limited with chronological frame of 1188 and 1198 B.C.
After the earthquake, the city was built up again. There were no traces of people in the ruins of Troy 6, and Blegen concluded that the population survived and immediately after the earthquake ended they returned to the city and started to restore their houses. In due course, the city became more populated, as the streets became more compact and the houses became smaller. However, traces of imported goods and wealth vanished. In general, Troy 7 was nothing of the majestic city rich in gold described by Homer.
The city that belonged to the first phase of Troy 7, deemed as 7а (13001260 B.C.), was destroyed by fire. The territory of the settlement was once again covered with loads of stones, mudbricks and various wastes, burnt-down and half-burnt-down. Fragments of human bodies found in this layer point indicated that citizens died through violence. Thus, according to Blegen, Troy 7a was destroyed due to the city having been captured and citizens dying. The crowding of numerous small houses anywhere a free place could be found points to the fact that the fortress walls were protecting many more citizens than before. Numerous uncountable capacious vessels for food and water standing on floors of virtually every house and room indicate the need to store as much food and water as possible in case of emergency. What else could that emergency be than the enemy siege?[31]
Upon analyzing the Mycenaean pottery discovered in the cultural layer of the burnt city and comparing it to the chronology of ceramics of Arne Furumark,[32] Blegen realized that most of these samples referred to type 3 B dated first half of the 13[[th]] century B.C. Samples classified as the earlier type 3A is sparsely encountered in this layer, and there are no items of the later type 3C. On this basis, Blegen concluded that Troy 7a had been destroyed in approximately 1260, two generations earlier than the Mycenaean civilization declined. Most of large Mycenaean cities in continental Greece (perhaps, but the cities of Attica) were destroyed in the end of the era when Mycenaean pottery classified III B was produced Approximately by 1200 B.C., might of Mycenae waved; large cities, the population of which was referred in the Catalogue of Ships as the core of Agamemnons troops marching against Troy, were in ruins, and the survivors faced an even more difficult struggle for survival. The period, when type 3C pottery was used every day was characterized by peoples impoverishment and culture level decline, and only memories of Mycenaes former glory remained. The Mycenaean kings and princes couldnt unite their forces and leave to capture other lands. That was only possible much before that, when the Mycenaean civilization was at the height of its political, economic and military power, when splendid emperors palaces hospitably met dear guests in their entire splendor. The fortress was seized and burnt before the mid-13[[th]] century B.C., which was when the type 3B Mycenaean pottery was only introduced in Troy 7a being prosperous yet, and the type 2A pottery was doling out the seat.