Museum of Antiquity Part 25

The time required to cover the foundations of Troy to a depth of forty-six and one-half feet of _debris_ must have been very long. The first layer of from thirteen to twenty feet on this hill of Hissarlik belonged to the Aryan race, of whom very little can be said. The second layer was formed by the Trojans of Homer, and are supposed, by Dr. Schliemann and others to have flourished here about 1400 years before Christ. We have only the general supposition of antiquity that the Trojan war occurred about B.C. 1200, and Homer's statement that Darda.n.u.s, the first Trojan King, founded Dardania, which town Virgil and Euripides consider identical with Ilium, and that after him it was governed by his son Erichthonius, and then by his grandson Tros, by his great-grandson Ilus, and then by his son Laomedon, and by his grandson Priam. Even if we allow every one of these six kings a long reign of thirty-three years, we nevertheless scarcely carry the foundation of the town beyond 1400 B.C., that is 700 years before the Greek colony.

During Dr. Schliemann's three-year excavations in the depths of Troy, he has had daily and hourly opportunities of convincing himself that, from the standard of our own or of the ancient Greek mode of life, we can form no idea of the life and doings of the four nations which successively inhabited this hill before the time of the Greek settlement. They must have had a terrible time of it, otherwise we should not find the walls of one house upon the ruined remains of another, in continuous but _irregular_ succession; and it is just because we can form no idea of the way in which these nations lived and what calamities they had to endure, that it is impossible to calculate the duration of their existence, even approximately, from the thickness of their ruins. It is extremely remarkable, but perfectly intelligible from the continual calamities which befel the town, that the civilization of all the four nations constantly declined; the terra-cottas, which show continuous _decadence_, leave no doubt of this.

The first settlement on this hill of _Hissarlik_ seems to have been of the longest duration, for its ruins cover the rock to a height of from thirteen to twenty feet. Its houses and walls of fortification were built of stones, large and small, joined with earth, and manifold remains of these may be seen in the excavations. It was supposed that these settlers were identical with the Trojans of whom Homer sang, which is not the case.

All that can be said of the first settlers is that they belonged to the Aryan race, as is sufficiently proved by the Aryan religious symbols met with in the strata of their ruins, both upon the pieces of pottery and upon the small curious terra-cottas with a hole in the centre, which have the form of the crater of a volcano or of a _carrousel_, _i.e._, a top.

The excavations made have sufficiently proved that the second nation which built a town on this hill, upon the _debris_ of the first settlers (which is from 13 to 20 feet deep), are the Trojans of whom Homer sings. Their _debris_ lies from 23 to 33 feet below the surface.

This Trojan stratum, which, without exception, bears marks of great heat, consists mainly of red ashes of wood, which rise from 5 to 10 feet above the Great Tower of Ilium, the double Scaean Gate, and the great enclosing Wall, the construction of which Homer ascribes to Poseidon and Apollo, and they show that the town was destroyed by a fearful conflagration. How great the heat must have been is clear also from the large slabs of stone upon the road leading from the double Scaean Gate down to the Plain; for when the road was laid open all the slabs appeared as uninjured as if they had been put down quite recently; but after they had been exposed to the air for a few days, the slabs of the upper part of the road, to the extent of some 10 feet, which had been exposed to the heat, began to crumble away, and they have now almost disappeared, while those of the lower portion of the road, which had not been touched by the fire, have remained uninjured, and seem to be indestructible. A further proof of the terrible catastrophe is furnished by a stratum of scoriae of melted lead and copper, from one fifth to one and one fifth of an inch thick, which extends nearly through the whole hill at a depth of from 28 to 29-1/2 feet. That Troy was destroyed by enemies after a b.l.o.o.d.y war is further attested by the many human bones which were found in these heaps of _debris_, and above all the skeletons with helmets, found in the depths of the Temple of Athena, for, as we know from Homer, all corpses were burned and the ashes were preserved in urns. Of such urns were found an immense number in all the pre-h.e.l.lenic strata on the hill. Lastly, the Treasure, which some member of the royal family had probably endeavored to save during the destruction of the city, but was forced to abandon, leaves no doubt that the city was destroyed by the hands of enemies. This Treasure was found on the large enclosing wall by the side of the royal palace, at a depth of 27-1/2 feet, and covered with red Trojan ashes from 5 to 6-1/2 feet in depth, above which was a post-Trojan wall of fortification 19-1/2 feet high.

As Homer is so well informed about the topography and the climatic conditions of the Troad, there can surely be no doubt that he had himself visited Troy. But, as he was there long after its destruction, and its site had moreover been buried deep in the _debris_ of the ruined town, and had for centuries been built over by a new town, Homer could neither have seen the Great Tower of Ilium nor the Scaean Gate, nor the great enclosing Wall, nor the palace of Priam; for, as every visitor to the Troad may convince himself by the excavations, the ruins and red ashes of Troy alone--forming a layer of from five to ten feet thick--covered all these remains of immortal fame, and this acc.u.mulation of _debris_ must have been much more considerable at the time of Homer's visit. Homer made no excavations so as to bring those remains to light, but he knew of them from tradition; for the tragic fate of Troy had for centuries been in the mouths of all minstrels, and the interest attached to it was so great that tradition itself gave the exact truth in many details.

"Say now, ye Nine, who on Olympus dwell, Muses--for ye are G.o.ddesses, and ye Were _present_ and know all things; _we ourselves_ _But hear from Rumor's voice_, and nothing know-- Who were the chiefs and mighty lords of Greece."

Such, for instance, is the memory of the Scaean Gate in the Great Tower of Ilium, and the constant use of the name Scaean Gate in the plural, because it had to be described as double, and in fact it has been proved to be a double gate. According to the lines of the Iliad, it now seems extremely probable that, at the time of Homer's visit, the King of Troy declared that his race was descended in a direct line from aeneas.

"But o'er the Trojans shall aeneas reign, And his sons' sons, through ages yet unborn."

Now, as Homer never saw Ilium's Great Tower, nor the Scaean Gate, and could not imagine that these buildings lay buried deep beneath his feet, and as he probably imagined Troy to have been very large--according to the then existing poetical legends--and perhaps wished to describe it as still larger, we can not be surprised that he makes Hector descend from the palace in the Pergamus and hurry through the town in order to arrive at the Scaean Gate; whereas that gate and Ilium's Great Tower, in which it stands, are in reality directly in front of the royal house. That this house is really the king's palace seems evident from its size, from the thickness of its stone walls, in contrast to those of the other houses of the town, which are built almost exclusively of unburned bricks, and from its imposing situation upon an artificial hill directly in front of or beside the Scaean Gate, the Great Tower, and the great surrounding Wall. This is confirmed by the many splendid objects found in its ruins, especially the enormous royally ornamented vase with the picture of the owl-headed G.o.ddess Athena, the tutelary divinity of Ilium; and lastly, above all other things, the rich Treasure found close by it. It can not, of course, be proved that the name of this king, the owner of this Treasure, was really PRIAM; but he is so called by Homer and in all the traditions. All that can be proved is, that the palace of the owner of this Treasure, this last Trojan king, perished in the great catastrophe, which destroyed the Scaean Gate, the great surrounding Wall, and the Great Tower, and which desolated the whole city. It can be proved, by the enormous quant.i.ties of red and yellow calcined Trojan ruins, from five to ten feet in height, which covered and enveloped these edifices, and by the many post-Trojan buildings, which were again erected upon these calcined heaps of ruins, that neither the palace of the owner of the Treasure, nor the Scaean Gate, nor the great surrounding Wall, nor Ilium's Great Tower, were ever again brought to light. A city, whose king possessed such a Treasure, was immensely wealthy, considering the circ.u.mstances of these times; and because Troy was rich it was powerful, had many subjects, and obtained auxiliaries from all quarters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TERRA-COTTA LAMPS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRONZE LAMPS.]

This Treasure of the supposed mythical king Priam, of the mythical heroic age, is, at all events, a discovery which stands alone in archaeology, revealing great wealth, great civilization and great taste for art, in an age preceding the discovery of bronze, when weapons and implements of pure copper were employed contemporaneously with enormous quant.i.ties of stone weapons and implements. This Treasure further leaves no doubt that Homer must have actually seen gold and silver articles, such as he continually describes; it is, in every respect, of inestimable value to science, and will for centuries remain the object of careful investigation.

While the Trojan war was the last it was also the greatest of all the achievements of the heroic age, and was immortalized by the genius of Homer. Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilium or Troy, abused the hospitality of Menelaus, king of Sparta, by carrying off his wife Helen, the most beautiful woman of the age. All the Grecian princes looked upon the outrage as committed upon themselves. Responding to the call of Menelaus, they a.s.semble in arms, elect his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, leader of the expedition, and sail across the aegean in nearly 1,200 ships to recover the faithless fair one.

Some, however, excelled Agamemnon in fame. Among them Achilles stands pre-eminent in strength, beauty and value, while Ulysses surpa.s.ses all the rest in the mental qualities of counsel, subtility and eloquence.

Thus, by the opposite endowments, these two heroes form the centre of the group.

Among the Trojans, Hector, one of the sons of Priam, is most distinguished for heroic qualities, and forms a striking contrast to his handsome, but effeminate brother, Paris. It is said that even the G.o.ds took part in the contest, encouraging their favorite heroes, and sometimes fighting by their side or in their stead. It was not until the tenth year that Troy yielded to the inevitable fate. It was delivered over to the sword and its glory sank in ashes.

The houses of Troy were all very high, and had several stories, as is obvious from the thickness of the walls, the construction and colossal heaps of _debris_. The city was immensely rich, and as it was wealthy, so was it powerful and its buildings large. The ruins are found in a badly decayed state, because of the great fires that occurred there, and the neighboring towns were largely built with stone from the ruins of Troy; Archaeanax is said to have built a long wall around Sigeum with its stones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOLDEN CUPS OF PRIAM.]

A portion of a large building was laid bare, the walls of which are 6-1/4 feet thick, and consist for the most part of hewn blocks of limestone joined with clay. None of the stones seem to be more than 1 foot 9 inches long, and they are so skillfully put together, that the walls form a smooth surface. This house is built upon a layer of yellow and brown ashes and ruins, at a depth of 20 feet, and the portion of the walls preserved reaches up to within 10 feet below the surface of the hill. In the house, as far as has been excavated, only one vase, with two b.r.e.a.s.t.s in front and one breast at the side, has been found.

This is the first house that Dr. Schliemann excavated, which is quite evident by what he writes about it: "It is with a feeling of great interest that, from this great platform, that is, at a perpendicular height of from thirty-three to forty-two feet, I see this very ancient building (which may have been erected 1000 years before Christ) standing as it were in mid air."

A room was excavated which is ten feet high and eleven and one-fourth wide; it was at one time much higher; its length has not been ascertained.

One of the compartments of the uppermost houses, below the Temple of Athena and belonging to the pre-h.e.l.lenic period, appears to have been used as a wine-merchant's cellar or as a magazine, for in it there are nine enormous earthen jars of various forms, about five and three-fourths feet high and four and three-fourths feet across, their mouths being from twenty-nine and one-half to thirty-five and one-fourth inches broad. Each of these earthen jars has four handles, three and three-fourths inches broad, and the clay of which they are made has the enormous thickness of two and one-fourth inches.

A house of eight rooms was also brought to light at a depth of twenty-six feet. It stands upon the great Tower, directly below the Greek Temple of Athena. Its walls consist of small stones cemented with earth, and they appear to belong to different epochs; for, while some of them rest directly upon the stones of the Tower, others were not built till the Tower was covered with eight inches, and in several cases even with three and one-fourth feet, of _debris_. These walls also show differences in thickness; one of them is four and one-half feet, others are only twenty-five and one-half inches, and others again not more than nineteen and two-thirds inches thick. Several of these walls are ten feet high, and on some of them may be seen large remnants of the coatings of clay, painted yellow or white. Black marks, the result of fire, upon the lower portion of the walls of the other rooms which have been excavated, leave no doubt that their floors were of wood, and were destroyed by fire. In one room there is a wall in the form of a semicircle, which has been burnt as black as coal. All the rooms as yet laid open, and not resting directly upon the Tower, have been excavated down to the same level; and, without exception, the _debris_ below them consists of red or yellow ashes and burnt ruins. Above these, even in the rooms themselves, were found nothing but either red or yellow wood-ashes, mixed with bricks that had been dried in the sun and subsequently burnt by the conflagration, or black _debris_, the remains of furniture, mixed with ma.s.ses of small sh.e.l.ls: in proof of this there are the many remains which are still hanging on the walls.

A very large ancient building was found standing upon the wall or b.u.t.tress. At this place the wall appears to be about seventy-nine feet wide, or thick. The site of this building, upon an elevation, together with its solid structure, leave no doubt that it was the grandest building in Troy; nay, that it must have been the Palace of Priam.

This edifice, now first laid open from beneath the ashes which covered it in the burning of the city, was found by Dr. Schliemann in the very state to which, in Homer, Agamemnon threatens to reduce it: "The house of Priam _blackened with fire_."

Upon this house, by the side of the double gate, upon Ilium's Great Tower, at the edge of the western slope of the Acropolis, sat Priam, the seven elders of the city, and Helen; and this is the scene of the most splendid pa.s.sage in the Iliad:

"Attending there on aged Priam, sat The Elders of the city; ...

All these were gathered at the Scaean Gates.

... so on Ilion's Tower Sat the sage chiefs and counselors of Troy.

Helen they saw, as to the Tower she came."

From this spot the company surveyed the whole plain, and saw at the foot of the Acropolis the Trojan and the Achaean armies face to face, about to settle their agreement to let the war be decided by a single combat between Paris and Menelaus.

"Upon _Seamander's flowery mead_ they stood Unnumbered as _the vernal leaves and flowers_."

The description which Homer gives of the Tower of Ilium, and the incidents connected with it, corresponds so closely to the tower which Dr. Schliemann found that it leaves no doubt that the two are identical.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WONDERFUL VASES OF TERRA-COTTA. (_From the Palace of Priam, at 24-1/4 feet._)]

"Now, with regard to the objects found in these houses, I must first of all mention having discovered, at a depth of twenty-six feet, in the Palace of Priam, a splendid and brilliant brown vase, twenty-four and one-fourth inches high, with a figure of the tutelar G.o.ddess of Troy, that is, with her owl's head, two b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a splendid necklace, indicated by an engraved pattern, a very broad and beautifully engraved girdle, and other very artistic decorations; there are no arms, nor are there any indications of them. Unfortunately this exquisite vase has suffered from the weight of stones which lay upon it. No. 4 resembles an owl's beak, and especially as this is seen between the ear-shaped ornaments, it was doubtless intended to represent the image of the owl with upraised wings on each side of the vases, which image received a n.o.ble appearance from the splendid lid with a coronet. I give a drawing of the largest vase of this type, which was found a few days ago in the royal palace at a depth of from twenty-eight to twenty-nine and one-half feet; on the top of it I have placed the bell-shaped lid with a coronet, which was discovered close by and appears to have belonged to it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM PALACE OF PRIAM.]

"I also found in the Treasure three great silver vases, the largest of which is above eight and one-fourth inches high and nearly eight inches in diameter, and has a handle five and one-half inches in length and three and one-half in breadth. (No. 23.) The second vase is 6.9 inches high and nearly six inches in diameter; another silver vase is welded to the upper part of it (No. 22), of which, however, only portions have been preserved. No. 19 is a splendid Terra-cotta vase from the Palace of Priam. It is the largest vase of the type frequent in the ruins, with two small handles and two great upright wings. The cover was found near it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIDS AND METALS OF PRIAM.]

"On the south side of the hill, where, on account of the slight natural slope, I had to make my great trench with an inclination of fourteen degrees, I discovered, at a distance of 197 feet from the declivity, a Tower, forty feet thick, which I have uncovered on the north and south sides along the whole breadth of my trench, and have convinced myself that it is built on the rock at a depth of forty-six and a half feet.

"The Tower is at present only twenty feet high, but the nature of its surface, and the ma.s.ses of stones lying on both sides, seem to prove that it was at one time much higher. For the preservation of what remains we have only to thank the ruins of Troy, which entirely covered the Tower as it now stands. It is probable that after the destruction of Troy much more of it remained standing, and that the part which rose above the ruins of the town was destroyed by the successors of the Trojans, who possessed neither walls nor fortifications. The western part of the Tower, so far as it is yet uncovered, is only from 121 to 124 feet distant from the steep western slope of the hill; and, considering the enormous acc.u.mulation of _debris_, I believe that the Tower once stood on the western edge of the Acropolis, where its situation would be most interesting and imposing, for its top would have commanded, not only a view of the whole Plain of Troy, but of the sea with the Islands of Tenedos, Imbros and Samothrace. There is not a more sublime situation in the area of Troy than this, and I therefore presume that it is the 'Great Tower of Ilium' which Andromache ascended because 'she had heard that the Trojans were hard pressed and that the power of the Achaeans was great.'

"'But to the height of Ilion's topmost tower Andromache is gone; since tidings came The Trojan force was overmatched, and great The Grecian strength.'

"After having been buried for thirty-one centuries, and after successive nations have built their houses and palaces high above its summit during thousands of years, this Tower has now again been brought to light, and commands a view, if not of the whole Plain, at least of the northern part and of the h.e.l.lespont. May this sacred and sublime monument of Greek heroism forever attract the eyes of those who sail through the h.e.l.lespont! May it become a place to which the inquiring youth of all future generations shall make pilgrimage to fan their enthusiasms for knowledge, and above all for the n.o.ble language and literature of Greece!

"Directly by the side of the Palace of King Priam 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. On the top of this copper article lay a stratum of red and calcined ruins, from four and three-quarters to five and one-quarter feet thick, as hard as stone, and above this again lay a wall of fortification (six feet broad and twenty feet high) which was built of large stones and earth, and must have belonged to an early date after the destruction of Troy.

In order to withdraw the Treasure from the greed of my workmen, and to save it for archaeology, I had to be most expeditious, and although it was not yet time for breakfast, I immediately had breakfast called.

While the men were eating and resting I cut out the Treasure with a large knife, which it was impossible to do without the very greatest exertion and the most fearful risk of my life, for the great fortification wall, beneath which I had to dig, threatened every moment to fall down upon me. But the sight of so many objects, every one of which is of inestimable value to archaeology, made me foolhardy, and I never thought of any danger. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TREASURES OF PRIAM.]

"The first thing I found was a large copper shield, in the form of an oval salver, in the middle of which is a k.n.o.b or boss encircled by a small furrow. It is a little less than twenty inches in length, is quite flat, and surrounded by a rim one and one-half inches high; the boss is two and one-third inches high and four and one-third inches in diameter; the furrow encircling it is seven inches in diameter and two-fifths of an inch deep. This round shield of copper (or bronze?) with its central boss, and the furrow and rim so suitable for holding together a covering of ox-hides, reminds one irresistibly of the seven-fold shield of Ajax (_Iliad_ vii. 219-223):

"'Ajax approached; before him, as a tower, His mighty shield he bore, seven-fold, bra.s.s-bound, The work of Tychius, best artificer That wrought in leather; he in Hyla dwelt.

Of seven-fold hides the ponderous shield was wrought Of l.u.s.ty bulls; the eighth was glittering bra.s.s.'

"It is equally striking to compare the shield of the Treasure with the description of Sarpedon's shield, with its round plate of hammered copper (or bronze), and its covering of ox-hides, fastened to the inner edge of the rim by gold wires or rivets (_Iliad_ xii. 294-297):

"'His shield's broad _orb_ before his breast he bore, Well wrought, _of beaten bra.s.s_, which the armorer's hand Had beaten out, and lined with stout bull's hide With golden rods, continuous, all around.'

"The second object which I got out was a copper caldron with two horizontal handles. It is sixteen and one-half inches in diameter and five and one-half inches high; the bottom is flat, and is nearly eight inches in diameter. In the Iliad this vessel is used almost always as a caldron, and is often given as a prize at games; in the Odyssey it is always used for washing the hands or feet. This one shows the marks of a fearful conflagration, and near the left handle are seen two fragments of copper weapons (a lance and a battle-ax) firmly molten on. (See No. 25.)

"The third object was a copper plate two-fifths of an inch thick, six and one-third inches broad, and seventeen and one-third inches long; it has a rim about one-twelfth of an inch high; at one end of it there are two immovable wheels with an axle-tree. This plate is very much bent in two places, but I believe that these curvatures have been produced by the heat to which the article was exposed in the conflagration; a silver vase four and three-fourths inches high and broad has been fused to it; I suppose, however, that this also happened by accident in the heat of the fire. (See No. 14.)