Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1990 - 84

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"lies and deception" of business and saying that there John's Day amid the ruins of ancient Troy after a jourwas nothing he wanted more than to undertake a journey to the Black Sea. While events conspired to prevent
to
where
and
will
Greece
his
visit to Troy, the Crimea was not without interest,
ney
"philology
archaeology
me
with
useful
a
of
labor
for
time."
and
we can see that his attention was now exclusively
provide
plenty
lçmg
The letters from the late 1850s indicate that Schlie- devoted to archaeology. He wrote in his diary (in
mann was becoming nothing less than obsessed with Greek): "27 August, 1866: Taganrog: I arrived at 6:00
There are many
Greece, modern and ancient, and also with Homer and PM and hurried to the Museum
the ancient authors. In letters of the following years he skulls there, the shapes of which indicate the presence of
badgered and nagged seemingly every Greek in St. different races. A few gold diadems were placed on the
Petersburg for books, lessons, and conversation prac- heads of the dead. Rusted swords, a few pots and many
tice. In October 1857, he stated that he wanted to begin wooden couch frames were found, the latter used in
learning ancient Greek as quickly as possible since he was burial. Thence I went to the hills at the heights of the
afraid that business obligations would soon take up too city where everywhere large excavations have been
much time, precisely the reason he was to give in later made, especially at the hill on the peak where the palace
autobiographies for having postponed the learning of that and tomb of Mithridates is said to have been."
venerable tongue so long. The years 1857 and 1858 saw
After failing to visit Troy in 1866, Schliemann estabfor
a
visit
to
lished himself in Paris where
preparations
new
Greece.
he devoted himself to scholfatherland,"
"my
this
maGoing through
arly pursuits of a varied naI
could
not
ture.
He was an assiduous
terial,
help symwith
Schliemann.
member
of the Société de
pathizing
I saw him on those cold St.
géographie, attending its
bent
lectures
as often as he could.
Petersburg evenings
over his books, or correcting
Archival research on the
a letter in Greek to one of
Société de géographie by
his Greek correspondents in
Mark Lehrer has disclosed
which he proudly quotes
that these included a talk on
"my beloved Homer." For his
May 3, 1867, reviewing a
he
his
own
acnew
book by George Nicowas,
pains
by
laïdes on the Trojan War
count, ridiculed at the stock
and the topography of the
exchange and publicly humiliated by his own wife. A contemporaryillustration showsSchliemann with his wife, plain of Troy, and another
One senses a profound lone- Sophia, scrutinizing an exhibit of Trojan artifacts in Berlin. on March 20, 1868, discussliness and a wish to escape
ing the excavations by the
into the world of Greece. To a Greek correspondent he Austrian consul Georg von Hahn in 1864 on the site of
remarks in August 1857 that he is delighted "with the Bali Dag near Pinarbashi, then widely believed to have
renaissance and flowering of the fatherland of Homer
contained the ruins of Troy. Schliemann was clearly acand Demosthenes." Schliemann felt that he could play a quainted with these works, as Lehrer and I established
part in this renaissance, this rebirth of a great people, in a recently published article, and used them as guides
and at the same time yearned for his own rebirth after for his eventual tour of the Troad in August 1868.
Schliemann's first visit to the Troad has given rise to
years of wheeling and dealing in commodities and living
in an unhappy marriage.
the second dispute among scholars, namely the circumSchliemann's travel diaries of 1859 and 1866 devote stances surrounding Schliemann's "discovery" of Troy. ;
extensive space to descriptions of archaeological sites. In 1984, Traill argued on the basis of Schliemann's perDuring 1858 and 1859 he visited Italy (Pompeii and sonal diary covering the visit that, contrary to the ac, and Troy(1869), in
Sicily, where Homer was his guide), Palestine and Syria count in his book Ithaca9 thePeloponnese
(where the remains of Petra and Baalbek left a lasting which Schliemann claimed to have immediately recogimpression), and finally Greece itself, the goal of his tour nized the unsuitability of Bali Dag's candidacy as the
where much time was given to the study of the ruins in site of Troy, he was initially unimpressed with, if not igAthens. Alas, Schliemann's sojourn in the promised
norant of, Hissarlik's candidacy as the site of Troy and
land was abruptly cut short by severe illness and an un- remained wedded to the notion that Bali Dag, where
expected emergency that necessitated his return to von Hahn had excavated, was the real site. Only after
St. Petersburg.
two fruitless days of excavations at Bali Dag did SchlieA protracted lawsuit and family problems took up mann leave the Troad, and, on the last day of his tour,
nearly all Schliemann's time in the early 1860s, but on meet the local antiquarian Frank Calvert who informed
March 30, 1866, after returning to St. Petersburg fol- him of the Hissarlik theory. Schliemann, according to
lowing a two-year world tour, he announced the end of Traill, consequently doctored his diary and later pubhis active involvement in commerce, writing to both his lished accounts to hide his indebtedness to Calvert and
cousin and uncle stating that he would celebrate St. his initial ignorance of Hissarlik and began, almost
November/December
1990 41

Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1990

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