ust pullin' yer lag, Laz. I would LOVE to see Troy. Under different personal circumstances, I might make a go for it.
I actually admire Schliemann a lot. He had an objective that nobody believed in, went after it, and triumphed.
Nobody said otherwise He just lied as necessary and was a lousy archaeologist. The Turks refer to him more often as a treasure hunter than an archaeologist. Troy is a tell- -a hill of ruined civilizations piled one on top of the other. The earliest layers at Troy are about 4500 BC; the latest about 500 AD. [It was the Greek city of Ilios, the Roman city of Ilium (and Rome claimed it had been founded by refugees from Troy), and was known to the Hittites as Wilusa. The Hittites were a major rival of Egypt in the middle East for 2 centuries.] His strategy was to just dig trenches in from the side of the tell rather than pick a spot on top and work down, noting what is found where and how deep, as is done now. His methods permanently messed up the site for much future work.
Troy is fairly small- -a few hundred yards in diameter. And not restored. The question is, "Which Troy gets restored?" You only get one and it is not settled which saw the Trojan War. It is better with more structure than I expected from reading, but is still no match for Ephesus (also in Turkey), numerous large Crusader castles in Turkey, the pyramids of Egypt, or innumerable good sites in MesoAmerica. Basically, you walk through Schliemann's trenches and on Troy IX, the highest layer. Significant areas are described and which layer they are in told.
His discovery of Troy was one of the first major archeological discoveries in history. I read about it in a book called "Gods, Graves, and Scholars," by C.W. Ceram. It has an honored place in my library. amazon.com.
I have read that book. One of the earlist books on archaelogy I read , Old Man. :-)
Howard Carter also made a major discovery somewhat later when he found Tutankhamen's crypt. I've seen those very artifacts when they toured the USA in the 70s. We made a special trip to Seattle to see them. I was awestruck by their beauty and fine state of preservation.
Didn't see them even though I believed they also were shown at a museum in San Francisco.
My wife got a T-shirt that said: Hands Off My Tuts, with two strategically placed images of Tut.
Tut is covered by paw marks now, isn't he? :-) |
