New assistants for 1872--Cost of the excavations--Digging of the
great platform on the North--Venomous snakes--A supporting buttress
on the North side of the hill--Objects discovered: little idols of
fine marble--Whorls engraved with the _suastika_ 卐 and
[Illustration: block-style cross]--Significance of these emblems in
the old Aryan religion--Their occurrence among other Aryan
nations--Mentioned in old Indian literature--Illustrative quotation
from Émile Burnouf.
On the Hill of Hissarlik, April 5th, 1872.
My last report was dated November 24th, 1871. On the first of this
month, at 6 o’clock on the morning of a glorious day, accompanied by my
wife, I resumed the excavations with 100 Greek workmen from the
neighbouring villages of Renkoï, Kalifatli, and Yenishehr. Mr. John
Latham, of Folkestone, the director of the railway from the Piræus to
Athens, who by his excellent management brings the shareholders an
annual dividend of 30 per cent., had the kindness to give me two of his
best workmen, Theodorus Makrys of Mitylene, and Spiridion Demetrios of
Athens, as foremen. To each of them I pay 150 fr. (6_l._) per month,
while the daily wages of the other men are but 1 fr. 80 cent. Nikolaos
Zaphyros, of Renkoï, gets 6 fr., as formerly; he is of great use to me
on account of his local knowledge, and serves me at once as cashier,
attendant, and cook. Mr. Piat, who has undertaken the construction of
the railroad from the Piræus to Lanira, has also had the kindness to let
me have his engineer, Adolphe Laurent, for a month, whom I shall have to
pay 500 fr. (20_l._), and his travelling expenses. But in addition
there are other considerable expenses to be defrayed, so that the total
cost of my excavations amounts to no less than 300 fr. (12_l._) daily.
Now in order to be sure, in every case, of thoroughly solving the Trojan
question this year, I am having an immense horizontal platform made on
the steep northern slope, which rises at an angle of 40 degrees, a
height of 105 feet perpendicular, and 131 feet above the level of the
sea. The platform extends through the entire hill, at an exact
perpendicular depth of 14 meters or 46½ English feet, it has a
breadth of 79 meters or 233 English feet, and embraces my last year’s
cutting.[102] M. Laurent calculates the mass of matter to be removed at
78,545 cubic meters (above 100,000 cubic yards): it will be less if I
should find the native soil at less than 46 feet, and greater if I
should have to make the platform still lower. It is above all things
necessary for me to reach the primary soil, in order to make accurate
investigations. To make the work easier, after having had the earth on
the northern declivity picked down in such a manner that it rises
perpendicularly to the height of about 8½ feet from the bottom, and
after that at an angle of 50 degrees, I continue to have the _débris_ of
the mighty earth wall loosened in such a manner that this angle always
remains exactly the same. In this way I certainly work three times more
rapidly than before, when, on account of the small breadth of the
channel, I was forced to open it on the summit of the hill in a direct
horizontal direction along its entire length. In spite of every
precaution, however, I am unable to guard my men or myself against the
stones which continually come rolling down, when the steep wall is being
picked away. Not one of us is without several wounds in his feet.
During the first three days of the excavations, in digging down the
slope of the hill, we came upon an immense number of poisonous snakes,
and among them a remarkable quantity of the small brown vipers called
_antelion_ (Ἀντήλιον), which are scarcely thicker than rain worms, and
which have their name from the circumstance that the person bitten by
them only survives till sunset. It seems to me that, were it not for the
many thousands of storks which destroy the snakes in spring and summer,
the Plain of Troy would be uninhabitable, owing to the excessive numbers
of these vermin.
Through the kindness of my friends, Messrs. J. Henry Schröder and Co.,
in London, I have obtained the best English pickaxes and spades for
loosening and pulling down the rubbish, also 60 excellent wheel-barrows
with iron wheels for carrying it away.
For the purpose of consolidating the buildings on the top of the hill,
the whole of the steep northern slope has evidently been supported by a
buttress, for I find the remains of one in several places. This buttress
is however not very ancient, for it is composed of large blocks of
shelly limestone, mostly hewn, and joined with lime or cement. The
remains of this wall have only a slight covering of earth; but on all
other places there is more or less soil, which, at the eastern end of
the platform, extends to a depth of between 6½ and 10 feet. Behind
the platform, as well as behind the remains of the buttress, the
_débris_ is as hard as stone, and consists of the ruins of houses, among
which I find axes of diorite, sling-bullets of loadstone, a number of
flint knives, innumerable handmills of lava, a great number of small
idols of very fine marble, with or without the owl’s-head and woman’s
girdle, weights of clay in the form of pyramids and with a hole at the
point, or made of stone and in the form of balls; lastly, a great many
of those small terra-cotta whorls, which have already been so frequently
spoken of in my previous reports. Two pieces of this kind, with crosses
on the under side, were found in the terramares of Castione and
Campeggine,[103] and are now in the Museum of Parma. Many of these
Trojan articles, and especially those in the form of volcanoes, have
crosses of the most various descriptions, as may be seen in the
lithographed drawings.[104] The form [Illustration: block-style cross]
occurs especially often; upon a great many we find the sign 卐, of which
there are often whole rows in a circle round the central point. In my
earlier reports I never spoke of these crosses, because their meaning
was utterly unknown to me.
[Illustration: Nos. 66, 67, 68. Trojan Sling-bullets of Loadstone (9 and
10 M.).]
This winter, I have read in Athens many excellent works of celebrated
scholars on Indian antiquities, especially Adalbert Kuhn, _Die
Herabkunft des Feuers_; Max Müller’s _Essays_; Émile Burnouf, _La
Science des Religions_ and _Essai sur le Vêda_, as well as several works
by Eugène Burnouf; and I now perceive that these crosses upon the Trojan
terra-cottas are of the highest importance to archæology. I therefore
consider it necessary to enter more fully into the subject, all the more
so as I am now able to prove that both the [Illustration: block-style
cross] and the 卐, which I find in Émile Burnouf’s Sanscrit lexicon,
under the name of “suastika,” and with the meaning εὖ ἐστι, or as the
sign of good wishes, were already regarded, thousands of years before
Christ, as religious symbols of the very greatest importance among the
early progenitors of the Aryan races in Bactria and in the villages of
the Oxus, at a time when Germans, Indians, Pelasgians, Celts, Persians,
Slavonians and Iranians still formed one nation and spoke one language.
For I recognise at the first glance the “suastika” upon one of those
three pot bottoms,[105] which were discovered on Bishop’s Island near
Königswalde on the right bank of the Oder, and have given rise to very
many learned discussions, while no one recognised the mark as that
exceedingly significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors. I find
a whole row of these “suastikas” all round the famous pulpit of Saint
Ambrose in Milan; I find it occurring a thousand times in the catacombs
of Rome.[106] I find it in three rows, and thus repeated sixty times,
upon an ancient Celtic funereal urn discovered in Shropham in the county
of Norfolk, and now in the British Museum.[107] I find it also upon
several Corinthian vases in my own collection, as well as upon two very
ancient Attic vases in the possession of Professor Kusopulos at Athens,
which are assigned to a date as early, at least, as 1000 years before
Christ. I likewise find it upon several ancient coins of Leucas, and in
the large mosaic in the royal palace garden in Athens. An English
clergyman, the Rev. W. Brown Keer, who visited me here, assures me that
he has seen the 卐 innumerable times in the most ancient Hindu temples,
and especially in those of Gaïna.[108] I find in the Ramayana that the
ships of king Rama--in which he carried his troops across the Ganges on
his expedition of conquest to India and Ceylon--bore the 卐 on their
prows. Sanscrit scholars believe that this heroic epic (the _Ramayana_)
was composed at the latest 800 years before Christ, and they assign the
campaign of Rama at the latest to the thirteenth or fourteenth century
B.C., for, as Kiepert points out in his very interesting article in the
_National-Zeitung_, the names of the products mentioned in the 2nd Book
of Kings, in the reign of King Solomon, as brought by Phœnician ships
from Ophir, as for example, ivory, peacocks, apes and spices, are
Sanscrit words with scarcely any alteration. Hence we may surely regard
it as certain, that it took at least three or four centuries before the
language of the conquerors was generally introduced into the immensely
large and densely peopled country of India, especially as the number of
the conquerors cannot have been very large. In the myths of the Rigvêda,
which were written before the expedition into Northern India
(_Heptopotamia_), the Aryan population is always represented as
inconsiderable in numbers.
[Illustration: No. 69. The Foot-print of Buddha.]
Émile Burnouf, in his excellent work _La Science des Religions_, just
published, says, “The 卐 represents the two pieces of wood which were
laid cross-wise upon one another before the sacrificial altars in order
to produce the holy fire (_Agni_), and whose ends were bent round at
right angles and fastened by means of four nails, [Illustration:
suastika with dots], so that this wooden scaffolding might not be moved.
At the point where the two pieces of wood were joined, there was a small
hole, in which a third piece of wood, in the form of a lance (called
_Pramantha_) was rotated by means of a cord made of cow’s hair and hemp,
till the fire was generated by friction. The father of the holy fire
(_Agni_) is Twastri, _i.e._ the divine carpenter, who made the 卐 and the
Pramantha, by the friction of which the divine child was produced. The
Pramantha was afterwards transformed by the Greeks into Prometheus, who,
they imagined, stole fire from heaven, so as to instil into earth-born
man the bright spark of the soul. The mother of the holy fire is the
divine Mâjâ, who represents the productive force in the form of a woman;
every divine being has his Mâjâ. Scarcely has the weak spark escaped
from its mother’s lap, that is from the 卐, which is likewise called
mother, and is the place where the divine Mâjâ principally dwells--when
it (Agni) receives the name of child. In the Rigvêda we find hymns of
heavenly beauty in praise of this new-born weak divine creature. The
little child is laid upon straw; beside it is the mystic cow, that is,
the milk and butter destined as the offering; before it is the holy
priest of the divine Vâju, who waves the small oriental fan in the form
of a flag, so as to kindle life in the little child, which is close upon
expiring. Then the little child is placed upon the altar, where, through
the holy “sôma” (the juice of the tree of life) poured over it, and
through the purified butter, it receives a mysterious power, surpassing
all comprehension of the worshippers. The child’s glory shines upon all
around it; angels (_dêvâs_) and men shout for joy, sing hymns in its
praise, and throw themselves on their faces before it. On its left is
the rising sun, on its right the full moon on the horizon, and both
appear to grow pale in the glory of the new-born god (Agni) and to
worship him. But how did this transfiguration of Agni take place? At the
moment when one priest laid the young god upon the altar, another poured
the holy draught, the spiritual “sôma” upon its head, and then
immediately anointed it by spreading over it the butter of the holy
sacrifice. By being thus anointed Agni receives the name of the Anointed
(_akta_); he has, however, grown enormously through the combustible
substances; rich in glory he sends forth his blazing flames; he shines
in a cloud of smoke which rises to heaven like a pillar, and his light
unites with the light of the heavenly orbs. The god Agni, in his
splendour and glory, reveals to man the secret things; he teaches the
Doctors; he is the Master of the masters, and receives the name of
Jâtavêdas, that is, he in whom wisdom is in-born.
Upon my writing to M. É. Burnouf to enquire about the other symbol, the
cross in the form [Illustration: block-style cross], which occurs
hundreds of times upon the Trojan terra-cottas, he replied, that he
knows with certainty from the ancient scholiasts on the Rigvêda, from
comparative philology, and from the _Monuments figurés_, that
_Suastikas_, in this form also, were employed in the very remotest times
for producing the holy fire. He adds that the Greeks for a long time
generated fire by friction, and that the two lower pieces of wood that
lay at right angles across one another were called “σταυρός,” which word
is either derived from the root “stri,” which signifies lying upon the
earth, and is then identical with the Latin “sternere,” or it is derived
from the Sanscrit word “stâvara,” which means firm, solid, immovable.
Since the Greeks had other means of producing fire, the word σταυρός
passed into simply in the sense of “cross.”
Other passages might be quoted from Indian scholars to prove that from
the very remotest times the 卐 and the [Illustration: block-style cross]
were the most sacred symbols of our Aryan forefathers.
In my present excavations I shall probably find a definite explanation
as to the purpose for which the articles ornamented with such
significant symbols were used; till then I shall maintain my former
opinion, that they either served as _Ex votos_ or as actual idols of
Hephæstus.
[Illustration: No. 70. Large Terra-cotta Vase, with the Symbols of the
Ilian Goddess (4 M.).]